when you get that happy sad email from PSA...

[Rob355]

give us MORE money!

[CorndogWasp]

Waiting on one right now. 9 = $400 and a 10 = $1k. Please send me the email.

[jimz]

I got this twice and the grades ended up an 8 and a 9. Although the cards paid for the case of wax I pulled them from and then some, it's pretty crap nonetheless since they're both 1/1s and god knows where they're getting comps from.

[PoPCulture]

PSA always saves themselves the hassle of needing to send that email to me by giving me 8’s on my high end cards.

[Thor34]

Sadly, or so it seems, I've never received this email.

[WYTMKE]

I got this email quite a few times only because I submit at the lowest value most of the time and take my chances of that one high-end card getting through. Only because I have a superstition that if you turn around and pay the actual fee of what you think a 10 is going to be i feel that's when you get a 9 lol

[bojesphob]

Originally Posted by WYTMKE

I got this email quite a few times only because I submit at the lowest value most of the time and take my chances of that one high-end card getting through. Only because I have a superstition that if you turn around and pay the actual fee of what you think a 10 is going to be i feel that's when you get a 9 lol

Yeah, let them figure out if you have to pay more or not. Why pay more than you absolutely must? It's not like they have to do anything different for a card that's worth 1000 versus a card that's worth 500. It doesn't get a different case, you still end up having to wait several months to get it graded... I guess they could argue they have to have better insurance on cards in their possession with ones that are worth more, but I'm sure their terms and legal team can get them out of having to pay out if they screw something up or something gets stolen from them.

[rfgilles]

Upcharging is such a scam and a conflict of interest for objective grading.

[PLB9eight]

Originally Posted by rfgilles

Upcharging is such a scam and a conflict of interest for objective grading.

Collector Nat hated it. Final Boss Nat loves it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CorndogWasp]

Is there any info on how this works? Like if I submit a card up to $500 in value and it grades a 10 which is now worth $750… are they gonna up charge for that $250 difference?

[collective]

Originally Posted by rfgilles

Upcharging is such a scam and a conflict of interest for objective grading.

Would love for someone, someday to open the upcharge can of worms through litigation and discovery. No doubt there's some juicy details hiding behind the PSA curtain

[yoyosh]

Originally Posted by rfgilles

Upcharging is such a scam and a conflict of interest for objective grading.

That part

[bojesphob]

Originally Posted by CorndogWasp

Is there any info on how this works? Like if I submit a card up to $500 in value and it grades a 10 which is now worth $750… are they gonna up charge for that $250 difference?

They upcharge to the next level. So, if you do bulk (500 value) for 26.99, they would then charge you for the next value up, which is 59.99. of course, this won't speed their process up any even though at that point you'd be paying for 15 business days and not 65. Also, that's only if it values in under 1000. If it's over 1500, then you would be paying the 149 grading cost.
Of course, I've not had this happen, so I could be wrong about it, so OP or others could clarify if I am mistaken.

[JimCa]

Was unsure whether to drop this here or in the PSA/ROI thread, because there’s definitely a Value/ROI angle, but I opted for this one because I’m looking for advice after getting the happy/sad email regarding a somewhat unique submission. At this point, I’m tempted to walk away and cut my losses, but was hoping to hear other opinions.

For background, I’ve never dealt with PSA before, but this past June a local shop had a PSA on-site event, so I decided to bite the bullet and submit 3 Lebron James NBA Debut ticket stubs I’ve had safely stored away ever since my kids and I went to the game 22 years ago.

Prior to the event, I did some research, studying PSA’s ticket grading criteria and perusing Ebay for PSA graded tickets & stubs of a similar type and era to get an idea of what grades mine might get. Among the dozens of comps, I found two of the less common “Box Office” ticket version identical to my own. The better of the two was graded a PSA 6. Well, foolish me, I thought all three of mine were clearly superior to this PSA 6. But beyond that, I found many other random tickets in the PSA 6, 7 & 8 range. All had obvious flaws that are acceptable within PSA’s grading guidelines, which, for the most part, I’m not seeing on mine. This is why I felt mine might have a reasonable shot at 7 or 8, and why I decided to submit them for grading.

