Trimmed & Service Unavailable. 1 1

[Brent Dorner]

I sent in a bunch of 1976 football, I am seeing videos on YT of grade reveals and a lot of people are getting card back marked trimmed or service unavailable mostly on cards 25 years or older. They claimed you had a flaw in your system that was kicking these cards out.... can you fill us in about seeing a problem with older cards being kicked back? I am a bit worried that many of my cards will not be graded. If they are not graded am I charged for them? Thank you for any info you can provide. 

[Matt G]

CSG will be able to encapsulate cards such as this one as Authentic Altered in the near future. Watch for an announcement on the website and through social media.

[Andy Gardecki]

20 hours ago, Brent Dorner said:

I sent in a bunch of 1976 football, I am seeing videos on YT of grade reveals and a lot of people are getting card back marked trimmed or service unavailable mostly on cards 25 years or older. They claimed you had a flaw in your system that was kicking these cards out.... can you fill us in about seeing a problem with older cards being kicked back? I am a bit worried that many of my cards will not be graded. If they are not graded am I charged for them? Thank you for any info you can provide. 

I sent in 5 cards, got 2 graded, an 84-85 OPC hockey card was labelled as SU (Service Unavailable due to it not fitting in the holder) and 2 were EV (evidence of trimming/alteration).  Those two were a 96-97 Bowman's Best that I pulled back then and has been in plastic since and a 2000 Bowman Brady that I just found in a box of Bowman that I had opened all the packs, but not pulled the Brady cards.  It was just sitting in an opened pack in the original box.  I was sending it in to compare the grading to what PSA gave me on another one.  No question that their system of finding altered cards doesn't work.  I hope they fix this soon because the two cards that got graded are amazing looking.  

[Brent Dorner]

did you get charged for the ones they didn't grade? 

[Brent Dorner]

2 minutes ago, Andy Gardecki said:

I sent in 5 cards, got 2 graded, an 84-85 OPC hockey card was labelled as SU (Service Unavailable due to it not fitting in the holder) and 2 were EV (evidence of trimming/alteration).  Those two were a 96-97 Bowman's Best that I pulled back then and has been in plastic since and a 2000 Bowman Brady that I just found in a box of Bowman that I had opened all the packs, but not pulled the Brady cards.  It was just sitting in an opened pack in the original box.  I was sending it in to compare the grading to what PSA gave me on another one.  No question that their system of finding altered cards doesn't work.  I hope they fix this soon because the two cards that got graded are amazing looking.  

Wow on the trio, nice card. 

[Andy Gardecki]

1 minute ago, Brent Dorner said:

did you get charged for the ones they didn't grade? 

I got charged on the two EV cards, but my money back on the SU.  I feel bad about the SU (it was a Gretzky) because those 84-85 OPC cards are notoriously rough cut and this one was actually not bad at all.  PSA grades them all the time, but I'm cool if CSG doesn't think they can holder them without causing damage.  The two EV cards were pretty much as nice looking as the two I got graded.  Small sample of just 5 cards, but I'm glad I didn't send in 50 and find out that 40% would be rejected with no refunds.

[PunsRTonsOfFun]

I would hope CSG is keeping an eye on the rate of cards receiving an altered designation and is able to adjust their technology should excessive or outlier rates be observed.

[Andy Gardecki]

1 hour ago, PunsRTonsOfFun said:

I would hope CSG is keeping an eye on the rate of cards receiving an altered designation and is able to adjust their technology should excessive or outlier rates be observed.

I hope so too.  I really want to send in a much larger order than my first one, but I'm not willing to accept losing 20-40% of my fees on ungraded cards that some kind of computer mistakenly identified as trimmed.  I don't know much about how a (human) grader does his job, but I took my "trimmed" card and matched it up against 4 other identical ones and I can't see a single difference in size, edge cut, color, or anything else that would make me question things.  It might slow down the incredible fast times on their grading, but they really need to get some humans looking closer at the flagged cards.

[PunsRTonsOfFun]

5 minutes ago, Andy Gardecki said:

I hope so too.  I really want to send in a much larger order than my first one, but I'm not willing to accept losing 20-40% of my fees on ungraded cards that some kind of computer mistakenly identified as trimmed.  I don't know much about how a (human) grader does his job, but I took my "trimmed" card and matched it up against 4 other identical ones and I can't see a single difference in size, edge cut, color, or anything else that would make me question things.  It might slow down the incredible fast times on their grading, but they really need to get some humans looking closer at the flagged cards.

Yeah...I'm sending a CSG order in as soon as I receive my shipping kit from the CCG Store. Every card I'm submitting was pulled from a pack by me. If a single card is returned ungraded, I won't use the service again.

