Former PSA employee AMA on reddit

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Has anyone ever received this back from PSA ??

I never have in 30 years.

Is this on the research department ?

How could they not know what card this is ?

If I could venture a guess.....I know they laid off a ton of people in shipping and receiving when they shut down services. I am thinking they laid off people in the research department as well. They probably never graded that particular issue before and just couldn't be bothered with it. In case you haven't heard, THEY LOST A 123 card order I had with them!!!! If you submit ANYTHING to PSA right about now, you are taking a big risk. Raw may come back in vogue.

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

If I could venture a guess.....I know they laid off a ton of people in shipping and receiving when they shut down services. I am thinking they laid off people in the research department as well. They probably never graded that particular issue before and just couldn't be bothered with it. In case you haven't heard, THEY LOST A 123 card order I had with them!!!! If you submit ANYTHING to PSA right about now, you are taking a big risk. Raw may come back in vogue.

With all the money being made in grading you think this should never happen.
Hopefully changes for the positive come soon

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

PSA is a complete shit show. It was a shit show before Nat took it over and he has somehow made it worse. My latest sub just popped and it’s a friggin joke. Besides slabbing my 1913 World Series ticket stub as a game 2 instead of what it actually is, a game 3 their grades are a joke. I’ve slabbed lots of cards over the years. 9-10s on cardboard cards are now 8s. The lone 10 I got of course was a shiny modern card. And it wasn’t just me, I subbed this with some of the best eyes in the hobby and every single member of this sub got screwed over. 400 card sub. Grader Of Death.

Dan -

What follows is a serious post, I am writing this from a bench in my yard, I am attempting to leave my usual snarky, sarcastic, possibly annoying self in the house, apologies if he finds me before I hit the "Submit Reply" button.

Your post is EXACTLY what I don't understand about why the opinion sellers exist. Why would "some of the best eyes in the hobby" pay somebody else for their opinion? They should be paying you guys. I understand that the resale value of the slab has become more important that the value of the item within the slab, but... really, why?

It can't just be greed, there has to be another reason, right?

Everybody on this board is at least a bit greedy, including me, but none of us (very few of us?) got into the hobby because of the piles of cash we could make. So, why is the hobby so beholden to the opinion sellers who time after time after time continue to prove that they don't really know what the fuck they are doing?

Doug

[slidekellyslide]

Doug, I suppose the easy answer is because a card inside the PSA slab is worth way more than the same card outside of that slab. I sent my cards in precisely for that reason. Clearly though the standards have changed and I believe Nat gave direct orders to be stricter on all cards, especially certain issues. You can have a great eye and try to sell a card but it’s always going to get more money inside that slab.


As a side note for more anecdotal “proof”, one of our submitters cracked three 1984 Donruss Mattinglys all PSA 9. He believed they could come back as Gem 10s. They came back as 7, 7 and 8.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

Doug, I suppose the easy answer is because a card inside the PSA slab is worth way more than the same card outside of that slab. I sent my cards in precisely for that reason. Clearly though the standards have changed and I believe Nat gave direct orders to be stricter on all cards, especially certain issues. You can have a great eye and try to sell a card but it’s always going to get more money inside that slab.


As a side note for more anecdotal “proof”, one of our submitters cracked three 1984 Donruss Mattinglys all PSA 9. He believed they could come back as Gem 10s. They came back as 7, 7 and 8.

Unless they can rely on a certain percentage of 10s, people who submit large volumes of very modern cards may rethink things if their gem rates become substantially less. Maybe that's what Nat Turner wants, to become a lower volume higher dollar per card company?

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

Doug, I suppose the easy answer is because a card inside the PSA slab is worth way more than the same card outside of that slab. I sent my cards in precisely for that reason. Clearly though the standards have changed and I believe Nat gave direct orders to be stricter on all cards, especially certain issues. You can have a great eye and try to sell a card but it’s always going to get more money inside that slab.


As a side note for more anecdotal “proof”, one of our submitters cracked three 1984 Donruss Mattinglys all PSA 9. He believed they could come back as Gem 10s. They came back as 7, 7 and 8.

Ouch!!!

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

As a side note for more anecdotal “proof”, one of our submitters cracked three 1984 Donruss Mattinglys all PSA 9. He believed they could come back as Gem 10s. They came back as 7, 7 and 8.

Hands down, this is what sucks the most about PSA right now. The moving targets. I have about 150 or so 1986 Fleer basketball cards that are all 8s, 9s, and what historically would have been a few 10s. But after watching the goal posts get moved, it makes me not even want to submit to them anymore even if they do reopen bulk services or quarterly specials. They'd probably all come back as 7s with the recent changes. It's extremely frustrating. It's not that difficult to maintain consistency over time. It messes up the entire market too. A 2021 PSA 7 is a 2016 PSA 9 is a 2002 PSA 10.

SGC looks better and better every day.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

Doug, I suppose the easy answer is because a card inside the PSA slab is worth way more than the same card outside of that slab. I sent my cards in precisely for that reason. Clearly though the standards have changed and I believe Nat gave direct orders to be stricter on all cards, especially certain issues. You can have a great eye and try to sell a card but it’s always going to get more money inside that slab.


