• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Crossover Grading Experiences
1 1

17 posts in this topic

Hey all.

I submitted my first card to CGC that was in a PSA slab. It was a Base Expansion Pack 1st edition holo Charizard, PSA 9.

It came back a CGC 8. lol

Needless to say, I took a bath on it.

I am genuinely curious to hear about other people's experiences with crossover grading, whether they were in former PSA or BGS slabs. What grade did you get from CGC?

Also, a question for @PaulS.. Is it easy to damage cards when cracking PSA or BGS slabs during crossover grading? Just wondering if extracting the card from the slab may have accounted for it receiving a grade 1 full point lower than what PSA had assigned.

Thanks!

 

Edited by RoLaren
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don’t have a story, but I appreciate the boldness of your card selection 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello. 

Welcome to the boards! This kind of thing happens all the time through various opinions of grades. (In all hobbies)

First I would ask you to closely review and inspect the card to make sure it was not damaged.  ( more than likely not the case, but has happened) Hopefully you have great High Res Scans front and back to compare.  

Next is grading standards.  Each company has their own way/standard they use to determine grade and it is still just an opinion.  They are fallible.  

Also the next thing you see it all the time in the card threads (not only here , but almost anywhere) some companies are tougher than others to achieve top grades. There are many examples of people getting a PSA 10 , cracking it out and sending it to BGS and it getting a 9.5 or 9 ( sometimes even lower) Same when you send to CGC. They are fair in their opinion, but it is just that (an opinion) also why you see their 10's coveted they way they are. 

I will say that CGC can be tough when it comes to cards, but they are trying to get into that market,  and the top (10's etc) need to be consistent enough to instill confidence that they can command the Top pricing that goes with those.

Sure if I sent in an 8-9 I would at first be elated to see it come back a 10, but immediately after I would wonder why some of my others were not. Buyers who have the BIG $ would not be too happy to pay for a 8 in a 10 case. You get the point.

This is why you see so many keep cracking and sending a comic/card back , hoping for that grade bump. Sometimes they get it. Others well.. The big downside to this is each time you run the risk of actual damage that will bring the grade down. 

It is all a gamble, but given enough time the company with the better track record and consumer confidence will win. So for example ( I will use comics ) I would much rather own a 8.0 of any CGC book compared to a PGX 10 of the same book. 

Good luck with your submissions and cards!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrator

Oh no! That is unfortunate. While of course there is always the possibility of damage occurring when cracking out of any case (and a waiver is needed to submit for crossover), it is exceptionally rare as the people removing the cards from the holders do it all day every day. They are pros. I would chalk this one up to a difference in grading standards. 

 

Paul 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/5/2021 at 3:02 AM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Hello. 

Welcome to the boards! This kind of thing happens all the time through various opinions of grades. (In all hobbies)

First I would ask you to closely review and inspect the card to make sure it was not damaged.  ( more than likely not the case, but has happened) Hopefully you have great High Res Scans front and back to compare.  

Next is grading standards.  Each company has their own way/standard they use to determine grade and it is still just an opinion.  They are fallible.  

Also the next thing you see it all the time in the card threads (not only here , but almost anywhere) some companies are tougher than others to achieve top grades. There are many examples of people getting a PSA 10 , cracking it out and sending it to BGS and it getting a 9.5 or 9 ( sometimes even lower) Same when you send to CGC. They are fair in their opinion, but it is just that (an opinion) also why you see their 10's coveted they way they are. 

I will say that CGC can be tough when it comes to cards, but they are trying to get into that market,  and the top (10's etc) need to be consistent enough to instill confidence that they can command the Top pricing that goes with those.

Sure if I sent in an 8-9 I would at first be elated to see it come back a 10, but immediately after I would wonder why some of my others were not. Buyers who have the BIG $ would not be too happy to pay for a 8 in a 10 case. You get the point.

This is why you see so many keep cracking and sending a comic/card back , hoping for that grade bump. Sometimes they get it. Others well.. The big downside to this is each time you run the risk of actual damage that will bring the grade down. 

It is all a gamble, but given enough time the company with the better track record and consumer confidence will win. So for example ( I will use comics ) I would much rather own a 8.0 of any CGC book compared to a PGX 10 of the same book. 

Good luck with your submissions and cards!

Thank you for this detailed post. To make matters worse, I got the card back in the mail today, and it received a qualified grade. "Inked."

I am attaching scans. Maybe you all can see where it's inked. I can't... but maybe I'm blind.

