A question and informal poll for the forum and my own sanity…
Have you, dear member of this forum ever:
Received a Black Label on a mail in submission
Yes
No
0voters
Received a Black label on a base (w/subs) mail in submission
Yes
No
0voters
I am getting perhaps my last ever subs to BGS back now, 3 or 4 left to pop.
So far its the usual. Wall to wall 9,5’s with the very rare Gold 10 interspersed. I realized I have 204 individual subs in quantities from 1 to 194 cards…never a BL. A graveyard of 9.5s and the pristine 10’s scattered throughout.
It makes me wonder if a mail in base level BL is actually possible.
I may resort to onsite single card subs only at the one or two events with onsite grading that I attend per year, if I continue to sub to them at all.
My pristine rate is around 60% of the cards I send. I have never received anything below a 9.5. I only send modern cards. I usually receive one Black Label per submission, but I once got three Black Labels in a single 50-card submission.
If we assume that the entire basis for grading is to assess the condition of a card, which is what collectors are interested in, then knowing a card is absolutely perfect (hyperbolically) definitely helps. If one would prefer to buy a PSA 10 as opposed to a PSA 9, then I would assume one would want a PSA 10.5 (read black label) or whatever is above that, even more.
The range between a good PSA 10 and a bad PSA 10 is extremely wide condition-wise compared to a Black Label, or so I like to think at least!
What’s the current best practice to get 10 centering sub-grade from BGS? Any physical/digital/AI tools or specific process you guys are using that gives you consistent results to get 10 centering sub-grade from BGS?
For most of the (modern cards) Gold 10s I received from a mail in submission, the 9.5 sub-grade is from centering. My pre-grading process (magnifier + good lighting + looking at various angles for defects) seems to be already decent for the other 3 sub-grades (corners, edges, surface) but not yet for centering.
Thats a fair take, but not all black labels are “perfect” either. My take is to just look at pictures, and get my own subjective opinion instead of essentially relying on anothers opinion regardless of grading company. Im more of a binder guy anyways, so Ive cracked black labels, and psa 10’s, CGC pristine, etc for the PC.
I feel like the idea of not all black labels are perfect either is crazy, isn’t it exactly what they should be i get it that some tiny imperfections can maybe go through when grading a psa 10 but the idea of black label should be that all the different sections of the grade are literally 10 worthy and perfect and i assume everything that gets black label are double checked that they indeed are worth the label
They definetely should be, but if Im buying a black label to crack Im definetely checking just to make sure. At the end of the day everyone is their own best grader when it comes to their collection. Thats why I think a premium for grading is pointless other than authentication and protection.
I do find it funny too that a PSA 10 will be upcharged for hundreds of dollars depending on the card, yet a black labels price will be the same as a BGS 5 to grade, but people will pay a 500x premium when essentially its the same at the end of the day for 10’s in other companies. At some point people just decided that a black label is something more of a status symbol that I suppose I just dont care for. Almost as if you, and a celebrity pulled the same card, but theirs is worth 500x times more because they pulled it. Just doesnt interest me.
i get it that some tiny imperfections can maybe go through when grading a psa 10 but the idea of black label should be that all the different sections of the grade are literally 10 worthy and perfect and i assume everything that gets black label are double checked that they indeed are worth the label
