Here’s something I’ve been wondering and would love to know if anyone has tried the following.
My theory is that if you send smaller batches of cards in to PSA, BGS etc with no duplicates (none of the same card) that you will get higher grades overall for two reasons.
Reason #1: The graders don’t want to give you too many 10s since they want to be conservative giving those out only when it’s necessary. If you send them 100 cards they’re going to be more picky about which ones get 10s than if you sent 10 cards. In my experience my smaller subs always had more 10s and 9s and my large subs always had a much smaller ratio. I would imagine the graders wouldn’t mind if your 10 card sub had 50% 10s since that would seem “fair” but giving that high of a ratio to a huge sub would seem a little excessive to them, no? And I’m not saying that the graders are arbitrarily assigning grades here but I think they do take your card total into account when grading to make sure they’re not giving you too good of a deal. They are running a business after all and they want you to be a repeat customer trying to get 10s and not flood the market.
Reason #2: I think putting multiples of the same card in a single sub would result in lower grades on them overall because of psychological reasons and multiple reference points. When they are grading the same card over and over again they are going to naturally look for differences between them to help assign grades, so your 10 copies of charizard are probably getting compared to each other. It makes it easier for them since “oh I gave this one an 8, and this one is better than that one, so this one should be a 9” etc whereas if you only send in one copy then the graders can’t do this. Also I think this ties in with Reason #1, sending in multiple copies of the same card they don’t want to give you 10s on all of them even if they are all flawless let’s say for the sake of argument.
So that’s my reasoning. Of course this is all unfounded and just my thoughts so If I’m talking out my ass and you think I’m wearing tinfoil please feel free to tell me, but from a logical and psychological standpoint it makes sense to me.
There would be psychology involved in how graders grade the cards, and I have heard of ‘methods’ that people use to try and increase the overall grade across their submission, or to try and help bump certain cards up. Whether these are effective or not is not something you could boil down to be anywhere near a science, let alone notice patterns or tried and true methods.
If you believe that building your sub a certain way, whether it be size, composition, language mix etc then go ahead and do it. However, I think the concept of proving psychological tricks is not something that is going to happen and is either going to self fulfill for some folks (whether helped by the ‘trick’ or not), and is not going to work for others because of the randomness of the grader(s) assigned to grade your cards.
The best way to get higher grades is to send cards that more closely match the parameters of the grading scale.
Also consider that smaller subs would generally have a higher quality of cards in them because the submitter has been more strict with their own pre-grading because their budget is slimmer. If I send a 20 card submission at 30 USD each (45 AUD) then you bet your ass I am going to send better cards that are less on the line between a 9 and 10. If I send a 100 card sub at 10 USD each (14 AUD) then I am more likely to send cards that are a bit iffy on what they will grade, thus more likely to skew the overall grade down.
I think the size and composition of the order doesn’t matter.
Is grading a precise science? No, there is a subjective element, but I just don’t see it being something you can manipulate in the way you are suggesting.
I do have one personal anecdote that is contrary to your idea:
In 2020 I submitted over 100 pack fresh Japanese 20th Anniv CP6 holos and EXs.
About 95% of them were given PSA 10. I believe I submitted 10 copies of CP6 Zapdos holos in that batch, all stacked together. Every single one of those was given PSA 10. I truly felt that every card was graded properly, and the few 9s I did get made sense on closer inspection.
The 9 tax is pretty well accepted. That is, submitting multiple copies of the same card, you will have 9s sprinkled in there that will almost certainly grade a 10 when you resubmit them. I think this is an argument for smaller subs.
A better argument is one that people often forget. PSA is not one grader! Your grades in the same sub will be slightly correlated since they are all done by the same grader presumably on the same day. So you could get the new employee who is keen to find every issue possible and your whole sub is brutalized. Or maybe you get a less diligent employee who just had his coffee break and about to wrap up their Friday. With smaller subs, I’d speculate you get more consistent grading since you are sampling more graders at different times, so one person can’t bias your results in either direction
I think smaller subs could have an advantage as described here. The main drawback I see is the added shipping costs to and from PSA. 10 x 10 card orders could be $100s more in shipping fees vs. 1 x 100 card order. If the added value from getting more 10s via smaller subs outweighs the added cost then it may be worth it, but I don’t know that it does.
When I consider it I end up deciding on larger subs. This is really just an inference, but for me the difference in number of 10s is probably not great enough value-wise to outweigh the added shipping cost and time cost of multiple smaller submissions.
That’s a very good point I didn’t think of as well! Perhaps just to be safe smaller subs is the way to go? All you lose out on is a few extra bucks shipping multiple packages, but I think it’s worth it.
Couldn’t the perception of a 9 tax really just be a consequence of the overlap between the 9 and 10 grades?
Due to inherent human subjectivity, it may be more accurate to imagine that along the grading scale is a series of normal distributions, one centered at each numerical grade. These normal distributions are likely fairly wide (the tails of adjacent grades greatly overlap).
Since the 9 distribution would appreciably overlap with the 10, you are bound to hit it regularly even on a stack of seemingly “10-worthy” cards. The 9s you do get in that stack are stronger 9s, from the tail of the 9 distribution.
Since those strong 9s are well within the 10 distribution’s domain, resubmitting them will give you a high probability of receiving a 10.
I guess this model I am describing is consistent with both your observation and your recommendation, but what I’m describing is an alternative explanation for this phenomenon that does not invoke any sort of tax.
I don’t doubt there is some way to finesse the system to, on average, marginally increase your grades. However like @teraz I question whether the financial cost of sending small subs outweighs the potential benefits. I think things which are out of your control like the grader you get, the time they grade your order, and what they’ve been looking at prior to grading your order has more influence.
I’ve found that over 8 years of grading with PSA, my cards on average achieve exactly what I expect them to. Occasionally some will do better. Occasionally some will do worse. Sometimes I miss legitimate issues which the graders catch. Sometimes the graders miss legitimate issues I caught. I’ve had great luck simply rolling the dice again if a card has a grade that truly bewilders me.
