Grading question
 

Submitted some cards to beckett and they sent me the results and two cards say final grade is 0. Does that mean they didnt grade it or is that an authentic grade? Im pretty upset

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I would call them and ask, but that sounds like the cards did not receive a grade. Perhaps because they were altered and you did not check a box that says you wanted the cards slabbed as authentic but altered.

Wasnt given an option to do that on beckett. I wrote a note saying I wanted one card slabbed no matter what because of the condition was terrible. It says 6 out of 6 cards graded

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Not sure how Beckett grading works but if SGC (and I presume, PSA) believes a card has been too altered, it will not encapsulate it. Something where a card was restored or along those lines, I believe.

BVG does encapsulate altered cards. I am guessing either the selection was not marked or maybe it defaults to a "0" grade. Keep us posted.

For Beckett, 0 could mean the card was graded Authentic and holdered or it could mean they did not holder the card. Since Beckett has a nice insert in their holders, they will usually holder cards even in horrible condition. The card would need to be in a truly miserable state for them not to holder the card. Or the card is in a condition where they could not distinguish what set the card belongs to. For example the card is skinned, and multiple sets have the same front. Beckett will also not holder if the card is not documented in a guide. My guess is that your card is holdered Authentic.

Correct - but I think that SGC will not encapsulate a card they consider to be too altered. They will holder things like trimmed cards, etc., but from what I understand, they will pass on cards with a significant amount of restoration. Same goes if a card is too damaged and they fear that it might not survive the encapsulation process. I wonder if Beckett may have the same policy.

There were a couple of N28 cards I was looking at from an AH recently. They came back from SGC marked as authentic but they would not encapsulate them. I contacted the AH and asked them to clarify that they would not holder them even if asked for Authentic and they said that was the case.

Thanks everyone. See my cobb is very bad. But its still one piece and they told me they would encapsulate anything regardless of condition. The Mathewson is where im confused. No evidence of alters and it does not look like a fake by any means. My email says this no that no service available but they all have a graded serial number on my beckett online

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haven't seen too many people use BVG for older/vintage stuff. I always thought they were more proficient at new cards

Brett,
Could you post scans of the cards?

As suggested why not simply call them and solve the mystery/misery? Good luck.

Isn't it more fun to phone a friend?

Dont currently have any until I get them back.

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I think Service Unavailable is a bad sign. Whenever I received that as the final grade, my item was not holdered by Beckett. The cert # on these items don't mean anything. PSA also assigns a number to the cards they didn't holder.

I wont be doing business with them anymore. They basically robbed me money wise with the trickery promotions that were actually no cheaper. I will call them and ask why those werent graded because the Mathewson was easily a 3 grade unless it is somehow fake. The berra is also way nicer than a 3 unless something was flawed that I could not see. And it ticks me off the cobb was not graded after I called them and they gaurenteed its grading regardless of condition. SGC could not slab due to condition but did not question the authenticity. That is why i asked beckett before I sent it. But now I lose out on $ and somehow have to allocate that to the costs I previously had for purchasing the cards. Vent over. Sorry

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im surprised anyone uses Beckett unless they don't care about the resale value or just love the holder

I did not know this. I have a sub right now at SGC and there is a box on the form , to check if the card is altered in any way, but you still want it slab as a "A". I checked the box.

I always thought A was authentic, but altered. But they would slab it as such.

Wanted to add my two cents in on the TPG companies.

I tried Beckett many years ago and they screwed me. I knew the cards were better than the grades they got. We are talking 85 McGwire, 82 Ripkens and the like.

I've learned that Beckett is for the shiny, glossy crap produced today, of guys that most likely, will never make the MLB. Bust a box, sleeve it and send it in. You want a 9.5 and a 9.5 / 10 on autos. Then, sell.

Vintage, no way.

Hey, they even produce the "price guide" most modern collectors use. Do you see a problem there?

I did a study on a 1968 Mickey Mantle. I compared the "sold'" listing on ebay between October and now - for the same grade between SGC and PSA.
Although, there were around three times more PSA cards sold, the average sale price was only $12 more in favor of the PSA.

