Tips sought on submitting to PSA for the first time

[STL1944]

I am in the process of gathering my first batch of raw cards that I want to submit to PSA for grading and I thought I would reach out to the group to see if folks would be willing to share any tips or tricks.

- Any tips on how I should ship cards to them?
- Thoughts on how to get the most out of my money?
- Pitfalls?

Thanks!

Here is one of the cards I am going to submit:

[cubsfan-budman]

Your best bet is to simply follow the instructions for shipping on the website.

http://www.psacard.com/Content/pdf/PSA-How-To-Submit.pdf

[lgbbcards]

I find that PSA is tougher on top to bottom centering vs left to right. You are more likely to receive a OC qualifier on cards that are off center top to bottom. Also centering in general seems to be more criticized that light corner wear. That has been my experience over the past 2 years.

[kailes2872]

I have found that I need to lower expectations and expect all dreams to be crushed. If you think it is an 8, it will come back a 6. If you think it is a 6, it will come back a 4, etc.

Knowing, this, I try to search far and wide, to use my bought as slabbed as examples and then send in accordingly only to take another right cross in the jaw.

[glynparson]

Get to caught up in eye appeal. A card can look gorgeous but have a flaw that gives it a technically much lower grade. The eye appeal factors in when pricing but is only one factor of grade.

[swarmee]

Some of my recommendations:
1) Check your cards against other ones in the set to make sure they have not been trimmed. If your card comes up trimmed or short, they will return it.
2) Any paper loss knocks a card down to a 1 or 1.5, even if it looks nicer.
3) PSA tells you which centering requirements they have for fronts/backs per grade, so use that to determine which grades you kind of expect. I know you didn't mention Beckett, but they need perfect centering to grade a card a 9.5 Gem Mint. I think PSA only requires 55/45 for a Gem Mint 10.
4) Make an educated guess about your cards and write down your projections. My latest sub all came back a little lower than I expected, but I didn't get some OC qualifiers I expected, so they kind of balanced out.
5) If you're sending cards in bulk, look up their monthly specials. You normally need 50 cards, but the price per card drops from like $13 down to $7 or so. Wait times can get very long though.

I didn't send in any high value cards yet (don't have that many), but I use USPS priority mail boxes with tracking and insurance.