Then again, whatever it is, PSA didn't catch it.

image.thumb.png.730eb50d158b69deaca268df5b2c1bdb.png

image.thumb.png.a43bf48bd1bcd7c7a48e850f71e84022.png

 

On 11/5/2021 at 8:44 AM, PaulS. said:

Oh no! That is unfortunate. While of course there is always the possibility of damage occurring when cracking out of any case (and a waiver is needed to submit for crossover), it is exceptionally rare as the people removing the cards from the holders do it all day every day. They are pros. I would chalk this one up to a difference in grading standards. 

 

Paul 

@PaulS. I'm sorry to say this Paul, but the edge dings you see across the top back and top back left corner of the card in the scan above did not exist when it was in its PSA slab. This card was pretty obviously mishandled when the grader at CGC cracked the PSA case.

I realize it was the risk I took when I submitted for crossover, but I did not expect my experience to be like this. I hope other people see this thread and learn from my experience so they don't make the same mistake I did. 

On 11/4/2021 at 10:53 PM, revat said:

I don’t have a story, but I appreciate the boldness of your card selection 

Well thank you. Haha. But I was an insufficiently_thoughtful_person for doing it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/6/2021 at 12:43 PM, RoLaren said:

Thank you for this detailed post. To make matters worse, I got the card back in the mail today, and it received a qualified grade. "Inked."

I am attaching scans. Maybe you all can see where it's inked. I can't... but maybe I'm blind.

Then again, whatever it is, PSA didn't catch it.

image.thumb.png.730eb50d158b69deaca268df5b2c1bdb.png

image.thumb.png.a43bf48bd1bcd7c7a48e850f71e84022.png

 

@PaulS. I'm sorry to say this Paul, but the edge dings you see across the top back and top back left corner of the card in the scan above did not exist when it was in its PSA slab. This card was pretty obviously mishandled when the grader at CGC cracked the PSA case.

I realize it was the risk I took when I submitted for crossover, but I did not expect my experience to be like this. I hope other people see this thread and learn from my experience so they don't make the same mistake I did. 

Well thank you. Haha. But I was an insufficiently_thoughtful_person for doing it.

You are welcome.  Sorry to hear about the damage.  A lot of times inking can be very difficult to detect.  Some almost imperceptible.  One of the tricks to seeing these, like color touch on a comic is to tilt the card at angles so light reflects and you can usually spot the gloss difference.  Another way is to use Black Lights as almost all colors have specific fluorescence and the slight differences become more contrast. Another problem with detecting them is once graded spots that were already hard to detect can become near impossible.  

Good luck!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/6/2021 at 6:51 PM, LuckyMouse said:

The Charizard is a beautiful card. Love those green labels. If you ever decide to sell/trade, I would be interested!

Okay noted, thank you for saying so. I agree, I think the green label actually looks really good and that the color contrast between it and this particular card is striking. I am definitely more upset about the damage that occurred to the top edge that caused this to cross over to an 8 than the qualified label.

Something else for everyone to note - it looks like CGC has not yet updated their Qualified Grade labels to correct the centering issue in the grade box, as my "8" is def off center. The label is also more of a solid green color, the way the Universal Grade label used to be more of a solid blue, before CGC put in the upgrade to correct the centering. Interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrator
On 11/4/2021 at 8:13 PM, RoLaren said:

Hey all.

I submitted my first card to CGC that was in a PSA slab. It was a Base Expansion Pack 1st edition holo Charizard, PSA 9.

It came back a CGC 8. lol

Needless to say, I took a bath on it.

I am genuinely curious to hear about other people's experiences with crossover grading, whether they were in former PSA or BGS slabs. What grade did you get from CGC?

Also, a question for @PaulS.. Is it easy to damage cards when cracking PSA or BGS slabs during crossover grading? Just wondering if extracting the card from the slab may have accounted for it receiving a grade 1 full point lower than what PSA had assigned.

Thanks!

 

I am sorry to hear that this card went down in grade, but our standards are simply different from other companies'. As for the damage, please note that before you are allowed to enter card information on a crossover, you must agree to this waiver which pops up. 

Waiver.JPG

 

In the future, I suggest simply opening the holder yourself so you are able to better inspect the card in person. No matter the grade or the qualifier, it is still an awesome card!

