Putting together a few submissions today, splitting them and “strategizing” based on my own superstitions and theories.
Here are a few of mine:
-NJ grades harder than CA
-Put english before Japanese, because the other way around will cause them to look at the english more critically. Or split them into different subs entirely.
-All of my pregrades are of course 10s; so throw in a few “duds” to the sub to give the grader a few wins. This results in a more reasonable gem rate instead of the 100% gem rate I deserve.
-Sub higher value tier cards in bulk, and deal with upcharges on the backend, in the hopes a less experienced grader will give better grades. This is under the assumption that more senior graders are assigned to higher tiers and less experienced graders are assigned to bulk. This makes sense from a business sense for grading companies to do because of their guarantee. More experienced graders should be grading higher tier cards because in the event of a mistake or payout, the grading company would be on the hook for more money.
-Graders are expected to average a certain amount of cards graded per hour.
-Don’t sub too many of the same card at once. “Too many” obviously being very subjective. But if I have 30+ of the same card to grade I will spread them out.
Ask a priest to bless the stack
Surface clean cards with holy water
Alternate card saturations so the graders eyes never fully adjust to a specific tone.
If multiple of the same cards, sandwich strong copies between weaker copies to also throw the graders expectations off.
The only one I really have is that its simple to tell what grade a card would get without sending it in, and the premium for graded cards isnt worth it. I think youre looking for opinions though.
My conspiracy is that PSA just randomly assigns a very low grade for hell of it with at least one card in your submission. I’ve sent dozens of submissions and generally grade very well, but then I’ll get the one random PSA 6 or PSA 5 despite thorough inspection. Idk, maybe I just actually missed it every time?
Haha sometimes it does seem like that! I will say I’ve cracked those 5s and 6s when it has happened to me and end up agreeing with their grade and find something that I’ve missed.
Oh okay. Sometimes we see our cards with rose colored glasses lol
The one card that I had a hard time accepting a low grade was the silver Dialga EX from the Hyper Metal deck. First time it graded a 5, but I thought it was mint. Cracked it out and re-subbed and then it got a 6. I think the amount of texture really made it hard for me to spot a dent. Super disappointed in that one lol
I used to grade undergraduate exams when I was a grad student. I remember I was happier grading when students had the right answers, or at least a good faith attempt. When you have to assign partial credit for something incorrect, you’re forced to look through the wrong lens. The less they tried the more it feels like you’re stuck trying to help them.
Having gone through thousands of exams and homework assignments, you start to notice a trend of people missing the same basic requirements over and over. I imagine people who grade cards have to do extra work to push the cards down the line. At PSA, I can see people frequently missing the 2 print out forms and labels
So my philosophy with sending cards follows this ideology. Send the best of the best and stay organized to keep the grader’s mind happy. Print out those forms too!