Anyway, I completed the on-line pre-order form at the $1500 level, but apparently did something wrong, so at the event, a PSA employee re-did the order for me. I didn’t realize until after the fact that he’d done it at the base $500 level - which happened to be one of the June monthly specials at $27.99 each.

So I was fully expecting the email and sure enough, it showed up informing me that my submissions didn’t qualify for the special and they needed my authorization for up-charges of $150 for one ticket graded PSA 5, and $300 each for tickets graded PSA 6 & 7.

I don’t have a problem with the up-charges per se. But not when I feel like I’m getting hosed on grades.

I’ve spoken to them (via email) a couple of times and as it stands I have 3 choices: 1) Pay the money ($750) and take 3 grades I feel are at least a full point low. 2) Cancel the order, have them ship the raw tickets back and forfeit my original $83.97. Or 3) Have them slab them as “Authentic” for $150 each - $450 total.

I don’t have intentions of selling any of them at this time, however, if I choose to in the future, I’m thinking it would be foolish to have them slabbed with what I think are unfair PSA grades. I’m also not sure whether “Authentic” would have a stigma attached that may be bad for future resale value.

Below are some examples of PSA graded tickets I used for comparison, along with PSA’s grading standards and images of my tickets.

I’d love to hear some thoughts on this. Should I be happy with a 5, 6 & 7, which seems to be PSA’s New Normal? Or have they moved the goalposts too far and I should walk away? Or would I be throwing good money after bad by having them slabbed as “Authentic” ?

Or do I have other options I haven’t thought of ? Thanks in advance for any ideas….


Someone's PSA 6 listed for $4999 or BO on Ebay for months.



My "Box Office" ticket stubs tentatively graded PSA 5, 6 & 7 respectively:


PSA's Ticket Grading Guidelines:




Random PSA 7 & 8's with flaws acceptable within their given grades:

[oddstuff]

How much have slabbed versions in the grades you would get have actually SOLD for (not list for)?

[JimCa]

Originally Posted by oddstuff

How much have slabbed versions in the grades you would get have actually SOLD for (not list for)?

Thanks for asking... You bring up a great point I was reluctant to in my original post, for fear of muddying the waters even further.

I'm actually not aware of any sales of my version of these tickets, nor did PSA provide proof of any. Instead, they said they based on the value of these two Heritage auctions below that closed earlier this year, which were different ticket types and different grades.

[oddstuff]

If you absolutely do not agree with the grades/grader, have them send the tickets back to you ungraded/not slabbed and forfeit the $83+. Hope that the next time you submit it again you get a better grader. Perhaps submit them separately in 3 different order which will cost you more shipping fees but reduce the chance of giving one grader a chance to compare 3 of the same event tickets against each other. If you buy into the new norm that they're grading much tougher now, then accept the upcharge and take the grades. The samples you provided, the cert #s start with 6 and 7...don't know how that fit into the timeline of when grading "got harder" but it's more recent than old with those cert #s. There may be a small case also that those other tickets weren't his debut so weren't graded "as hard" (conspiracy theory that debut tickets might get harder treatment/pop control). I would not do authentic.

Is the 6 the one with some white hanging by the top right perforation? Any reason to not have removed it? Might that be the reason keeping that 6 from a 7?

You may want to accept the upcharge on the 7...as there's only five 7s and two 8s currently.

I'm guessing the faded printing is the reason for the 5 which is really close to the same faded printing of the 6 that is on ebay. It's also possible the faded printing on the left part of the tickets that got the 6 and 7 are keeping those two tickets from one grade higher.

