Not grading related but maybe here this question fits.
Does this charizard look legit?
The foil looks right (check if artworkâs border has foil, if it does, itâs correct) Overall text looks right. Background looks right. Symbols look right.
Seems to be legit.
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Thank you! Found it in a second hand market here in Spain for a cheap price, Iâll see where it goes
Yeah, in that image you posted the sub version has everything decently centered whereas no subs has a bunch of empty space beneath it. Itâs a totally OCD thing, I wouldnât expect it to bother a normal, sane person.
I am guessing most adults that are in their 30s and collecting Pokémon cards have some level of OCD
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Pretty ironic for a grading company to have such terrible centering. Here, I even fixed the sub version for them:
EDIT: please donât take this too seriously Iâm just two cups of coffee deep here
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I think the reason why itâs not centered on some cards is that thereâs often a 4th row of text, which then makes the block of text centered:
But yeah, I see what you mean. Doesnât bother me in the slightest, though.
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Just be happy they finally figured out how to center the grade itself within its own box.
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My 18$ Value submission just entered grading. Its kind of crazy how fast that went.
I am happy that my cards are in the grading pile but I guess I am a bit concerned that PSA seems like they are rushing through the process. I honestly am more worried about there being mistakes or like damages during grading or the occasional plastic fragment inside the case vs waiting a bit more. Especially since I sent in cards Iâve been holding for years and probably canât get anymore. Someone let me know if this is a legitimate concern or I am just being paranoid.
kind of meme territory
âin the past complains about how slow PSA is ⊠now concerned PSA is moving too fastâ
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The subjectivity of grading always leaves the door open for mistakes to be made. I am not any more concerned with orders today than I have been in the past. They have built capacity to move orders along faster which is what you are seeing today. I donât think theyâre rushing just better optimized. Time will tell if their defect rate rises or not and Iâm sure they have controls in place to address this if it does.
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Same! I checked the site to see where my $30 submissions were at, and the $18 submissions were already logged! They havenât been this fast in probably 5 years. Hopefully this is what we can expect moving forward!
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Exciting news. I know itâs disappointing to those who have order over 12 months old, but itâs a moral booster and exciting to see 20-50 card order making progress. If this is PSAâs plan, smart move.
On top of what everyone else already said, donât associate each stage of grading with how fast itâs going necessarily. Your cards moving to the grading stage just means that theyâre done being identified and added into the system, it doesnât mean theyâre actively being graded right now.
Thatâs not to take away from how nice it is that theyâre moving them through the ID step so fast, just tempering your expectations because theyâll most likely sit in that grading stage for months. We donât know how fast that tier will move yet other than their 5 month estimate, but the grading stage is basically just purgatory, and then assembly, QA1, and QA2 tend to happen pretty quickly.
Edit: just to add to this, presumably different staff members are responsible for each step, and the R&ID people have been long since done with that step of the backlog, so it makes sense that that step would happen quickly.
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My $30/card tier was in grading for less than a week, itâs been sitting in assembly now for 3 weeks.
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Lends credence to the encapsulation machines being a bottleneck
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Same. I think we will hear from psa when all backlog orders have been encapsulated. Until then not expecting any movement
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just sent my first order out to PSA⊠very nervous lol. i wanted to send express but it was like hundreds of dollars to my surprise, so i sent ground (5 days) instead. I wanted to ask anyone about shipping companies. they gave me two options for shipping to PSA: FedEX and USPS. I live in Canada, so i wasnt really sure which one to go with. Iâve heard a ton of horror stories about both of these companies. I didnât wanna ship through Canada Post to USPS bc Iâve heard terrible stories about USPS packages getting fucking obliterated in the mail. I also personally donât like using FedEX because they always give some big run around and Iâve heard stories of FedEX employees stealing packages labelled to PSA, etc. Also heard that they lose packages a lot. I ended up sending with FedEX because I felt that was the best option here. Do I have anything to be worried about? Should I have just coughed up the extra money for express? I paid for insurance on the package as well. I am very worried my cards are going to get stolen or go missing in transit and Iâm not sure if thatâs a valid concern to have. Can anyone offer me some consolation or let me know if Iâve made a mistake? Thanks
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It will get there! Statistically speaking itâs highly unlikely youâll have an issue, especially FedEx/UPS in the summer, thatâs least volume time and things run a bit smoother (I worked at UPS for 3 years).
People have had lost packages with ground service all the way up to next day service. So l wouldnât worry about going with one over the other. The main benefit to me of paying for express is the fewer days I have to think about it.
Youâll be thinking about it everyday until itâs delivered, but it will get there!
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thank you for the reassurance 
i was kinda stressed it wouldnt get there in time, but i literally have all month, so im sure it will be okay.
side note, have you ever had experiences with PSA refusing to grade a card due to condition? I sent some pretty beat up cards from my childhood collection. The Shadowless Charizard is in quite terrible shape, especially on the back, so itâs definitely getting a 1, I just hope they actually grade it. Also, sent a gold star vaporeon that had some damage that had some black dots on the back, hoping that one doesnt get not graded as marked. (it was really a stretch to get 20 cards together that made sense at $18 lmao)
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ok i also told them not to require a signature for delivery and to bill duties, taxes and fees to shipper, but i just checked the tracking and it says direct signature is required and billing is to recipient. is this gonna be a problem? i know they said the billing thing will likely result in fees to me, so that is what it is, i guess, but is it even gonna be able to deliver if direct signature is required? i specifically said no signature!! can you tell im stressing tf out
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