I crossed a 1954 Red Heart Mickey Mantle in a GAI 8.5 to a PSA 7. I thought the card might be trimmed but placed a minimum grade of 7 for the crossover and they crossed it. It was worth about $2K in the GAI 8.5 slab and I sold it for $4500 in the PSA 7 so it was worth the $250 fee.
GAI was legit in the early days and Baker was the head grading guy but was also a partner in the company and I'm sure he became overwhelmed and they took shortcuts due to being flooded with volume. I can't remember the exact details but they did a promotion of some sort that completely overwhelmed their grading capacity.
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