Although I want to approach this with an abundance of caution, it seems to be well established that PSA is at least a little tougher with their grading standards on vintage. Even Scott went out on a limb to say so and he always airs on the side of caution with those sort of statements.
Anyway, do we have a rough estimate of a cert number range when people started noticing this? My thought process is that vintage 9s after a certain date are clearly great buys. I’ve been priced out of a lot of 10s this year so I’m looking into 9s for certain cards. Also, if we ever get to a point where PSA decides to do an internal review of this issue, those strong 9s could be legitimate candidates for regrades. Thanks in advance!
Well no shit. I figured I wouldn’t state the obvious. We are buying cards in a world with some below average pictures, lower res listing images, and a scuffed cases. Buying with a little extra information doesn’t hurt.
Problem 1 with this is that cert discourse™ has been happening for years and the goalposts move every time. If you asked people in 2020, they’d say 4 certs are the harshest and best grades. In 2023 it was 7 and 8 certs. 2024 it was 10 certs. Now it’s 14 certs. There will always be a “new” cert and previously “new” certs will become old.
Problem 2 is that even if we accept that PSA is grading vintage harsher “now” and didn’t grade vintage as harsh “then,” that has little no impact on the individual card that you are purchasing. PSA misgrades cards all the time, both overgrading and undergrading. Everyone didn’t submit shit condition cards to PSA prior to September 15 2020 and then shift over to sending great condition cards on September 16 2020.
I’m saying they’re just more inconsistent now. I think you have a video on this topic.
But six to seven certs were during the time PSA was having problems with grading volume and at the time a lot of people complaining that their cards were getting eights when they were used to getting nines.
My personal experience is buying a lot of these grades often lead to increases if you send it to CGC or BGS, or even back to PSA.
Now I just see a lot of people complaining that their card grades are all over the place.
Just anecdotal information of course. Take it how you will.
Thank you. Thats basically all I was asking. I didn’t want to open a can of worms about PSA grading standards through multiple decades. The question for me is, “If we generally accept PSA is harsher on vintage the past 1-2 years, roughly what cert number is that attached to?” If I’m buying into this market, It doesn’t hurt to do so with some extra knowledge. We all have 10s in our collection that we know probably wouldn’t hit 10s today.
Yup, I would definitely agree that inconsistency characterizes the current PSA grading environment. Some of my submissions have 85%+ 10 rates while others are 50% or lower. More importantly, standards for centering, edgewear/corner dings, scratches and dents seem to be highly variable. Within-grader variance seems to be way higher than PSA’s overall application of their standards over time.
Anecdotally I have many 6-7 cert cards I consider to be overgraded, but as noted overgraded or undergraded cards happen all the time. Again, it just goes to show that it’s important to consider each card individually.
As you mention, the clearest delineation of a change in grading standards that we have is the old CGC blue label pre-pop report standards to the new ones, especially once CGC transitioned to the Gem 10/Pristine 10 split. Anything that’s like 8.5 or above in an old CGC case is likely to be quite strong.
Literally. I’d happily “downgrade” my certs to older certs for some of my nicest cards since it makes card-cleaning much less likely. Especially for things like vintage high-grade stuff, or any of the “super-rare” crystals/goldstars/shinings I might consider buying, old certs are a big priority. The fact they are sometimes cheaper is a big plus I guess lol.
