I’m curious what peoples’ intuitions are on this question:
There are 233 PSA 9 Rayquaza gold stars in the PSA pop report. A non-zero number of these cards, however, are no longer in the PSA 9 slabs that they are recorded as being in (i.e., people crack slabs to re-grade, cross-grade, for binder sets, etc.). While some return labels to PSA so that the grade can be removed from the pop report, many don’t.
How many of those 233 would you estimate presently exist as slabbed PSA 9s?
More than 220
211-220
201-210
191-200
181-190
171-180
161-170
151-160
141-150
131-140
121-130
Fewer than 121
0voters
Explanations and/or discussion encouraged! But please, if possible, vote before reading responses to the OP (or the poll results) so as to minimize groupthink.
I think if I graded a PSA 8 that I thought has on the bubble for potentially getting a PSA 9, I would be pretty hesitant to crack. If I had a 9 that looked like it should be a 10, I may feel more inclined because the upside is so much higher for a 10 versus a 9. I don’t suspect the number of people willing to crack or crossgrade is much more than about 10% of the total listed population.
This question could be effectively asked for any graded card so I’m not sure why Rayquaza gold star is being singled out here. So long as a sizable PSA 10 premium exists, 9s will be cracked and regraded.
You could make the same critique of any specific question:
E.g., on a thread asking about 1st Ed Jungle, “Why are you asking a question about specifically 1st Edition Jungle? Why not also other sets governed by the same or similar principles?”
Well, because I’m interested in the specific thing I asked about! If you’re more interested in a more general version of this question, that would also be a perfectly fair question to pose. But I wanted to solicit discussion/input on GS Rayquaza specifically–which is why I specified it.
Of course, though, you’re correct that similar principles will apply to similar cards .
I think one place to start re: cross-grade numbers is the BGS and CGC populations:
Any PSA 9 that someone would be interested in crossing to CGC or BGS will, presumably, cross to at least a 9. Here are the pop numbers at those companies:
If literally every CGC or BGS 9+ copy of the card was regraded from PSA and if those populations are themselves not inflated, then that would put a maximum of 80 PSA 9 cross-grades.
But, of course, (1) of the cross-grades among those 80 cards, some were PSA grades other than 9 or crosses from non-PSA companies, (2) those populations are themselves inflated to some extent, and (3) many of the 80 are presumably not cross-grades at all.
So I would suspect, just intuitively, that there aren’t more than 10-15 PSA 9 cross-grades among those 80 copies.
It’s much more difficult to estimate regrades. The only evidence we can really examine is the rate of population growth in each grade (which, for PSA 9, is extremely low–4% over the past year. PSA 10 growth is even lower, obviously.)
I cant give a number, but this is exactly the type of post that makes me say pop report only matters for actual scarcity cards. Saying a pop 10 card doesnt matter when you dont know if its been 1 card cracked 10 times, etc. No one can know.
I don’t see how the pop report is any more valuable for truly rare cards. People regrade trophy cards, too! The same inaccuracy problem will exist for those.
Anyway, if the point you’re making is that pop reports can’t be relied on to provide precise, absolute figures, then I agree. But they absolutely still matter for rough or relative figures.
Like, we can confidently state that gold star Ray is dramatically rarer than Evolving Skies Umbreon, even though we don’t know exactly how many copies of each exist.
Just because we don’t know whether there are 150 or 210 PSA 9 GS Rays doesn’t mean that the numbers don’t matter.
Oh I was just saying that cards with a finite number in total matter more to me because everyone would have undisputable evidence that there is only a certain amount no matter how many are graded in a pop report.
I guess another unpopular opinion would be to grade to encapsulate for protection, not for grading since pop reports are skewed to some extent.
My assumption is that 30% have been cracked and either resubmitted or graded elsewhere. So about 70 of the 233 which leaves 163 which I then felt unsure about so I fluffed the numbers a little and voted 171-180. Margin of error is at least 50.
30% is a lot. Don’t forget that many of the collectors don’t live in the US, so sending to PSA is very complicated (international shipping/customs etc.). And many of us don’t want to take the risk of cracking the slab and damaging the card or sending the card through the post/DHL/FedEx/etc. Plus there are fees, and the risk that the card comes back as an 8… Many of us don’t want to do that
If they really cared for accuracy they could create a database where owners ‘reregister’ the slab number every year but not sure whether doing this helps or hurts them.
Actually, you’d think it would help them since every card can only be overestimated and thus should theoretically be worth more since there are actually less than the pop report.
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