As a side note for more anecdotal “proof”, one of our submitters cracked three 1984 Donruss Mattinglys all PSA 9. He believed they could come back as Gem 10s. They came back as 7, 7 and 8.

This was my logic as to why my cards were worth more since they were PSA graded than they were raw. However, when it came time to declare value and file the insurance claim, PSA chose to ignore their graded card value. Why not just make all cards $99 (or whatever the max value is) and be done with it.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

This was my logic as to why my cards were worth more since they were PSA graded than they were raw. However, when it came time to declare value and file the insurance claim, PSA chose to ignore their graded card value. Why not just make all cards $99 (or whatever the max value is) and be done with it.

This has always been one of the problems with TPGs giving their "opinions" on card grades, and especially with autograph authenticity, the fact that they have different charges based on perceived values of items they are looking at and not just charging based on the actual work being performed. The grading/authenticating process should be consistent and without prejudice and bias for all cards, whether they are looking at a '52 Topps Mantle or a common from the '87 Topps set. They should be doing similar work and efforts for both cards. But are they when they end up charging so much more for one card than another, it creates at least a perception of potential bias, if not also a factual one to some degree. And it is even more pronounced with autographs. Think about all the Mantle and Dimaggio autos that TPGs have authenticated over the years. Their authenticators have reviewed and handled so many of them by now they probably need do very little research to authentic such signatures, whereas someone coming in with an autographed card of some minor league player that had a cup of coffee in the majors might require a bit of research and work to actually end up verifying the signature, at a fraction of what they charge for a Mantle or Dimaggio.

At the end of the day, all the TPGs are doing is giving an "opinion", nothing else. So why do people let them get away with basically charging a contingent type fee on the supposed value of a card/autograph they are grading/authenticating? CPAs are also in the business of giving "opinions, yet the entire profession is not allowed to charge contingent fees on "anything" they do, not just in giving opinions on financials. CPAs have to maintain an unbiased, arm's length relationship with clients and can only charge for the work performed, or potentially lose their license. I would think/hope that any TPG offering grading/authenticating services would be following a somewhat similar line of thinking in being completely impartial in fact and appearence, but they are not. And the grading companies should never have been the ones to decide what the grading standards were. The people in the hobby should have gotten together and decided, and made all the TPGs follow one single, consistent set of grading standards, along with making them submit to periodic, independent, third-party review of their procedures and practices to insure they adhere to those standards or practices. But is probably too late to ever have that happen now. Too many people with too much to lose are in the card hobby industry and will not allow the risk of such a loss to them personally to happen by making such radical changes to the hobby now.

[steve B]

My comments in red.

Originally Posted by Snowman

By "fake", I take it you mean "altered"? Because I haven't seen any of these cards submitted by prolific trimmers/Van Goghs being called out as counterfeits by BODA.
Fair enough, I should have said altered. Although in my other hobbies an original item combined with a fake element is considered fake.

Also, I'm sure they submit plenty of cards that don't "need" altering. Just because they trimmed card A doesn't mean they also trimmed cards B through Z, particularly when BODA has scans of all those cards and "can't find any evidence of alterations" but posts it anyhow just because of semi-adjacent serial numbers. Also worth noting is that the trimmers are probably trying to sneak in their trimmed cards, surrounding them with non-altered cards in hopes that the trimmed one goes through undetected. I doubt there are very many of them who are truly just cutting up 100 cards and putting all 100 into one submission. That would be such a red flag and would greatly increase the probability of their entire order getting rejected and the submitter being banned. I would bet that the majority of cards submitted even by the Van Goghs and the cutters probably haven't been altered.

If I had any way of proving it, I'd take that bet. While it's a practice of some alterers in other fields, many also exclusively alter or produce outright fakes with no real/unaltered items. Some were good enough to fool experts for years.
While the PSA subs aren't accessible as the old SGC ones were, if you see a block of numbers that are for example all pokemon, followed by a block of numbers that are all sportscards and mostly vintage, then the next block is all modern cards it's fairly certain that those blocks are individual submissions. Some of the ones identified had about a 10% rejection rate, and also had many cards that were clearly altered based on the before and after scans collected. The paper fibers are as good as a finger print, possibly better as they're easier to interpret.

I get why they push the narrative though. These guys are spending countless hours every day trying to hunt down these "criminals", yet bearing no fruit despite devoting years of their lives to this. Meanwhile, the FBI (actual detectives) clearly couldn't care less about it. It must be extremely deflating. So they feel like they need to post something for their efforts. Can't allow an honest good day's work to go to waste, so here's a non-altered card for you! Who knows, it might be altered and we just can't tell lol. They're grasping at straws. It's not a good look. They're crying wolf.

