Factory flaw grading questions

General
1

Hi all! I’m an exclusively raw card collector, but I recently got the itch to open some of my sealed packs. So I opened about a dozen EX-series packs and 3 heavy 1st Edition Fossil packs. I’m going to submit some of my favorite cards I pulled to a grading company just to have them safely-encased. And even though I have zero intention of selling most (if not all) of these, I would obviously like to submit these to the companies that would result in the most optimal grades for the cards. This will be my first grading submission ever. I’ve cracked over 100 PSA 8s for my sets, so I’m very well familiar with what PSA 8s look like. But I’ve only cracked a handful of 9s, and I’ve never cracked a 10. And given that these are pack fresh cards, most should be in the 9-10 range, I believe.

Some of the cards I pulled are, as far as I can tell, nearly flawless. But some of the cards have factory damage straight out of the pack. I’m going to post detailed photos of a few cards that are questionable to me (as far as what they would grade). What, in your opinion, would these cards grade with both BGS and PSA? I hate to just do a “what will this grade” thread, but I just genuinely don’t know how these sorts of flaws are handled.

  1. As anyone that collects early EX-series reverse holos knows, it’s very nearly impossible to find them without scratches – even pack fresh. Remember, these are all cards I personally pulled this month. They can look very clean under normal lighting conditions, like this Pikachu I pulled last night:

But when you look under a direct light, there are some visible scratches on the card:

My guess would be that this would get either a PSA 8 or 9? The back is flawless, it’s just a couple of light scratches on the holo surface that can only be seen under a direct light. How would BGS deal with this – what would the surface grade be? Is the surface automatically going to be an 8 or something? Because, if so, I’m not submitting this. Is there a chance this could get a BGS 9.5 or would this basically max out at an 8.5 or 9?

  1. Here’s the back of a holo Team Aqua’s Manectric. I’ve looked at the holo very carefully under a loupe and a direct light and there are no perceptible flaws. The card does, however, have significant edgewear on the back (yes, straight out of the pack):


I’m assuming that this would max out at a PSA 8? Maybe a 9 given that the rest of the card is clean? How would BGS grade the edges? I’m assuming that this card would likely end up with a 7.5 or 8 for edges? Which would max out the grade at either an 8.5 or 9. Or are they more lenient because it’s clearly a rough factory edge rather than playwear? Is there any chance in hell that this could pull a 9 on edges – or is this going to never get BGS 9.5?

  1. Here’s a Team Magma’s Claydol I also pulled yesterday. It’s a great-looking card except it has prominent horizontal printlines on the bottom portion of the holo (they span most of the holo, lengthwise):

This one I’m heavily leaning towards BGS with, because this thing absolutely will not get a PSA 10 with these. Will this have a chance, given that it’s pretty damn perfect otherwise, at getting a BGS 9.5? Or are the printlines going to bring the surface down to an 8 or 8.5? If this isn’t going to have a chance at a BGS 9.5, I’ll probably just submit this to PSA for a 9 (hopefully). Might also try it with CGC, but IDK.

These are the main cards I have questions about right now. I also pulled a Swampert ex and I truly believe it to be PSA 10 quality. But I don’t want to give it PSA for a year, so I think I’m just going to submit it to BGS. Basically the question I’d have about this one is: how much less valuable is BGS 9.5 than a PSA 10, for this card? The card has a pop of 0 in BGS (there was one BGS 9, but I purchased it last week and replaced the one in my set with it lol). So there’s basically no relevant sales data.

Anway, people’s inputs on these questions/concerns would be very helpful! I’m sure that these sorts of threads get annoying for some people, but I truly don’t know how these flaws would be evaluated by PSA/BGS/CGC, and I want to submit these strategically. Thanks so much!

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If you join the PSA collectors club with a platinum or gold level membership, the voucher turnaround time is pretty quick. Even with their backlog, from the time I shipped out until I got them back was about a month and a half.

The back of that card looks consistent with a dull cut, leaving whiteness from the extra paper. It could still definitely get a 9. I’m not familiar with BGS or CGC.

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Wow, that’s pretty tempting. It looks like it costs $250 and you get 15 cards graded for free, which is very reasonable. Are all cards graded with that turnaround time or just the 15 free ones? Because I have literally thousands of ‘mint’ cards I’m considering submitting to PSA, but I was pretty turned off hearing about the 6-10 month turnaround time.

Re: the back of the Manectric. That’s good to hear! I’d still be curious about how BGS would handle it, though. Because it’s not going to get a PSA 10 obviously, but if it got a subgrade of 9 on edges, then it would have a solid shot at a 9.5. If this is a possibility, I’ll probably go with Beckett. And if it’s not, I’ll probably just go with PSA.

4

cgc seems pretty similar to bgs from my breif experience with them. I like the fast turnaround times too

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Agreed! It’s also much cheaper than BGS. Using the 20-day turnaround time for BGS, it would cost me $35 a card, whereas CGC is like $10 or $15. My only real concern is that CGC doesn’t really have a market for it. I don’t want to sell most of these cards, but I still would obviously prefer them to be worth more than less lol. At least with a BGS 9.5, I can know with a high degree of confidence that the value will be somewhere in between a PSA 9 and a PSA 10. But with CGC, I’ve seen some 9.5s sell for below 9 prices, which makes me a bit hesitant to bother with them. A BGS 9.5 is probably just straight up worth more than a CGC 9.5 right now.