When you consider the submission cost, and the crazy turn-around time PSA has, twelve bucks is not a big deal to me.

I've let my PSA subscription run out, and I'm SGC all the way now.

But, to each his own. But Beckett's "conflict of interest" issues rule me out there. PSA - Modern cards, SGC - Vintage.

Off the soap box. Next?

My graded cards are all SGC slabs. I personally do not like the appearence of PSA graded cards as they look cheap in appearance. With that said, SGC is not perfect either as I have had some cards that were Koester Bread and easily provable that they were koester Bread and SGC labeled one as W575-1 and would not even slab the other 3 cards as authentic as the cards were on thicker stock than regular cards. I wasn't real happy about this but SGC did send me vouchers for the fees paid where no card was slabbed. I may call and ask if they will slab the Koester breads as 1920's UNC authentic as the reason they are wanting to be slabbed is for display, not resale.

I think Beckett is fine, and they arguably have the most bullet-proof holder of the three major TPG's. Due to their insert, they holder many very fragile cards that PSA and SGC cannot holder. They're usually just as reliable as PSA or SGC, but obviously, they don't have the market share that those two TPG's have in prewar, so their prewar cards often sell for less

Let's see those cards before you completely count them out. Maybe there is a legitimate reason why Beckett didn't holder those cards. I know there was one time that I sent a very fragile E95 Honus Wagner to SGC to holder. However, SGC would not holder it because they said it was a "zombie" card. That is, parts of the card were glued back to the original card. They said that if I took those "zombie" parts off, they would review it again, and in the end, the card was holdered. It may be a similar situation here, where you could go back to Beckett again to holder the card. Also, if like PSA and SGC, they would not charge you (or give you a credit) if they did not holder the card due to fragility (or the spec was not available).

Funny you mention the conflict of interest with the price guides. One could argue that PSA has the same conflict potential with their SMR pricing (which I presume many vintage collectors have used as a reference.) Yet, SMR prices are almost always lower than actual market prices (just look at SMR Cracker Jack prices). Seems like they are almost trying to avoid a conflict, or they are simply out of touch with actual market transactions (which seems hard to believe). Head scratcher.

Here's another card that neither PSA nor SGC would encapsulate due to the damaged paper stock. However, Beckett had no problems. Note that SGC stated the card might blow up if encapsulated.

All in all, the point is Beckett is usually able to encapsulate the most cards regardless of condition. SGC is next most capable, and PSA is last in that they reject the most cards due to fragility concerns.

SMR prices are clearly not always lower than actual market...check out T202s or almost any commons for most sets SMR is usually higher, 1974 topps cards I don't think any card goes for SMR...I can go on and on...yeah Cracker jacks go for more..but almost every Topps set is the opposite in terms of number of cards........that was really a blanket statement

Wow, the card might blow up had me laughing. I can't believe they wrote that. But, hey what do I know. I like Beckett, but as people said they primarily do modern cards and do a great job with that. I personally like the subgrades and wish they would do that with BVG as well. I believe they use to but then went to just the overall grade.

Seems like you have a comment for everything, Jake. We are on a pre-war forum, and yet you use 1974 Topps cards as an example. Why don't you look at the waterfront properties you reference ad nauseum and compare actual prices vs. SMR. How about your Green Cobb 4s. $4000 SMR. Is that the market price right now? No. Blanket statement? Sure. But looking at many data points within the most popular pre-war sets, and I'm sure most would draw the same conclusion. I don't currently follow T202 cards, but perhaps that's an exception. I have no idea what 74 Topps commons sell for, and I probably never will. Sam Swartz

Yes, that's a common misconception. They will slab almost anything, but the cards I asked about from that AH were declared 'altered' and 'rebacked' so they were not able to be slabbed - even by requesting them as graded Authentic. Altered in that case, as I understood it, meant that it was so significantly altered that they refused. They will slab trimmed cards and cards in miserable shape, but certain types of restorations will not be slabbed.

