Crossover Issue

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by Neal

PSA had the correct grade on that .... should be a 4

Great looking Cobb!

That will be a PSA 4 every day of the week because of the corner rounding, but I have always felt (i.e., pre-PSA/SGC world) that a card like my Cobb is an EX, even with the slightly rounded corners, because it is otherwise clean, has no wrinkles, etc. But I know a lot of folks who collect 33 Goudeys in EX 5 condition do not chase the SGC 60s because they find the corners are often too soft from SGC.

But the point is, know your grader's standards before you dump a few hundred/thousand dollars to have your collection graded by them. Then you won't be surprised by the grades.

I've had SGC grade over 500 of my raw T206 cards over the past decade. Maybe once did I have to go back to them and suggest they under-graded a card. They get it right, folks, with a strong degree of consistency. But the only way you would know that is if you spent the time sending cards in, analyzing the grades, talking to the SGC folk, etc.

[tinkereversandme]

I would like to see those same cards submitted to PSA, ungraded to see what grades would return. I wonder what level of consistency there is a second time around.

As a gambler, I recognize one in the poster (who didn't get a minimum, and dared to crossover), I'm sorry (even though I am a pro-SGC guy) this happened but I never understood the purpose of crossing over.

Also, as one poster mentioned. What would the point of sending them back in to SGC if they can't get it right the first time? Cards sent in the same condition don't get better by flight.

Larry

[steve B]

No, the cards wouldn't get any better, but as long as it's people doing the grading the grading will be inconsistent.

Maybe the grader didn't sleep well or argued with his wife,(Or she argued with her husband) and wasn't in a good mood.

Or maybe there was a special card going through that day and he didn't get the assignment.....

Borderline cases will seem better or worse depending on someones mood, or merely on different perceptions different days. Try taking a stack of maybe 150 cheap cards like late 70's in less than near mint. Now go through them and pick out the nicer ones. make two piles, the vg-ex and the ex. Leave them somewhere for a couple days, and sort them again. I'll bet you end up with a few that move from one stack to the other. For more fun try it at different times of the day. Say maybe right after a nice lunch and at 4:30.

Getting it 100% consistent is pretty hard And the workload can't make it any easier. I tried going through some fairly modern cards looking for the absolute best ones. 81 topps, looking at centering and corners mostly. I found I got sloppy after 3-400 cards and pretty hopeless after only 600.

And all that is why they're willing to do reviews

Steve B

[teetwoohsix]

I've only used the crossover service with SGC a couple of times,and I had sent GAI slabbed cards to them.I did state that if they wouldn't get the same grade or higher,to just send 'em back.One came back same grade,others got bumped a grade higher,to my suprise.

I buy cards in SGC,PSA,and BVG holders.In doing this,I have noticed that the PSA graded cards seem inconsistent-some seem graded accurately,others clearly overgraded.For this reason,I will never try to cross my PSA to SGC.And with BVG,I actually feel the cards that I have that they've graded seem right on the money.

With all that being said,I'm sorry you had a bad experience with all of this,and I hope you find a way to work it out.

Sincerely,Clayton

[BCauley]

I've thought about crossing over but I'm too lazy and never get around to sending in anything. I do have some stuff waiting for a trip to SGC, some of which was taken out of a PSA slab as soon as I got the card.

I use the grade up top by the company pretty much as a guide. When I look at an auction or listing on here, I'll see the grade in the title and I have a general idea as to what it will look like. However, it all comes down to eye appeal for me. If I see a PSA 3 that in my eyes looks better than a 4, that's great. I'm taking the one that looks best to me and the one I want in my collection.

Professional grading is not an exact science. Maybe the grader hadn't had their cup of coffee yet in the AM or maybe it's getting late in the PM on a Friday. Graders are human. I only look to be happy with the card and to heck with what the flip says.

[jp1216]

My last SGC sub included about 10 crossovers. One GAI got bumped up, Both BVGs got a bump up and out of 7 PSAs (0 got bumped up, 3 got bumped down, and 4 crossed).

[cfc1909]

Joe P. is Joe Pelaez and one of the best friends I ever had-I miss him terribly.


about your cards-SGC grades the cards to their standard whether they are in PSA slabs or raw. They will work with you if you talk to them -your buisness is important to them.
I hope this works out for you

[Bridwell]

Hi Dan,

Just got home so missed all the 'exciting' discussions on this. Sorry for your bad experience. As you know, I also have a T206 PSA Registry set and am close to a T207 PSA set.

This year I've bought over 60 SGC T207's and sent them to PSA. I decided to crack all of them out of the SGC cases first. I've seen the bias that both PSA and SGC have on crossovers. They each want to appear to be tougher than the other, so are super tough on crossovers. If you crack the cases first, then the grades will come back better I believe.

My result was 25% were downgraded by PSA, 25% upgraded by PSA and 50% the same. One big problem with T207's is the glossy surface, that is prone to light cracking. Sometimes a grader grades down because of that and sometimes they don't. T207's have a lot of minor flaws compared to T206's so it's tougher to get anything higher than a 5 (or 60).

Ron R

[smtjoy]

One thing Dan, since your cards are going back to PSA I am hoping you will post scans of the 6 cards you posted to see how they are graded this go around. Good luck and I think it should be interesting.

I am not in the camp that follows "the grades ultimately determine the value of the cards" or I would not have paid double for the SGC 30 vs the 40 shown below. I buy the card not the holder, in this case I could not pass on a 30 with a NM front with a little bit of paper loss on the back even at twice the price of the 40. To each his own thou.