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cgc may need more time to prove itself as a company

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The vouchers are economy level service so they are much faster than bulk, which is the service level for the quarterly specials around $8 dollars per card.

8

Then I think you just got lucky with turnaround time then lol. The website says 100+ business days. So probably 4+ months :slightly_frowning_face:.

EDIT: Nevermind, was reading the wrong thing. Says 45 day turnaround time, so you did still get lucky, but not unbelievably so. I might go with that for some of the cards. Would still very much like to get people’s inputs on the flaws I mentioned.

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No you are right, it says ticket submission/ regular Econ- 100+ business days. I still believe this is going to be much faster than bulk. Mine was significantly faster than the number of days estimated at the time. Hisoka submitted a week before me and his cards were there half as long as mine. There’s nothing you can do but just submit and wait. Or pay up for faster service.

Super secret technique: double underline Economy :wink:

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I’m seeing 45 days for economy for normal grading/slabbing and 100 days for grading + autograph authentication. But yes, that’s true :blush:.

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I’m getting these numbers from the chart on their submission center homepage.

www.psacard.com/onlinesubmissioncenter/

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I would send the Pikachu to PSA if that’s one of you favorites.
those reverse are so difficult to get perfect. Even it’s only an 8 it’s still a very nice card, but with a perfect back it could be a 9.

As for the Claydol, I wouldn’t sent it, but that’s me.

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Yeah, the Pikachu was a pretty great reverse holo to pull and I love the Sandstorm art :blush:. Re: the grading, that’s good to know – the back is 10 quality, so I would be super hopeful for a 9. An 8 would be a bit disappointing as a pack-fresh card, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Some of the other reverse holos I pulled do happen to have absolutely perfect surfaces, so I really hope I can pull at out at least a couple 10s (especially on the TMTA Squirtle reverse – which is currently pop 0 in PSA 10).

Re: the Claydol: would it have a shot at a 9 with print lines that significant? It’s otherwise absolutely pristine. If it would likely get a 9, I think I’d probably submit it. There’s only so many heavy TMTA packs I can afford to open lol, so I’m not sure I’ll ever find a better copy.

14

The pikachu should get a 9 since there are no other flaws. I’ve cracked tons of these cards and many 9s can have those types of holo scratches if the rest is flawless. It could get an 8 but based on what I’ve seen a 9 should be fair.

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Ok, awesome! It really is difficult to get these without scratches. But I believe I will soon have the first PSA 10 reverse holo TMTA Squirtle in the world – it’s truly pristine. Of the 8 or 9 early EX-series reverses I pulled, though, there are only two that I’m confident will get PSA 10s. I don’t know if there are any other cards in the hobby (besides, perhaps, specific cards like T17 or Neo Discovery Yanma) that are tougher to grade than these early EX-series reverse holos.

Thanks for your input!

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Search “cgc base” in here and compare to PSA counterparts: 130point.com/sales/

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I did a good amount of research earlier – and while the numbers aren’t terrible, they’re not particularly great. CGC 9.5s are often selling for less than PSA 9s, and CGC 10s aren’t commanding a premium over PSA 10. The prices are much closer when you get into into the 8 or 8.5 range, but I’m not intending on grading cards lower than PSA 10 quality. As it currently stands, the only real reason to submit to CGC is the short turnaround time. If CGC starts to gain traction, then I would be very excited to try grading with them. But right now, I think PSA is usually the best option in terms of making your cards the most valuable.

The only exception to this that might come up for me is for those cards that are basically guaranteed to get a PSA 9 and basically guaranteed to not get a PSA 10. For cards like that, I’m trying to gauge whether or not they will get a BGS 9.5. Because that would definitely be preferable to a PSA 9. But a BGS 9 is definitely less valuable/respected than a PSA 9, which is a risk associated with this, of course.

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Absolutely. For cards not named Charizard you are def getting a discount to psa. I think that is mostly due to potential buyers not knowing of any company besides PSA

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Re: your last point – no question about that. I’ve looked at scans of tons of CGC 9.5s and I can’t pinpoint any quality difference relative to PSA 10s. And I prefer several aspects of the CGC case – namely that it exhibits the edges of the card much more clearly than PSA cases (which often make it very tough to see whitening on the back edge).

I really don’t understand how PSA isn’t able to get their turnaround times for all service levels under one month. How long does it take to grade a card? 3 minutes? If the turnarounds times were less than a month, I would’ve submitted several thousand cards already. These hilariously long turnaround times are causing them to miss out on a ton of profit. I’m sure they’re doing just fine as it is, but I see absolutely no reason not to increase scale significantly. Whenever demand exceeds supply or the infrastructure for providing a service, companies scale accordingly. I see zero reason why PSA isn’t – the infrastructure they have in place is wildly incapable of dealing with the demand for the service they provide. Of course, I’m just armchair consulting, but they shouldhire an actual consultant or two and get their shit together. /end rant

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They can, and should, and just haven’t.

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