KSA, anyone heard of them?

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Posted By: t206king

hello,
I bought this joe tinker at a card show in Toronto for about 50 US funds. i just have never heard of this company before. i use SGC and GAI, but never used KSA. Whats there rep. like? anyone else use them? need publics help because i never see any cards graded by them. heres a scan....

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Posted By: Alan Zimmerman

fairly reputable canadian grading company. i have seen more hockey cards in KSA holders than cards from other sports. i am sure, like all grading companies, there will be stories of trimmed cards, mislabels, etc. but no more so than any other company.

from personal experience, i bought a ksa 9.5 opc rookie roy that crossed into a bgs 9.5. i guess thats a good thing.

alan

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Posted By: Jim F

KSA is a reputable company. They used to overgrade by .5 to as much as 2 full grades but are much better on cards graded the last 2-3 years. No intentional slabbing of altered cards like a PRO would do. You can actually find some nice deals on ebay of KSA stuff. Not sure how much they know about the pre war baseball cards they grade but are fair graders and pretty knowledgable on 50's and later. Jim

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Posted By: david

KSA have been around for over a decade now I believe, so they are not a "fly by night" operation.

Headed by a man named Rick Kressler (hence the K; Kressler Sportscard Authentication). HQ is Kitchener, ON, about an hour SW of Toronto.

Their standards do seem to have become more stern in the past year or so, though their cards don't generate anywhere near the prices of PSA, SGC, et al.

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Posted By: John J. Grillo

Agree with Jim F...KSA really tries to slab authentic-only cards. Rick at KSA is knowledgeable of hockey, pre-war hockey, OPC hockey, etc. A good source for Canadian Hockey card collectors, who do not have to put up with the hassle of customs back and forth between US and Canada.

Just my opinion, I would not put them up there with the likes of GAI or SGC in terms of knowledge of vintage baseball, but they are legit nonetheless.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

and quite respectable.

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Posted By: Anonymous

i c where your coming from. i like the holder gasket like SGC uses looks nice and holds the card vary stiff. to me i buy the card for the card. not the case its in. i think i got a great deal for it anyways. the guy i bought it off didnt know who he was lol thats what u get when ppl dont collect pre-war i guess!

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Posted By: Josh K.

you got a good deal on the card - though I do think its overgraded.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Josh,
Well i think its the scan, the card has extremely great color front and back, all i c wrong is the miscut really, and the corners arent sharp but almost.in Canada its hard to find them at shows so i have to keep my eyes open....

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Posted By: Cat

Am I the only one that is suspicious of this card? The internal (inside the yellow border) background should match with the color of the border. The head doesn't look right either. It's not the best scan, but it doesn't look right.

http://cgi.ebay.com/KSA-4-VG-EX-1938-Goudey-274-Joe-Dimaggio-Rookie_W0QQitemZ8737606835QQcategoryZ31721QQrdZ1QQ cmdZViewItem

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Posted By: Al Crisafulli

It's pretty easy to spot a 1938 Goudey reprint, as there are generally two kinds:

1) 1938 Goudeys are printed on off-white stock, with uniform coloring on both the inside and outside of the colored border that wraps around the card. The most common reprints I see are WHITE on the outside of the border, and off-white on the inside, as with this example.

2) Another common type of reprint looks right on the front, but the ink on the back of the card is black (it should be green).

There is no doubt in my mind that the 38 Goudey DiMaggio is a reprint.

An Ebay search for 1938 Goudey will usually give you examples of the real thing as well as the reprints, although there are not many 38 Goudeys listed right now.

Not accusing the seller of doing anything untoward; if the card made it into a slab, though, it's clearly a mistake.

There is, of course, the off-chance that the scan has been tweaked to make the borders look whiter, but I would never risk it on a card like this.

-Al

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Posted By: base2base

LOL... that funny after read all the great thing said about KSA, let see what happens!

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Posted By: Cat

After looking at the EBay listing one more time, I was just getting ready to edit my post from "this doesn't look right" to "hey looky, they slabbed a fake" and then Al put it in perspective.

Edited to correct typos unless otherwise noted.

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Posted By: Jim F

Those psa style slabs are atleast 3 years or older. They have gotten better since then but I will repeat that they are not the most knowledgable when it comes to vintage baseball so it may be better to only buy these cards in person if the seller doesn't have a return policy. Jim