By now we all know of English Neo Genesis and its print lines and the Masaki Promos with their indents.
Are there any other cards you know of that are really hard to grade (e.g. due to production issues or packaging) but rarely come up in discussions? What are the reasons for their bad condition and do you have first hand experience in opening/grading them?
Let’s kick it off with the glossy cards among the “CD Promos”. The famous starter evolutions are pretty easy grade (Zard has over 5000 PSA 10s!), but their glossy sidekicks have a really strange chipping issue going on on their backside. I’ve noticed this not only with my own cards but also most ebay listings. Never seen this on any other cards beside the CD Promos.
Oh, and the centering is also unfavorable more often than not. This Super-Energy-Retrievel is currently a pop 12 in PSA 10.
Here comes something a little more obscure:
These two come from the Intro Pack Neo. Both of them are placed as the last cards of their respective half decks, with basically no protection and lots of room to wiggle around. I opened a pretty minty looking Intro Pack myself, and this is what their backs look like freshly pulled.
Metal Energy:
Feraligatr:
Coincidentally this is also the only Japanese holo I’ve ever seen with a printline:
The pops for these 20 year old JAPANESE (easy to grade ) cards speak for themselves. Respectable four 10s for the Feraligatr… but also a whopping ten 8s. ZERO 10s for the Metal Energy.
Enough of my rant, what obscure hard-to-grade cards grind YOUR gears?
I would say worlds staff cards qualify as difficult to grade. I’ve graded many and have received mostly 8s and 9s. Grading a PSA 9 worlds staff card gives me the equivalent feeling of grading a PSA 10 set card.
I believe Scott has mentioned that since these are handed out to staff at the tournament, they’re more likely to sustain minor knicks and whitening.
Andrew beat me to it! Worlds cards are very difficult to grade. Some still don’t have Psa 10 examples.
Others are coro coro cards. Most are difficult; centering issues, whitening and peeling. Carddass 1997 cards as well; thinner card stock, chip very easily.
Great topic idea btw. I’ll try and add more when I get to a computer!
Bandai Anime collection/Carddass cards. They have similar issues to Vending or Coro Coro cards with faint bends. They’re glossy, so scratches show easily.
I’ve also seen/bought dozens of no rarity non holos - one graded a 10. They’re quite the challenge to find and grade! I guess it’s the way they came in the decks, plus their age and their tendency to be off-centered.
Japanese EX Dragon Frontiers (especially 1st edition). It took me years to put together the first (and currently only) complete PSA 10 ex set. The cards have become easier to find as of late, but when I was doing it it was frankly near impossible. The main issue in the set is centering, most cards are significantly off center. Unlimited is better with centering but still very bad.
In general glossy is tough. One of the more niche glossy cards is gotta mew and gotta pikachu. Both are glossy and very few have been graded. The mew only got the first psa 10 a couple years ago.
Any holographic card from Offense and Defense of the Furthest Ends (EX Dragon Frontiers)
I don’t know what went wrong with this set, but 99% of the Holos are either very OC or even MC. It’s the only Japanese set where it looks like quality control was not in the picture.
Because of this, the pop report is in the single digits for PSA 10s (excluding the Gold Stars)
Pop Series 1 Tyranitar. Also, most of the pop series cards have a really low pop. I’ve bought many “near mint” and “mint” pop series 1 T-tars but I don’t think any of them have a chance at anything higher than a 7 or an 8. There are currently only 13 8’s and 16 9’s with no 10’s.
Yes! All the Lv. X tin promos (and really all promos packaged similarly) are basically guaranteed to come with at least one of 4 possible packaging indents. Also I’m not sure if my sample size is just small but I notice that Rayquaza is horrifically off-center left to right more often than not as well.
Can you disclose the issue with them? Print lines, edge damage, centering issues?
I’ll add to this thread Cracked Foil Topsun '95 cards. Really bad centering, if you looks at all the good centering topsun foil cards they’re almost always square foil, add in they’re glossy cards, thin and almost all of them have minor staining. Just a giant pain the ass to grade. I used to trade people my square foils for cracked foils plus cash just to finish my set, as I got tired of grading them myself.
Can’t remember the exact issue but they pretty much all share a printing defect that makes it almost impossible to find one in gem mint condition. I think it was some type of chipping in a certain part of the border or something like that
Topsun cards, glossy and terrible centering. Also in 1995-96 I don’t think anyone was putting these in sleeves. Side note if anyone is interested there is a BGS 9.5 no number charizard on jp yahoo which looks to be the highest grade in the world as I see no registered PSA 10s. Though its priced at around 10k. Worth imo but don’t have the moneys
The prism ones are difficult too they are super flimsy card stock. I’ve gotten ones that are so thin it feels like you’re damaging them just by touching it; idk if the heat got to those or what because I’ve had others that were less thin. Not to mention the backs are prone to getting very dirty because of the paper material
) cards speak for themselves. Respectable four 10s for the Feraligatr… but also a whopping ten 8s. ZERO 10s for the Metal Energy.
