grading is such a scam
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I canāt really give you any sage advice on what to look for. Basically, anything that I graded with CGC that came back an 8.5 or better is fair game and can be upgraded to a 10 at PSA if it looks good enough. The Wicke was a diceroll, as usually a 7.5 surface from CGC means that there is actually something wrong with the surface.
Most of my CGC cards were graded during CGCs harsher era of grading on the blue label, and they were needlessly nitpicky at that time. My 4x 8.5 Darkrai FA went to a PSA 10 as well.
I just look at the CGC cards with the same eye that I look at a raw card before I send it. I have the attitude of wanting a 10, willing to accept a 9, and not being financially ruined if I have a 6, 7, or 8 show up where I didnāt catch something. I also do my best to respect the reality that grading can often times be a potluck and nitpicking on minutae differs from person to person. I found NOTHING wrong with the Juniper when I sent it to CGC, and subsequently to PSA the first time. The luck was in my favour this time, is all.
I find people often either purposefully ignore the PSA āeye appealā metric or donāt understand it, as well.
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I have BGS 9, 2 CGC 8.5s, and BGS 8 cards that look very clean right now and I also kind of just want to maintain grader consistency. I am still new to this so I would like a bit of clarity.
I have read through this thread quite a bit. I am still unsure whether cracking to then send it in raw or sending the graded cards in for crossover is better. From what Iāve read, it seems like sending the slabs for crossover is what one should start with and if they do not receive the desired grade, they THEN crack it and send it in raw/leave it. Am I wrong?
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I feel like Iām in a similar situation as you. I have a 8.5 CGC gold star Mew Iād like to have in a PSA slab, and Iād like to crossover sooner rather than later just in case the value goes up and I end up paying more down the road. Iāve never cracked a slab before and Iām a bit nervous to either damage the card myself or have it come back at a lower grade. Iāve definitely considered just sending it in as is for crossover but it seems like most people crack and submit. Iām still undecided as what to do myself. Overall Iām leaning towards just throwing out a prayer and cracking it once I decide Iām tired of waiting.
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If you are worried about cracking but 100% want it in a PSA slab then send as crossover with minimum 1 as the grade. They will crack it and grade it for you. Thereās no guarantee it will grade higher no matter how you send it
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Crack & Submit
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I think Iām going to end up doing crossovers. Iām not going to set the minimums to 1 just cause I still want some sort of control over it. Iām going to try to be as fair as possible so that I can avoid getting any rejected but in the case that they do get rejected, then Iāll crack as a last resort. It may be a waste of money but I think Iām a ābetter safe than sorryā kinda guy 
Iāve never done the crossover but if you set a higher minimum I think they may grade it from the CGC case which could in theory negatively impact the graderās view of the card. Someone please correct me if this is wrong.
Crossover Service:
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Hi everyone, I finally concluded a small crossgrade experiment, and I wanted to share my results:
80 Card ānew scaleā CGC to PSA Crossgrade Experiment Results
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Appreciate that this post was nearly a year old but Iām genuinely curious how that top back right corner and the bottom back right corner didnāt appear in the PSA scans or am I blind?
Is it the scanner?
depends on when the cgc cards were graded and the mood of the graders.
Nice results. The only problem with cgc is the early grades/slabs are basically invalid. CGC changes too much. Who knows next year grading scale and labels will be.
Wow, surprised about all the results. Thanks for putting that entire list together! Must have been quite some work.
Did you pick specific cards that you thought had a high chance to crossgrade in a higher grade?
@handschoen I only considered cards with grades of 8 or higher. I resubmitted pretty much all of them that had that, though, unless there was an obvious problem (which only excluded a few).
@tokyopokemon If you are suggesting that I had a spectacularly difficult CGC grader, thatās not the case. Among the remaining cards in the same submission, I had a gem mint and pristine rate of over 20%. Not horrible considering what I had submitted.
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I have about 1000 cgc slabs with the original full blue labels which are basically invalid grades compared to the current CGC standards. I just dont trust CGC when it comes to grading. Who knows when and what changes are coming in the near future.
Nice crossover stats . Wish i had the energy to crack and resub my old cgc slabs. At this point i just put them away for protection All vintage cards. Rather use the money to grade other cards.
Thanks for sharing! I know itād be a ridiculous thing to do, but Iād be really curious to see you crack the PSA slabs and re-grade with CGC again to see results (of course, this is not a request by any means, but just a curiousity question)
For some of the ones that jumped quite a bit in grade, like the shadowless gyarados CGC 5 to a PSA 8, do you know what mightāve caused CGC to grade it so low? Or similar questions to any CGC 8 to PSA 10 grades?
wow thats crazy! Amazing results!
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Just wondering, anyone crossgraded any CGC 10 to PSA and recived 10?
(without cracking the slab)