If you have this in writing, I would surely call them on it for a refund. If not but you can remember who you spoke to there or can point to the time and day you called, I'd mention that as well. Heck, even if you can't remember any of that, I would still tell them. I can't imagine any smart company wanting to lose future business on like a $15 transaction or whatever it was to grade that card. They may not necessarily believe you but still might offer a refund just to avoid an unhappy customer.

Good luck -

So I did talk about T202s..are those prewar? Plus the comment you were commenting on did address modern cards....sometimes comments can involve both pre and post war....but I guess that's like crossing the streams in ghostbusters......Back to the T202s....I don't think theres a card (maybe the cobb/Christy variations in a high grade) that goes even close to SMR or over and I had almost the entire set..

HOF big guys are the exceptions to the market going over SMR...green cobb probably one of the hottest cards right now..maybe next you will bring up the 1951 Bowman Mays goes for over SMR or maybe a T206 big guy like Cy Young......I know when I was selling the two green cobbs on net54 in 2015.....I was quoted SMR and how people would be doing me a great favor to pay 100 over SMR.......most will draw the conclusion that almost every card sells for less than SMR....save the hottest cards in the hobby....the hottest cards in the hobby make up less than 1% of all cards....pointing out the waterside properties are the exceptions..and exactly my point...

The T202 card example aren't the exception in terms of SMR versus market price they are the rule...... .....

seems like it is YOU that has a comment for everything. ....i simply just pointing out a comment that I believed to be wrong.......do I now got to get ready for the why PSA really doesn't sell for more than SGC argument again? I think everyone knows my position on that.

The "service unavailable" note is most likely due to the fact you didn't check the box on the first page of the submission form granting them the ability to slab the card(s) as authentic only if they don't deserve a numerical grade. Although it might seem leaving a note within the package would be enough, the form presented with the submission is the defacto "contact" of the service they are providing. Notes can be misplaced or lost in the chain of the service so in the eyes of Beckett, if you didn't check the box indicating authentic grades are desired if necessary no service can be provided for particular items.

The silver lining is that one time I received a "service unavailable" return from Beckett (although for another reason) my credit card was not charged for the particular card. Whether or not the will do the same (or provide vouchers) for you I can't say for certain.

Good luck and happy collecting.

If the card was fake, I am sure they will charge you. If not, everyone would send their questionable cards to Beckett.

If you have some details and Beckett told you they would grade a card and they didn't and charged you anyway, shoot me a PM. I know a few folks over there and might be able to help. Now, if they look at it, deem it un-slabbable and didn't say anything beforehand, then a charge is fine. But if they told you they would slab it, you sent it in and they didn't......that is something I can possibly work with to help you. I can't promise but I promise I will try if you want....Personally, I think BVG grades very well.

It wouldn't pop as "service unavailable" if they deemed it a fake. The return note sheet has three or four different issues the card could have that prevented it's encapsulation or the reason the for an authentic designation. Off the top of my head I remember it having service unavailable, questionable authenticity, and altered. I think it has one more (might say "other"), but I don't have one near me at the moment.

If it was a fake card it would pop as questionable authenticity and would warrant a charge. From my experience and hearing from others, service unavailable refers to an issue that keeps a likely legitimate card from being slabbed. In my instance the card in question was a Topps released auto card they released in two versions (autographed and regular) without anything else different between the two version. It popped as "system unavailable" and beckett told me because of the way Topps released the cards there was no way to tell if it was packed pulled or IP. I wasn't charged, PSA said the same, and I eventually had the card slabbed PSA/DNA. I have also heard of Beckett using service unavailable when the card is marked with the player's name. This prevents people from confusing the card with an authenticated autographed example, something I wish PSA did because it's a simple scam people have been running for years now.

I had sub to PSA last year (in fact, the group I did on here). I had a card come back ungraded and it stated "did not reach the required demensions". It was a Griffey SNES card from 1993. I bought the game new and put the card in a top loader.

Well, PSA deducted the grading cost for that card.:eek: