Do you think liquid caused this damage?

General
1

So I got a PSA submission back last night and this is what I get

Something happened to this charmander during its stay at PSA resulting in the “skeleton key” shaped mark it’s got now. It was pack fresh, straight from the booster pack and into a penny sleeve. I’m beyond thorough when examining cards, whether it be examining to decide to grade or just evaluating the card in sorting. Theres no way this got by me, the mark is super obvious. So I dont know what happened at PSA that would have caused this. It protrudes from the card. But it is not indented on the back. In fact you cant see anything from the back

The only thing I can think of is a bigger upper and smaller beneath the bigger round droplets of liquid or just one droplet of water in that shape sat on the card for some time? Does anyone know if employees are aloud to have drinks with them during the grading process? Has anyone ever experimented with subjecting cards to liquids? But I must say I’m reeeeealll glad this didn’t happen to an expensive card!

2

That doesn’t look like water damage but like it was embossed. So I’m guessing it was caused by pressure rather than liquid. On an unrelated note it reminded me of the Daisen Kofun in Osaka, Japan.

3

The PSA grader needed something to put his hot cup of coffee on.

4

Agreed. Looks to me like some odd looking object was applied directly to the card for some reason. Looks like a key hole, lol. :ninja:

1 Like
5

Aren’t embossments indented though, not protrudements?

6

They can be both, depends on how you flip the material.

7

I will bet that the mark was left by the cap of a ball point pen. I’ve seen it happen before.

8

It sucks you got a PSA 6 grade instead of a PSA 9/10 but at least it’s a POP 1!

9

I’m not sure how a pen cap would be able to make the surface of the card protrude

10

That’s a way to look at I guess hhaaha