Apparently my account is *still* blocked, and as a result I cannot send cards in for submission. So, they held my Sootball 9 hostage - and didn't provide me any information about it until I contacted them. Pretty terrible if you ask me.
That's just another of the growing reasons to not send stuff to PSA to be graded.
Since I collect sports cards too, I'm a member of a few Facebook groups for vintage sports. I see waaay too many people asking if they should grade their "NM" cards with dinged corners, paper loss in the edges, off center, etc. Are there really that many people out there that can't tell a NM card when they see it? For them, I guess sending their money to PSA keeps them honest.
I just finally bought the last 1971 Topps Football card I needed, the Terry Bradshaw RC for $160. When COVID hit, I decided to finish my childhood sets, and this card had a book value of $100-200 in the NM range. It's now up to $250-600, so I found one in the EX+ for a little less. If you want to see what PSA and grading has done to the hobby, just check eBay for 1971 Terry Bradshaw and sort by price + shipping highest first. You'll see a lot of ungraded cards that are nowhere near NM listed for over $1,000 with $4,200 being the highest. Would anyone seriously pay that for a card because you "think" it will get a 9 or 10 ?
IMHO grading has its place - to guarantee that something really valuable is genuine and not counterfeit, and it should place a "standard" of flawlessness. However, this has gone too far and has taken most of my fun out of what should be a hobby. I know that some of you like the register and compete to get the highest ranking. If that's your deal, then I'm fine with that, but when it starts to remove my fun by driving up prices, then it starts to affect me. That's just my 2-1/2 cents.