[Andy Gardecki]

45 minutes ago, PunsRTonsOfFun said:

Yeah...I'm sending a CSG order in as soon as I receive my shipping kit from the CCG Store. Every card I'm submitting was pulled from a pack by me. If a single card is returned ungraded, I won't use the service again.

On the plus side, the shipping kit is really nice. The card holders are great and if you want to buy more the price is very good.  The penny sleeves are very cool. They have a lip to them so you can use its to extract the card from a holder without needing to dig a finger into it.  Great idea.

As for your submission, good luck.  If you only submit cards from the past few years then it seems like most of them get graded, but if you want to go back 15-20 years or more then it's going to be a crapshoot.  Brent mentioned YouTube videos at the top of this thread so I started watching the and it's incredible.  Saw a really reputable guy get a pile of raws back on his submission including ARod rookies and Griffey rookies.  Really hard to figure why they were flagged.

[Brent Dorner]

1 hour ago, Andy Gardecki said:

On the plus side, the shipping kit is really nice. The card holders are great and if you want to buy more the price is very good.  The penny sleeves are very cool. They have a lip to them so you can use its to extract the card from a holder without needing to dig a finger into it.  Great idea.

As for your submission, good luck.  If you only submit cards from the past few years then it seems like most of them get graded, but if you want to go back 15-20 years or more then it's going to be a crapshoot.  Brent mentioned YouTube videos at the top of this thread so I started watching the and it's incredible.  Saw a really reputable guy get a pile of raws back on his submission including ARod rookies and Griffey rookies.  Really hard to figure why they were flagged.

the video also mentioned they had already been graded but they cracked the case and now they got tossed out as trimmed

[kypackman]

On 3/25/2021 at 4:10 PM, Brent Dorner said:

I sent in a bunch of 1976 football, I am seeing videos on YT of grade reveals and a lot of people are getting card back marked trimmed or service unavailable mostly on cards 25 years or older. They claimed you had a flaw in your system that was kicking these cards out.... can you fill us in about seeing a problem with older cards being kicked back? I am a bit worried that many of my cards will not be graded. If they are not graded am I charged for them? Thank you for any info you can provide. 

I had a similar issue.   I sent in my 86-87 Fleer Jordan rookie I have had since 1987.   It was sent back as EV (altered or trimmed).   I have had this card for 33 years - it has not been trimmed. It has the exact same dimensions as every other 86-87 Fleer card.  I was charged for grading and shipping as if it was a $50K card.   No explanations on why the graders thought it was trimmed.   Unlike CGC you do not get grader notes.  Even after calling and speaking to a supervisor/manager they could not provide any information on why they felt it was trimmed.  No notes, no explanations buy thanks for the money.   For a card like that you deserve some kind of notes or explanation on why the grader thought it was trimmed.  

[CardHero]

54 minutes ago, kypackman said:

I had a similar issue.   I sent in my 86-87 Fleer Jordan rookie I have had since 1987.   It was sent back as EV (altered or trimmed).   I have had this card for 33 years - it has not been trimmed. It has the exact same dimensions as every other 86-87 Fleer card.  I was charged for grading and shipping as if it was a $50K card.   No explanations on why the graders thought it was trimmed.   Unlike CGC you do not get grader notes.  Even after calling and speaking to a supervisor/manager they could not provide any information on why they felt it was trimmed.  No notes, no explanations buy thanks for the money.   For a card like that you deserve some kind of notes or explanation on why the grader thought it was trimmed.  

That's kind of bad they wouldn't even elaborate on it. Did you store the card in any way that may have flattened or warped the card, like a screw down holder that didn't have a recessed area for the card?  That can sometimes cause an EV Altered I believe.  How was it kept?

[ItismeH]

3 hours ago, kypackman said:

I had a similar issue.   I sent in my 86-87 Fleer Jordan rookie I have had since 1987.   It was sent back as EV (altered or trimmed).   I have had this card for 33 years - it has not been trimmed. It has the exact same dimensions as every other 86-87 Fleer card.  I was charged for grading and shipping as if it was a $50K card.   No explanations on why the graders thought it was trimmed.   Unlike CGC you do not get grader notes.  Even after calling and speaking to a supervisor/manager they could not provide any information on why they felt it was trimmed.  No notes, no explanations buy thanks for the money.   For a card like that you deserve some kind of notes or explanation on why the grader thought it was trimmed.  

I'm in the same boat. Same card, same issue. Go look up my post here in this forum.

[kypackman]

19 hours ago, CardHero said:

That's kind of bad they wouldn't even elaborate on it. Did you store the card in any way that may have flattened or warped the card, like a screw down holder that didn't have a recessed area for the card?  That can sometimes cause an EV Altered I believe.  How was it kept?

That is interesting, I have never heard that.   I did have it in a soft sleeve inside a screw down holder for many years.   I guess I am just going to send it to another grading service.  It certainly has me second guessing sending my other 60's - 80's cards to CSG.