ArchietheArcher

That's what I was going to say. I would start by comparing your cards to some graded cards on ebay. It's hard to tell from a photo but things like edge damage show up really well. Surface scratches don't always show up in a pic. But that edge damage alone on some of those cards could bump it down a couple numbers. When I'm deciding what cards to get graded I look at the raw price and the graded 9 price. If I'll get more than 4 times my grading money back then I consider sending it. Notice I never look at the 10 prices because that's never guaranteed. I've had many cards I thought were absolutely perfect come back as 9s or even 8s.

I think it's kind of hard to understand what they're doing in order to report it. I've been reading this thread for a bit and still can't fully grasp what's going on.