Yeah I have the exact same issue with Ludkins pre check, and they are all 3-5 graded lower than I thought, with 2 of the cards they said there is a crease, but I saw none at through the use of good lighting in my room!!! Also, I sent in a lot of pack fresh pulled cards and they estimate it to be a 5 or 6 which is a bunch of bogus, did anyone get their real grades back from psa to usually be 2-3 grades higher or if not even higher than Ludkins pre check grades, like are they just trying to surprise people even, I’m just worried if grading is severely harsh especially with Ludkins really downgrading cards just because they see 1 or 2 minor flaws?
You guys are getting pregrading from experts who deal with hundreds if not thousands of cards a day and are like ‘but it’s lower than I thought it would be’… ok? Person that doesn’t grades opinion vs person who’s job is literally pregrading and submissions? It’s not in their interests to be wrong by a magnitutde of grades, they’re trying to save you money with a pregrading service by identifying if a card might not be worth spending the money to grade, if you disagree just go ahead with the grading and compare your results to the pregrade estimates. Nothing really to talk about here.
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Exactly.
And you always have to option to opt out of Ludkins prechecks. If you’re so confident in your assessment, decline prechecks… otherwise be grateful for another’s opinion and stop complaining.
PSA ultimately gives the grades. So what exactly are you losing by Ludkins’ opinion?
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exactly $1/card
… which I am more than happy to pay lol
In terms of Ludkins’ UK branch, I’ve mentioned before that I’ve found them to be more strict than PSA are. I’ve so far yet to have PSA grade a card lower than what Ludkins have estimated, but have had several cards grade as much as 2 grades higher.
Unlike PSA, Ludkins note down what they think is wrong with a card if they don’t believe it to be a 9-10 candidate, so I think this leads them to working a bit harder than PSA graders do as the PSA graders are less accountable for their actions.
If you’ve been estimated a grade between 5 and 7, chances are it will be graded by PSA in that range. There’s a small chance you’d get an 8 back, but you then have the fun moral dilemma of knowing that an expert believed it to be lower quality prior to it being encased in a slab: do you let others know about it or do you trust PSA’s opinion?
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Definitely second what @pichufan said - the team at Ludkins UK have always been great with pre-grades. I just had a 48-card submission pregrade spreadsheet back last night with detailed comments on some of the cards that might slip a grade or two. My previous grades from PSA submitted via Ludkins have almost all come back as what was expected from the pre-grades, if not a couple slightly better. Honestly, these guys must put some serious hours into all this, my submission is a drop in the ocean compared to the now-tens-of-thousands they receive each month but mine alone would have taken some considerable effort to process each card and get the spreadsheet written up.
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