Grade Prep & Evaluation

Raw Card Evaluation

The most frequently requested service we provide is a pre-grading card prep and evaluation. Due to today's excessive cost of grading, this service frequently saves customers money by eliminating cards from your submission that won't grade well. Unlike bulk submitters who will take any card sent to them and submit them blindly, we offer a thorough evaluation process to set expectations prior to submitting your cards.

For $7 per card, we perform a thorough wipe of your card and prep it for grading by providing a new sleeve and card saver. During this process we measure your cards centering, and under lighted magnification we inspect your cards surface, edges and corners. Based on our findings of all four grading sub-categories (centering, edges, surface, and corners) we provide you with our opinion of how we feel the card will do in grading and make a recommendation of what we'd do with each card if it were our own. After our inspection, our findings are sent to the client for them to review. They can then ultimately make a final decision to grade a card, where to grade a card, or to not grade a card at all. In the event that a card is to be kept raw and not graded, it's simply sent back at no additional charge.

Because we grade so frequently to all four major grading companies (BGS, PSA, SGC) we have an understanding of what specific card characteristics each company typically grades the hardest and subsequently which they grade the most lenient. Your evaluation will inform you if your card is likely to gem, what grade we feel it will get, and where would we send it if it was mine to the highest grade and/or best ROI. That may also include a recommendation of not grading it and keeping it raw.

To begin the process for a card evaluation, click the link here, enter your information, grading preference, card information and for each card elect for raw card evaluation. This will waive the cost of grading and only charge for the evaluation. Use the link to send your payment for the evaluation, print your QR code and carefully package your collectables. Be sure to include the QR code in your package and send it to our secure PO Box address. You will be contacted the day your cards arrive and shortly thereafter with the results of our evaluation process.

Slabbed Card Evaluation

We also perform thorough evaluation of already graded (slabbed) cards with the purpose of cracking it out and re-submitting for a better grade. For a $20 fee we'll perform the same thorough evaluation we offer for raw cards but through the existing plastic slab. Afterwards we will provide our opinion on the pros and cons of either cracking out the card from the existing slab or possibly sending in the graded card as a crossover (meaning the grading company will grade the card through the slab and only remove it if it achieves the minimum grade we request).

Oftentimes a grading increase of even a half a point or more can offer large premiums when selling a card. We'll evaluate the card through the slab and give you our best judgement on if it would do better being re-graded or graded by another company. We do not crack any slabs without confirming all details with you the client. We will offer an opinion of what we'd do, which also can include our recommendation to leave it slabbed as is (risk isn't worth the reward, or card appears to be graded accurately or even graded lenient compared to what we see). But if we feel a card was graded harshly, or can do better at another grading company we will recommend a crack out of the card for client once their approval is given. Please note the $20 fee includes the evaluation but covers the crack out as well in the event the client gives the go-ahead.

To begin the process for a slabbed card evaluation, click the link here, enter your information, grading preference, card information and for each card elect for slabbed card evaluation. This will waive the cost of grading and only charge for the evaluation. Use the link to send your payment for the evaluation, print your QR code and carefully package your collectables. Be sure to include the QR code in your package and send it to our secure PO Box address. You will be contacted the day your cards arrive and shortly thereafter with the results of our evaluation process.

NOTE: if you are shipping high value cards and want to take insurance on them, please email info@gmsubs.com to request pricing on an insured label under our policy from UPS.

Please note, Gem Mint Submissions is not a card grader. While our review process does offer an evaluation, we DO NOT guarantee any specific grades. The grade your card achieves is solely based on what human receives your card, on what specific day, and what mood said human is in at the time. Our review process is to HELP avoid non-gem mint grades, but we CANNOT guarantee any results due to human factors involved at submission companies.