FREE Card Grading!

[rdwyer]

Like to see PSA and others do this:

http://www.globalauth.com/grading/free

I like the idea. What do you think?

[Robextend]

I'd like it if it was PSA/SGC/BVG...

At least my trimmed cards can get slabbed as 8's for free!!

[Ease]

Good idea. Too bad GAI ceased being legit 5 years ago. I love the old GAI slabs with the metallic flip though. They put the info on top too so when you have em in a box standing up you can just look at the top and see what card it is.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by Robextend

I'd like it if it was PSA/SGC/BVG...

At least my trimmed cards can get slabbed as 8's for free!!

While I love SGC, it is short-sighted to believe that any one grading company will be the market leader in new submissions forever.

[JasonL]

As a collector, I love the idea.
However, someone would need to explain to me how this policy wouldn't introduce bias towards higher grades, as it is reasonable to expect that customers are more likely to spring for the slabbing only for higher grades that would make it worthwhile...

no?

[wake.up.the.echoes]

Personally, I would think that if one of the "legit"—and I use that term loosely—companies tried this, then someone could use the grading companies simply as a means by which to authenticate cards that they may be unsure of. I could send in a bunch of RAW t206 cards, for example, and if they come back with number grades, then I could at least know that they aren't reprints and that they haven't been trimmed. then i could pass on paying for the card grades, get the cards shipped back to me RAW and simply grade them myself (like how they used to do it in the old days, LOL), knowing they were real and untrimmed—at least "knowing" with a reasonable amount of certainty, as I am sure that PSA and SGC have slabbed a few trimmed/reprinted cards in the past.

All in all, it would save me the time of having to untomb my cardboard, and I guess it would save PSA/SGC a lot of plastic.

[fkw]

Thats what I was thinking too.

They get paid only if the collector likes the grade they assign.

[tbob]

Has anyone here had any transactions with GAI lately and want to report on their opinions of grades received for their pre-war cards? I am curious as to how their graders are doing vis a vis accurate grading, etc.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by fkw

Thats what I was thinking too.

They get paid only if the collector likes the grade they assign.

This sounds like a good short-term business model for breaking into the SGC, PSA and Beckett oligopoly. Get a bunch of cards into their slabs, which would then broaden their market and appeal to that collector and perhaps others. At some point down the road, you would pull the promotional freebies when you have acquired some meaningful market share. In this environment, you could see bias in both directions -- too harsh in order to prove legitimacy; as well as too lenient in order to attract submissions.