A friend and I recently sent some cards in to be graded. To the best of our judgment, and a buddy at our LCS, the cards appeared to be worthy of a high grade. Much to our dismay, BGS didn't think so. My question is this: How exactly does a card receive a grade of 9.5 or let alone a 10, without the card being shipped directly to you from the manufacturer (ie Upper Deck - redemption, etc...)? Or better yet, do they actually have grades on site at these companies to garde them before they're even packaged? Stranger things have happened...
From what I have seen recently, it looks like there is no way possible to ever pull a card out of a fresh pack, package it properly, and receive a good grade.
The great thing about BGS slabs is that the subgrades will point out the card's flaw so you can learn for next time.
And "pack fresh" isn't a guarantee of Gem Mint. "Pack Fresh" cards could have centering issues, print spots, refractor lines, dinged corners, and so on. But that's also what makes Gem Mint cards so nice.
I have sent close to 1000 cards to Beckett and it took me about the first 100 cards before I trained myself what to look for in MINT cards. Now I typically get 90% of all my cards sent to Beckett in at least 8.5 and better.
The difference between a NM-MT (an 8 ) card and a MINT (a 9) card is so very small, that most collectors do not even have the eye sight to see the flaws.
The easiest category to judge is centering (at least on cards that give a border). and being probably the more important category of the 4, you should train yourself on this first.
The other 3 are more complicated and difficult to see the flaws.
Don't be discouraged by the grades you get for your submission. Once you submit many or see many BGS/BVG graded cards, you will be able to tell what constitutes as a 9, 9.5, 10, etc.
BGS will show the subgrades, so you would be able to tell which area of the card was to blame for the low grade. If it is a vintage card (BVG), they don't show the subgrades (not anymore anyways) and a lot harder to tell why the card got so and so grade.
Things to look for in the future:
Centering - fairly easy to judge. See if the card is centered all around front and back. It is usually easy if the card has a border, if not look for text placement, logo placement, or just look at other cards of the same kind to see what is considered good centering.
Corners - usually easy too. The sharper the corner, the better. The only thing that gets hard is when you have 3 razor sharp corners and 1 corner has a ding, that is when beckett will lower the overall corner grade because of the one bad corner. Things to look for in corners that will lower the grade, dings (white spot), creases, roundness.
Surface - hold the card towards the light or shine some light on the card. You will be able to see surface marks that will lower the grade. Things to look for that can lower surface grades, factory print marks, refractor lines, finger prints/smudges, dents, sratches, dirt, stains, you get the picture.
Edges - how clean the edges are. Check for chipping, dents on the edge, fuzzyness (usually vintage cards), marks, smoothness.
Hope this helps.