 

Thank you, 

 

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm just dumbfounded that someone with a PSA 9 anything would ever crossover to CGC, as PSA has the highest value of all graded pokemon per grade.  At the very least you should have specified a minimum grade of 9.5 before they cracked it (if you can, I know for PSA crossovers you can).  A CGC 8 is worth somewhere between a PSA 7 and 8!  And then they found out it was Inked, which PSA didn't notice.  Figure this crossover cost you $200-$300 in value compared to just leaving it a PSA 9.   A CGC 9.5 would have probably only netted you maybe $100 more in value.....  I'd think that only people with BGS and SGC, and other oddball slabs are crossing over to CGC, at least without a min grade requested.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/20/2021 at 9:13 PM, Rufuss C. Kingston said:

I'm just dumbfounded that someone with a PSA 9 anything would ever crossover to CGC, as PSA has the highest value of all graded pokemon per grade.  At the very least you should have specified a minimum grade of 9.5 before they cracked it (if you can, I know for PSA crossovers you can).  A CGC 8 is worth somewhere between a PSA 7 and 8!  And then they found out it was Inked, which PSA didn't notice.  Figure this crossover cost you $200-$300 in value compared to just leaving it a PSA 9.   A CGC 9.5 would have probably only netted you maybe $100 more in value.....  I'd think that only people with BGS and SGC, and other oddball slabs are crossing over to CGC, at least without a min grade requested.

I lived and I learned. It's not a mistake I will make again. I posted about it here with the hopes that others will read it and not make the same mistake. I won't be submitting any more cards to CGC, crossover or otherwise. I have just had too many bad experiences.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/21/2021 at 3:34 PM, RoLaren said:

I lived and I learned. It's not a mistake I will make again. I posted about it here with the hopes that others will read it and not make the same mistake. I won't be submitting any more cards to CGC, crossover or otherwise. I have just had too many bad experiences.

Well I don't understand why you wouldn't still submit raw/ungraded cards to CGC unless they are $500+ value cards worth submitting to PSA at $150 a pop.   You'll only be punishing yourself as now you have nowhere to send raw cards....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/21/2021 at 11:18 PM, Rufuss C. Kingston said:

Well I don't understand why you wouldn't still submit raw/ungraded cards to CGC unless they are $500+ value cards worth submitting to PSA at $150 a pop.   You'll only be punishing yourself as now you have nowhere to send raw cards....

I'm quitting the hobby soon as I get my last submission back. Can't even find product locally

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/21/2021 at 11:18 PM, Rufuss C. Kingston said:

Well I don't understand why you wouldn't still submit raw/ungraded cards to CGC unless they are $500+ value cards worth submitting to PSA at $150 a pop.   You'll only be punishing yourself as now you have nowhere to send raw cards....

When experiences are bad enough, and frequent enough, you quickly lose interest.

Maybe CGC will address their issues and get things sorted out in years to come. But I'm going to take a hiatus until I see evidence that there has been improvement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Guys! For those who are curious, someone did a test on all the newest/current grading companies compared to CGC. They cracked all the cases of previous cards graded by SGC, PSA, BGS, EXC. and sent them all to CGC. Obviously this was very expensive to this individual, but was worth it to the betterment of the hobby. I hope in the future that the market changes from buying the label to buying the card. I hope these help you all and the community. Pictures Attached:

(Obviously I know that these cards could have been damaged in the cracking of the cases, but consistency and time will only tell.)

FB_IMG_1632631546262.jpg

FB_IMG_1632631549456.jpg

FB_IMG_1632631553291.jpg

FB_IMG_1632631555769.jpg

FB_IMG_1632631558449.jpg

FB_IMG_1632631560954.jpg

FB_IMG_1632631563206.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow! I see it’s nearly impossible to get a CGC 10. I have a very nice sealed unopened Mewtwo JR promo card ready to be graded and was considering sending it to CGC to save some money as PSA is so expensive now, but I don’t want to lower my chances that much to get a 10. It’s a shame but the truth is that for now anything that is not psa graded has a much lower value. And to be fair, IMO PSA deserve their current status, the population tracking system they got is exceptional. 

19376D12-5AB5-48A7-8222-C5AADBE1F643.jpeg

Edited by franmotard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think there are a lot of factors for crossovers. 
1. How old was the psa cert, they clearly have tightened their grading standards for the most part.

2. How strong was the psa grade was it a weak 10 or strong 9? They have no half scale or a ton of cards would be psa 9.5’s. 
 

3. I also would venture that if you cracked a ton of early psa 10’s a good majority of then would come back as 9’s. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
1 1