Not all that much to me, but it ultimately depends how bad it is.
Whilst my primary collection goal is to have all Pichu cards graded PSA 10 I do have a dozen or so PSA 9 Pichu cards which I’m in no rush to replace because the only thing wrong with them is their centring.
If I’m looking for a card to grade, then I do give special attention for centering (as well as condition), because I can notice if it’s slightly off and it’ll bug me a bit. Of course, for me to reach the point of being picky on centering on raw cards means that everything else about the card is essentially fantastic. For cards that go into my boxes or binders, I have a lot of slightly off center ones and I just… don’t care. Most of the time I only care about getting the card to add to the set. I think there’s a point where you just drive yourself into a corner where you can’t find something in NM/M condition and perfectly centered and it’s going to make collecting just unenjoyable.
My personal opinion is that centering is a meme unless it’s glaringly off center.
Centering means much less to me than card damage does. I’ll take a PSA 9 due to centering over a PSA 9 with white chips on back.
Front centering is pretty important to me. I don’t really care about the back of a card. You can take sandpaper to the back of the card and I’d take a well-centered card with a very clean front surface and no visible front edge or corner damage. The front is what makes a card unique. The backs are pretty much the same from card. Yea, sometimes it just feels good to have that 10, but not so much to pay 10 prices. Give me an amazing looking front of the card for PSA 1 prices and I don’t have if the back of the card is completely missing.
I definitely prefer my cards to be well centered. I almost only do binder sets, so the front appeal of a card is what matters to me. So I’d take a perfect centered card with some whitening over an OC mint card. That being said, I don’t NEED perfect centering to get a card I want
i only care about it if im buying the card specifically to have graded.
if its a raw copy for the binder then yolooooo
I don’t mind off-centered cards at all. To me, it doesn’t take away from the beauty of the card. I only care about card damage. Creases annoy me to no end.
If I had to allocate grades of 9.5, 9, 8.5, 8…9.5 Centering > 9 Corners > 8.5 Edges > 8 Surface
It’s not the first thing I look at on a card but I certainly dont ignore it. Out of surface, edges, corners, I’d probably place centering at the bottom but on the same token I wouldnt buy a card that was way off (unless it was something rare/expensive and I had to make that sacrifice).
Just finished going through my completed sets to pick which holos to replace. It’s not many considering how many cards there are. I only have 7 which are too off for me to stomach. I’ve had most of these cards for more than 5 years and with how off some of them are I can’t believe I never noticed before.
I envy the people it does not bother. However in each case it shouldn’t cost much to upgrade the card since there’s so many people who don’t seem to mind. I can just sell the old card and buy a new one.
@mannynotfound, not that this is something to be proud of, but I seriously couldn’t tell these cards apart by centering when they’re next to eachother like that.
Quite a lot.
Sorry to drudge up a several month-old thread, but I did have a centering question when it comes to desirability and value for high(er) end items.
I was thrilled, albeit surprised, when my Japanese Neo Gen Lugia came back a 10, mainly due to how crooked the centering is. The card itself is pristine, truly mint, but I thought the front centering would assuredly knock it to a 9. I know the PSA standards and that exceptional eye appeal can outweigh centering, but this is pretty extreme IMO. If I were to ever sell it, do y’all think I should discount based on this “flaw”, or in an auction setting, set my expectations lower than a more perfectly-centered 10?
I believe PSA still gives anything within a 60/40 a 10. This appears within that tolerance to me.
Most people will not look past the grade and be happy with this card. Even I don’t think it’s that bad, and I made this thread to talk about how important centering is to me.
@stagecoach, Yeah. I guess my sense was, if someone was going to drop $X on a PSA10 of a certain card, why wouldn’t they just wait for a better 10 to pop up for sale? Unless of course that card was crazy scarce.
Ultimately it comes down to if centering bothers the potential buyer, but seems it’s not a factor to some folks!
I want the card to have a strong eye appeal, and for me personally the centering is a very important aspect of this. I don’t spend time looking at the back of the card really, so I’ll tolerate a bit of corner or edge wear if the card looks really strong from the front. If it’s a holo card, the surface would also become very important as well.
Yeah give me that PSA 9 discount, but it’s really subjective with the tolerance of the buyer & in pokemon you have the whole OC/MC premiums. Centering is usually the last thing I consider personally when assessing a card but also the most obvious to see.
If it’s sloppy quality control on a card of significant rarity, then I care—even if it’s just for my binder.
