Pregrading from someone with 88% CGC, 92% PSA Gem Rate
I see a lot of posts about grading and wanted to make a post on how I pregrade and what you should or should not be doing, as well as answer any questions as I have graded well over a thousand cards between PSA and CGC the past 4 years and now plan on grading over a thousand this year alone.
Yes, most of my cards are for resell. Yes, my strategy is to grade niche stuff that no one thinks of to grade. Part of that means getting the best deal possible on grading and sending to the best companies that offer quick turn around times. Unfortunately, no one fits that description presently. So to answer any and all turn around time questions we keep seeing pop up:
- No one knows when or what is going on with turn around times.
I do know that CGC is actively trying to get more personnel and pushing a 2nd shift now to fulfill grading obligations.
With that out of the way, pregrading is the single most important thing you can do before sending cards out. Simply put, if your naked eye does catches something with the card, don't send it if you want a 10. The proper way to pregrade is to be ready to sleeve a card after carefully holding it on the edges and not setting it down on any surface, even if cleaned. One tiny grain of sand scratches a pristine 10 down to a 9 from surface damage. Point number two:
- Stop laying your cards down on surfaces.
Another important thing I do when pregrading is I never look at a card twice outside of a sleeve. My goal is to examine it myself exactly one time. The more you take a card out of the sleeve, the more likely you are to chip off textured lettering or damages corners/edges just from the card sliding in and out. It happened to me on one of my favorite cards and I just keep it raw. Point number three:
- Check a card once.
The age old question: Should I send this in for grading? In order to answer that, is it for resell, collection, or sentimental? If its a sentimental card, you have options to get it authenticated only which will preserve it and not display a grade if you believe it will come back with a low grade. The same can be said for collection purposes. If your reselling a card, or plan to, do all of the above steps when pregrading to check edges, surfacing (not laying them down at all), corners, and if to the naked eye they look centered, send it in.
I am not an expert at this, but my gem mint rate with PSA is insanely high even on vintage. I rarely get lower than a 9, even when I do, with any service. I just wanted to try and help those who are new and want to grade, no matter the purpose. Please feel free to ask any and all questions.