This isn’t just 1 or 2 people noticing PSA standards on Gem Mint cards have been noticeably lower lately. A lot of people are saying the same thing which leads me to believe that either standards have dropped slightly, they’re not spending as much time looking at the cards, or they just have new people grading who aren’t picking up on as many errors as many the old people did. I’ve seen tons of examples now where newly graded PSA 10 cards have noticeable wear on the back, scratches, are pretty OC, etc. I think myself and many others have noticed this trend happening probably in the past 3-4 months or so.
A set being “notoriously hard to grade in the past” doesn’t mean anything other than proving our point that there’s increased volume and thus, the grading scale will naturally move. Sample size matters; the more cards, the more variance.
And, with all due respect, you receiving cards in what YOU perceive to be in a 9 condition that got a 10 and vice versa also doesn’t mean anything because you’re admitting that your opinion doesn’t matter when you are voluntarily having a 3rd party grade your cards…and in that regard, regardless of what we all think and see with cards we get back, whether it’s a 9 or 10 doesn’t really matter because the card was graded with a level of leeway/imperfection in mind to the best of that grader’s ability at the time. If you don’t trust a 9 that got a 10 or a 10 that got a 9 to a fault then you’re basically relying on your opinion over PSAs…in that case, why pay to have cards graded at all? You are clearly disagreeing/disapproving of their system at that point.
Like smpratte stated, there always will be soft + strict grades, and that has never changed; only the people being vocal about it have.
At the end of the day, we are still going to pay a lot of money for PSA 10 cards because that is what most of us collect. Will i shift my collection to BGS instead? Nope, the majority of my collection is still going to be graded by PSA and i think most people here would agree. If there are doubts about PSA in grading Pokemon cards, there is always BGS 
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In psychology there’s a thing where repetition makes a fact seem more true, regardless of whether it is or not.
Untill someone can provide some non anecdotal evidence I won’t believe a single person. Otherwise we can use @gottaketchumall’s work to prove that the standards haven’t changed. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f5Ne3a9XNDX4JAdkowcpuVZYXVTbCtHQpt8g2m3HNr0/edit#gid=0
If you look at the link you can see what percentages of 10s to 9s have been assigned by set over the years. You’ll notice the percentages stay pretty consistant.
If you don’t want to believe that just read this: PSA’s standards haven’t changed. PSA’s standards haven’t changed. PSA’s standards haven’t changed. PSA’s standards haven’t changed.
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Buy the card not the grade
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Buy the grade, not the card.
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Has anyone ever thought of the possibility that perhaps the circulation of bad 10’s has increased opposed to lower standards for recently graded?
What if all good 10’s sticked in collections, and the lesser one’s keep ending up for sale for that simple reason?
Guy 1 grades card: gem mint 10 notices a few holo scratches psa missed: yuck he says, puts it up for sale.
Guy 2 buys said card convinced by the photos it looks like a nice 10, on arrival he notices the mess psa missed and puts it up for sale again, cycle repeats.
Lots of pokemon is being graded currently, more than ever, every collector is doing it.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if that was spot on. The good 10s are being kept and the crap ones are quick to hit ebay, creating the illusion that PSA are giving out easy 10s.
As far as “buy the card not the grade” is concerned… the grade needs to mean something though, otherwise what is the point of grading at all. We don’t have the opportunity to hold and examine all these cards in person and pictures/scans only go so far. “Buy the card not the grade” seems almost like a cop out to relieve PSA of any responsibility. There needs to be conformity between graders or put a unique grader ID on every slab so we know if it was graded by easy rider or the trunchbull.
I was gonna add “the point of grading bit” to my initial post but felt like it was redundant, but the point would be “business”. And in that case the grade is al that matters; as soon as it leaves the door it’s out of sight out of mind.
Also buy the card not the grade flat out doesn’t work with every seller, and still has that risk involved, so many people on ebay are very uncooperative to the point where it’s just a waste of time.
Just like how alot of buyers on ebay are a waste of time
Don’t get me wrong i always try to get the most information i can before i buy a card, unless it’s from someone i trust.
But this whole debate is an endless cycle that will never end. But yeah i agree with you.
The moral of the story is: life is a bitch.
But sometimes you get bitches and then it’s all good.
I see why the gold label is better now. I consede
My recent submission of 15 cards got 14/15 PSA 10. I would say most of them were weak 9s at best. I felt the same way.
That is a pretty disingenuous way to try to represent what I said. I gave an example of an experience I had, I could have expanded on how a fair amount of traders have noticed similar things from PSA in the last couple months. Plasma Storm SR Zard and Stoise are cards that has been out for 5 years and heavily graded. They have seen POP 10s go way up in just the last couple months. If you would like to believe all those GEMs have just been waiting to get graded then that is your opinion, my opinion is that PSA has loosened their belt to some extent when it comes to handing out GEMs when it comes to Pokemon, I cannot speak on other PSA grades outside of that. The pop on an already valuable card doesn’t just double after being out for 5 years. Scott even said in one of his videos that he sent a ton of Plasma Storm Zards to PSA and was largely unsuccessful… I saw a submission with 3 GEMs of that card last week.
