Converting GAIs to PSAs: Lessons Learned
Okay, I admit it. When PSA-graded baseball cards first started popping up on show dealer tables in the mid-1990s, I wasn’t a fan. I reasoned that PSA didn’t need to tell me what a card ranked on a condition scale of 1 to 10. My own eyes could do that. And besides, I wanted all my raw cards to fit nicely into nine-holder plastic sheets. A separate shoebox for PSA cards? No way.
Well, like most of you, I learned soon enough that when you’re collecting vintage baseball cards and want them to look as sharp as possible (within your budget) there will be times when you have to surrender to the need to buy a slabbed card.
In addition, as vintage baseball cards grew in value, having them graded by an independent company became an absolute necessity. Because these rising values led to “doctors” altering cards and then reselling them on the open market.
So I started buying PSA-graded cards, especially stars. On my budget, this meant buying PSA 7s (and an occasional 8 if the price was right). But then (gulp) I would crack them open so I could put them in my album. I know, not smart. By the way, wear eye protection when opening slabs because pieces of plastic will fly. YouTube videos on how to do this safely exist.
In the early 2000s, another grading company came onto the scene, Global Authentication Inc., or GAI. Doing some research on the internet, I learned that Steve Rocchi, a former PSA employee, started it. Mike Baker, another former PSAer, was GAI’s head of card grading.
Soon GAI-graded cards started appearing on those same dealer tables. And I bought some of them either because they were graded in a 7 or were a bit less expensive than a PSA 7 of the same card. Once I checked a slabbed card off of my want list, it went into a shoebox, where it ended up sitting for years.
But as we all know, things change. In the past couple of years I’ve gone through my Topps baseball card sets more thoroughly as I prepare to auction them off over the next decade or so. I discovered that altogether I had about 25 GAI-graded cards. What to do? Leave them in their slabs or crack them out and submit them to PSA?
I did my homework on the internet. One quote that caught my eye came from Net54baseball owner Leon Luckey, who said, “If you see a high-end card in a GAI holder, there’s a reason it is still in one.”
In addition, an auction house executive recently told me that GAI grew too quickly and ended up hiring people who (intentionally or unintentionally) put trimmed cards into slabs.
Whatever or whoever you believe, I concluded that if you’re going to auction a card (either alone or as part of a set), having it in a PSA slab will often get you more money than having it in a GAI slab. I’m sure there might be exceptions to this.
I had six (6) GAI-slabbed cards from my 1954 Topps baseball card set. I cracked them out and submitted them to PSA, along with a raw 1954 Aaron rookie that I purchased for $1300 in the early 1990s.
Here is how the conversion went:
1) #1 Ted Williams—GAI 6.5 to PSA 4.5
2) #50 Yogi Berra—GAI 7 to PSA 5
3) #52 Vic Power—GAI 8 to PSA 6
4) #86 Billy Herman—GAI 6.5 to PSA 6
5) #201 Al Kaline—GAI 7 to PSA 6
6) #250 Ted Williams—GAI 6 to PSA 4
The raw Aaron rookie was graded a PSA 4.
Obviously, GAI’s standards were looser that PSA’s. Why? I believe a lot of it can be summed up in one word: experience. PSA’s graders caught card defects that GAI’s graders had missed.
I’m glad I did this conversion simply because PSA is still around today. My advice to anyone with GAI-graded cards in their collections? Spend the money to convert to PSA (or SGC or Beckett, for that matter). Accept the results because no matter what you might say about any of the three current grading companies today, you have to admit that they have brand recognition, especially PSA. And that’s important when you’re trying to sell cards or sets.
What’s Mike Baker doing today? He’s chairman and CEO of MBA, a new service started last August that adds a silver, gold or black hologram to cards already slabbed by PSA, SGC and BGS. It’s called dual certification. The jury is still out as to whether this service will take off or sputter.
And what’s Steve Rocchi up to? In 2011 he founded Guaranteed Forensic Authenticators. When you Google his name you learn that he’s involved in some questionable autograph verification issues.
I’ll also share the mistake I made when I went from filling out PSA forms manually (with those multi-colored copies) to doing it all electronically on PSA’s website. PSA has multiple levels of service but I’ll focus on three of them most likely to be used by an average Joe like me.
First, there’s economy, which is $20 per card with a $499 maximum value. However, this service has been suspended. Then you have regular service, which is $50 per card with a $999 maximum declared value. Finally, there’s express service. It carries a $75 charge per card with a $2499 maximum declared value.
When I input my raw 1954 Aaron rookie card into the system, I had to declare its value. In essence PSA asked me to make an educated guess as to what grade this card would receive. I’m no professional grader so I chose $2499 or less. So then the PSA system automatically informed me that I had to pay the $75 express fee, even though I had no need to get the card back quickly.
Unfortunately for me, that also caused the other six cards I sent out to be graded to land at the $75 express level. So I ended up paying $525 for the seven cards. FYI, PSA received my shipment on September 17 and sent it back to me on September 25. So I did receive express service.
I wondered if inputting declared value on the form impacts the grade PSA gives a card. In other words, the higher the declared value I check off, the better the chance I will get a higher grade (within reason). It took me a while to get through to PSA’s customer service department (I left three messages), but once I did I was told by “Matt” that the graders don’t have access to the declared value I put into the system. That only makes sense. You know PSA wants to maintain its grading integrity.
So what lessons did I learn here? If you decide to declare a high value for one of your vintage baseball cards, send it into PSA as a one-off; don’t group it with other common cards from the same (or for that matter a different) set. If you choose express service, from my experience you’ll get it back pretty quickly. Since economy service is no longer available (and the only way to get a $10 per card value service is to join PSA’s Collectors Club), I recommend sticking with the $50 per card regular service. The big caveat here is you’ll have to wait months. And months. And…
Looking at the bigger picture, was it worth converting my GAIs to PSAs knowing it would cost me money and all of my GAIs dropped a half grade or more when converted to PSAs? A resounding yes. PSA is a brand that’s still around while GAI is long gone and has a taint to it. Some will argue that PSA has a taint to it too. But until it gets knocked off its throne (and I’ll probably be dead by then!) I’ll stick with it when auctioning off my cards and sets.