[MavsRChamps]

My 2cents as someone that doesn’t follow ticket prices - are we or you sure a PSA 6/7 is that much more valuable than a 5? To me the value is in the tickets, I wasn’t aware condition mattered really but maybe I’m mistaken. In an odd way I’d actually be skeptical of a ticket in good condition cause if it was used at a game how could it possibly be mint? People usually shove tickets in wallets, etc

Very nice tickets though. The type of thing I’d think would be worth much more in 10 years than today.

[aggie4ever]

On the PSA 6 example you posted, it's hard to tell how faded it really is. I say that, because the background design also looks really faded, which would be a little strange. So it could just be a washed-out picture. If it really is faded, then it almost certainly would sell at a discount because of the fading, and yours would sell at a premium because they present better.

Two issues I see that might explain the grades you got. Since they are stubs and not full tickets, then I believe the remaining perforated teeth become a big part of the grade. As another poster noted, leaving the extra paper on the 2nd ticket probably caused a deduction. On the other two, you want the teeth to be consistent and all the same height. The 6 looks cleaner and more consistent.

The other issue is that the printing on the ticket is shifted to the left. I'm not sure if that affected the grade, kind of like it being considered off centered. On the 36.50, the 3 is almost touching the $, and the S of the event code is almost hitting the untorn perforation on that side.

[newcokeandtaco]

Was the PSA 7 the one with the extra paper hanging on in 2 spots?
It does look the best overall (color fade wise).

[SLGSports]

I once got a massive upcharge for a PSA 6, which was the lowest grade ever given by PSA for this card. It boggles my mind why PSA thinks they can justify an upcharge when their grade lowers the value of the card. I kinda see the logic with PSA 10s... but any grade lower than that should be exempt.

[JimCa]

Thanks all for the feedback. I appreciate those who took the time to chime in. I'm down to the wire on having to make a decision, but here are a few thoughts....

The ticket of mine with the jagged perf tear (Seat 29) is the one that got the tentative PSA 6. It's hard to say how that impacted the grade, as I'm not seeing in PSA's ticket grading guidelines how torn perforations are evaluated. Even in retrospect, I'd be reluctant to try to remove them, both for fear of messing it up worse, and/or making it look doctored. But it would be nice to know if that's a strike against in PSA's book. I'm thinking it adds a bit of game-used authenticity - a point MRC may have been making.

As for fading, I'm thinking these Box Office issues may just be susceptible to that. There's another one on Ebay that's just as bad or worse than the PSA 6, which I've looked at a lot. I really think it's faded much more than mine and it's not just a bad photo. Here it is below, right over the most faded of my 3, the one they gave a "PSA 5". What strikes me is the contrast between the seat location text versus the pre-printed text on the ticket ("Event Code", "Section/Aisle", etc.). On the PSA 6, the pre-printed text is much darker than the seat info. On mine, I don't think the contrast is nearly as drastic. My only thought is perhaps they had the graded ticket on display and it faded so badly post-grading.


PSA 6 from Ebay:

Mine graded PSA 5:


My bottom line is, I just can't justify forking over $750 to PSA for these grades.

So that leaves having them cracked and returned, or slab them as "Authentic". I know oddstuff recommended against it, but I'm curious what others think. The way I'm looking at it, I've committed $84. So I get a little discount having them slabbed "Authentic", it would only cost me an additional $366.

I know that's not a good look on cards. Is the consensus that "Authentic" would have the same stigma on a ticket or would that be more acceptable and the ticket condition can speak for itself ??

[oddstuff]

I've read that Authentic is not a horrible thing for a big ticket such as a debut...but if given the choice between an Authentic debut vs a debut with a grade on it, I would go with the graded and pay more for it, especially since there are so few of these debuts in a PSA slab/graded. I think it's a worthwhile investment to put in another $384 to get them graded vs authentic.

[cfern023]

Personally, since it's such a big ticket someone would WANT to fake- I'd just get them slabbed as authentic for now. Lets someone who buys them resubmit for a number grade. The condition of the ticket speaks for itself, you don't NEED to have psa tell us its a 5, 6 or 7.