I see that there are two camps in this debate. One thinks PSA has been a little lax on the GEMs lately, the other thinks PSA can do no wrong. The chances of either side being swayed are slim.
Just…no. Literally no one “defending” PSA has ever said that they can “do no wrong.” This is par for the course…people get 9s? Be vocal about how they deserved 10s. People get 10s? Be vocal that PSA is too lenient because they can’t see the POPs of their beloved “rare” cards go too high or they can’t make a profit. Seriously, wtf?
Correlation in this instance (perceived higher returns of PSA 10s) does not imply causation (that grading standards have lowered). Go re-read what smpratte posted a page back…that literally should have ended this whole thread, but his points seem to go over people’s heads still in the, “PSA has been a little lax on the GEMs lately” camp.
For what it’s worth, if there is anything going on at PSA, then it does not seem to be a company-wide directive, but rather something that is at the discretion of the grader. This could arguably be even worse though.
Though on most of my cards that have graded lower than expected I usually do end up finding something that justifies it, but on the other hand on the not-so-minty cards that end up getting a 10 I need to live with things like the front looks absolutely perfect, even though the back has a defect more than I would’ve hoped for if it got a 10.
In my opinion it is something that may hurt the market though, as this causes a lot of friction between sellers and buyers that do not agree with a grade. Disagreeing with professional graders because you think your card is better than the grade is pretty disingenuous, but disagreeing because you think the card was graded too high sounds to me like an indication that something is off.
People disagreeing that their cards got a 10 when it “should have gotten a 9” is NOT an indication that something is “off” at all…it’s an indication that they have cards that received 9s and, upon comparison to the 10s, are unable to determine on their own what the difference was or have strong feelings that the cards(s) should have gone the other way.
And if that’s the case, that people are going to compare their own cards to other cards that got similar grades and then decide for themselves that one grade was more/less deserving than the other, then why use PSA at all?
Again, these are human beings grading the cards, and their methods aren’t flawless (whether it’s PSA, BGS or CGC in comics, etc). But more often than not they get it right and they follow stricter guidelines than we would, and that’s why we pay for the grades. Disagreeing with the grades because you have an opinion on it vs. something else you subjectively compared it to makes absolutely no sense if you’re already relying on a 3rd party for that very opinion.
Go take advantage of their re-grade service, crack the card open and re-send, etc., or move over to BGS and be subjected to the same imperfect grading mechanisms if you question PSA’s results so strongly that it’s affecting your view of the hobby. We already have had some of the largest submitters in the whole hobby chime in on this with examples and data to prove that PSA hasn’t changed their grading standards yet people still refuse to accept it. There will never come a day when any grading service isn’t going to have soft/strict grades…that leeway is inherent when it comes to relying on a human being to be the one to come up with the ultimate opinion on something.
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Just based on that picture, that tiny dot wouldn’t keep the card from being a 10.
It has the two slight imperfections on the corners, the third pic shows a tad bit of edgewear at the top of the card, really hard to get in focus. I was expecting the card to get an 8 or 9. It was given a 10 and I was pretty blown away.
Two camps and one camp believes “PSA can do no wrong”? Who exactly is in that camp that believes/said/wrote that “PSA can do no wrong”?
And imperfections are within their guidelines so long as it doesn’t take away from the appeal of the card IN PSA’s OPINION.
If the card doesn’t appeal to YOU then there is nothing to discuss because PSA wasn’t grading it in accordance with what YOU would deem a 10. They graded it based on their own standards so that is what the card deserved, whether you agree or not and whether it “should have been a 9” or a “weak 10” or whatever.
The fact that those imperfections you mention aren’t enough to stop me from buying that very card if it was something I wanted in a 10 should tell you that our own opinions don’t matter. If you don’t agree with the grade then sell it or re-grade it, but quit trying to justify that it doesn’t deserve the grade based on what YOU see. We are automatically admitting our opinions don’t mean squat and that regardless of what we perceive we aren’t professional graders, which is why we are paying PSA for their opinion.
Lmao PSA should hire you for PR. My opinion on what the card should be graded is in accordance with their grading policy and if you look at the grading policy then look at the card it does not line up with being a 10. You’re coming at me for essentially not agreeing with PSA even though I paid them to grade it, correct? This discussion is not singularly about my card being a super weak 10, it is about PSA grading of Pokemon cards having changed over the last little bit. I, as well as many others, have noticed this. I didn’t make this thread, I just replied with my experience and opinion on the matter, ya know, kinda like a forum of sorts… If my opinion doesn’t matter then why are you getting so worked up?