Ryan Barone (@ballcardgenius, Card Expert) is a lifelong member of the hobby. He has been quoted in PSA Magazine, and his content has regularly been mentioned in “Quick Rips” (the Topps RIPPED Newsletter) and across other hobby publications. hello@ballcardgenius.com; Last Time Ago LLC dba Ballcard Genius.
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You’ve finally worked up the courage to grade a card, and now you’re stuck trying to figure out which service level is best. Aside from price and turnaround time – which are pretty self-explanatory – the term “declared value” is staring you in the face.
Declared Value
You aren’t charged for cards up front upon submission because when submitting, you may declare a lesser value than what the card actually turns out to be worth. In which case, say you submit at the regular service level, but the card’s value exceeds that $1,499 threshold, you may be upcharged to a higher service level.
Knowing that, the cost to grade a card is a function of the declared value. Meaning, let’s say the DV on a card is about $2,500, I can’t grade it at the Value Plus or Regular service levels because it exceeds the stated maximum value.
@ballcardgenius Replying to @catmanjoe720 #greenscreen great question. Here is my understanding of upcharges and why when it happens is both good and bad.
♬ original sound – ballcardgenius
That leaves me with the Express service level, which costs $129 for a 5-business day turnaround, and is for cards with declared values up to $2,500. I go through the process of submitting my order, package up the card for shipping, and send it on its way to PSA.
Upcharge
After some time, I get an email from PSA stating that, surprise! Even though you submitted this card for grading at the Express level with a declared value of $2,500, we think this card is actually a PSA 9, and thus has a declared value of closer to $12,000!
Wow, great news, right?
Well, mostly. The downside is, with that increased declared value, the card no longer qualifies for the Express service level ($2,500 declared value), nor does it even qualify for the Super Express service level ($5,000 declared value). Instead, it is now considered “Premium 1” and will cost $799 to grade.
To clarify, there’s nothing different about how PSA grades the card now that it’s under the Premium umbrella service level versus the Super Express, but the real reason they have you have to bump up your card’s declared value is for insurance purposes. Meaning, just in case something happens to that card while it’s in PSA’s possession – or when they ship it – the card can be covered for its true value and not only the $5,000 that the I, in this example, said the card was worth when I sent it to PSA.
Again, on one hand, this is pretty much good news. Yes, you have to pay more for the card to get graded, but that card would not have that realized value if PSA did not grade it as a PSA 9, and so you’re getting about $10,000 more out of it in terms of value now that it is in fact a PSA 9 versus a PSA 8.
Now what?
All of that said, what seems to get people most fired up is what happens when the reserve happens. That is, let’s say you declare a value of $15,000 for a card thinking it’s going to be a PSA 9, and it ends up a PSA 8. Do you get refunded the difference between the Premium tier and the Super Express level? No, you don’t.
This hurts, and because of it, I definitely understand people not only being frustrated about this but confused by upcharges and declared values. Unfortunately, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. PSA is going to keep operating this way because they are still the number one grading option by a long shot, and if you want max value for your card, you’re usually going to go with their services.
