Techniques and best practices for “DIY” card grading before submission

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by butchie_t

Jeff,

I did ask this question a while ago here and got some suggestions.

Ultimately I ended up with the following:

An Original GradeMaster Card Centering Tool (eBay)
A blacklight flashlight (Amazon)
A loupe that has both a blacklight LED and a regular LED light 10x (Amazon)
A DS-3 Magnifier (Amazon)

So all this stuff above is overkill for sure, but I am somewhat anal too.

I rely on the GradeMaster Centering tool to get a really good idea as to how well the centering T/B/L/R both front and back.

The blacklight flashlight is to look for surface scratches that I cannot see with my nekkid eye.

The loupe with the blacklight lets me see any up close imperfections and any corner problems that I cannot see otherwise.

The DS-3 magnifier has a light in it as well and just serves as an additional aid.

I also have a 30x magnifier (oversize acrylic) that comes in handy at times. (Amazon)

And then, above all else, I hope the TPG sees the same things as I do.
Because frankly the graders are better at this then I am by a huge margin.

This provides me with data that I use to determine if I want to send a card to the TPG (exclusively SGC) to have graded. Ultimately their decision wins obviously.

And then there are some cards that I just do not care about and I just get graded regardless of condition. That is strictly my decision.

Hope this helps some....

Butch

Wow! What are you doing on this site?

You are clearly the only member here who is not a better grader than the TPGs.

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