Some of the more recent ones have seemed like very weak IDs to me. Many of the older ones were very certain. I can't say what motivates someone to spend so much time on finding those things, but it's probably similar to a "census" some people do of other less than common collectibles. I've spent a bunch of time on my own hobby projects, odd varieties, a spreadsheet of 48 Leaf images showing the different versions etc. And an image archive of items in one of my particular specialties. So I won't make fun of them for their efforts.

Also, their method of tying sales to particular individuals is flawed. Saying they know a card was purchased by Moser because the buyer ID is 'm***1' (or whatever it is) somehow proves it is beyond laughable. There are countless 'm***1' usernames buying cards on eBay; literally thousands of them. Not to mention the fact that the username 'garymoser123' would have 132 different permutations that eBay uses at random for their purchases (12 Permute 2 = 132). They purchase a card and it shows as 'm***1' today, but it's 'g***e' tomorrow and '2***y' the next day. Don't believe me? Go to eBay, log out, and then look up your own eBay purchases and see what it lists you as. You'll have a different masked buyer ID for each one.

I wasn't aware of that. I haven't bought from Ebay for a couple years, so I don't really have anything to check with. I wonder if it's different for each purchase, or only each session?

My favorite posts in those threads are the ones where BODA posts pics of a card that is accompanied by the "I couldn't detect alterations on this card, but the serial number is only 37 away from this other one that was trimmed, so something has probably been done to it. Here it is. I'm posting it for reference." Then the next 5 pages of comments are just pure gold.

• "You can see the top edge was trimmed! Just look at it!"

• "Oh wow, ya, they MURDERED that left edge! See that?"

• "Look at the right edge, I think they took a dental tool to the right edge!"

• "That bottom edge looks off. Something isn't right with that. I think they sanded it."

• "Look at the bottom right corner, that's a rebuilt corner. I know one when I see one!"

• "No, it's the top right corner. See the angle on it? They cut the entire corner off and gave it a new corner, then trimmed it and shaved it down!"

• "Look at the red background, that's supposed to be orange. They definitely recolored this card!"

• "Something looks off with the font. I think they recolored the name too."

It's absolutely hilarious. These guys have no clue what they're looking at. Every aspect of every card now looks altered/fake to the entire army of BODA's fanboys. But hand them a stack of raw cards, all of which were rejected by PSA or SGC because of alterations, and they think they're holding pure gold because, hey, "not slabbed = not altered" lol. Some of this stuff is pure comedy gold.

We see the same thing here. But I'd have to give the nod to the track record of some members, both here and on BO, which I don't follow much.

I still maintain that for some people PSA gets it wrong nearly every time. And their overall record is well beyond the realm of simple mistakes. I fix and make stuff for work, and the mistakes I make each year are very few. Probably under 5 a year, and the ones that get by me to the customer is maybe one every 2-3 years. I'm not just talking about a grader missing a problem and getting a grade wrong, but missing alterations etc which is exactly what their service is advertised as catching.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

Doug, I suppose the easy answer is because a card inside the PSA slab is worth way more than the same card outside of that slab. I sent my cards in precisely for that reason. Clearly though the standards have changed and I believe Nat gave direct orders to be stricter on all cards, especially certain issues. You can have a great eye and try to sell a card but it’s always going to get more money inside that slab.


As a side note for more anecdotal “proof”, one of our submitters cracked three 1984 Donruss Mattinglys all PSA 9. He believed they could come back as Gem 10s. They came back as 7, 7 and 8.

Thank you, so it is just greed.

And your story of the resubmitted cards is further proof that the opinion sellers don't really know what the fuck they are doing.

I don't know what 1984 Mattinglys go for in a 7 slab, but I will admit that I hope it's less than 2 X submission costs...

Insert smiley face here

Doug

[slidekellyslide]

Some people may call that a good business decision and some may call that greed.

Your Schadenfreude is noted.

[Snowman]

Looks like the former PSA employee stopped answering questions and deleted his reddit account shortly after the PSA manager showed up and posted a rebuttal to some of his claims. Interesting.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

Your Schadenfreude is noted.

I would argue that paying somebody for their opinion (especially in the context of REpaying somebody for their opinion), when the opinion seller has shown repeatedly that their opinions are hit or miss at the very best, is not misfortune, but is something closer to foolishness. Therefore I do not have a feeling of schadenfreude, I do however have a feeling of "they got what they deserved". Or, in the vernacular of today's youth I believe the letters SMH may suffice.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Hands down, this is what sucks the most about PSA right now.

Right now?

May I remind you that the first opinion they ever sold is pretty much universally acknowledged to be wrong?

[mrreality68]

alot of information in this particular thread and alot to process.

Thanks all for the information and perspective

[A2000]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Has anyone ever received this back from PSA ??

I never have in 30 years.

Is this on the research department ?

How could they not know what card this is ?

Did a quick search online and it looks like this card is supposed to come numbered out of 175 on the front and yours does not have such numbering?

[Johnny630]

Thanks!

I have no idea, I know the Auto is good.

[Snowman]

I wonder if yours wasn't serial numbered because it was supposed to be a replacement card that somehow later found its way outside the factory? I've heard of stories like that before.