Are you implying a PSA pop control or more of a general if consumers increase the pop too much?
while i considered this.
unfortunately no it cant be explained this way. A common example i used because I’ve been tracking it carefully is the reverse Charizard from LC
there were 1174 submissions and 76 psa 10s back in early 2022… so a roughly 6.5% psa10 rate
its been almost 3 years now and psa10 pop has increased by only 8. However total graded population has more than doubled
There were 1,413 additional graded zards since then, but only 8 were given tens. Thats a rate of 0.5%
so 6.5% vs 0.5%… its literally 13 times harder to get a psa10 now with that card
but wait… could we say that the cards being submitted are just garbage copies that are just finally now getting graded? that would be plausible if not for the fact that psa 8 and psa9 pop has absolutely exploded
but fine, this is only one example right? No. This is consistent across the board
In fact, just go to the gold star and neo shining price tracker thread and refer to @Tapp
hes been tracking the pop growths and noticed the trend across the board for ex series
but if you dig even deeper you can see that with vintage its everywhere
Instead of rehashing the exact talking point in every single thread forever, have you perhaps considered not collecting PSA 10s?
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you mad because i’m right and you dont really have a way to refute the statistics? I didnt create this thread. I come with facts.
I’m not mad at all. I’m just asking that if your conclusion is that PSA 10s are bullshit, then why do you continue to let all your thoughts revolve around them? The second I found out for myself in 2018, I switched to predominately buying 9s
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its not my conclusion
my conclusion, which was a reply to someone who directly asked me a question, was that no I dont believe less cards are being submitted. as its literally in the pop report that cards are being submitted in high numbers. My conclusion is that psa 10s are harder to come by now. Which if anything makes them more collectible. but yeah being a psa10 collector is kinda insane right now. It would be prohibitively costly to build a psa10 set from scratch
9s are the way to go for most of us
Didn’t PSA update their grading standards page for a PSA 10 from
approximately 60/40 percent on the front, and 75/25 percent on the reverse
to the now
approximately 55/45 to 60/40 percent on the front, and 75/25 percent on the reverse
When I read it, it seems like nothing really changed because it still mentions 60/40, but it does seem strange to me that they would make an effort to change the wording at all
I always found the ratio to be more of a vibe than a strict metric with PSA. Cards that visually look more OC because of the border having more contrast or some other reason tend to have centering weigh more. The wording even reflects that. Sometimes its 55/45 and sometimes 60/40.
Maybe they just changed the wording because of a lot of people were disputing grades on the ratio, since it’s easy to challenge a strict and objective measure like that.
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I read the 60/40 was really intended for vintage baseball cards and harps back to a time in the past
I think certainly, and especially with japanese cards, ppl submit perfect cards that are off-center but are within 60/40 ratio and psa routinely 9s these cards. Since this isnt a subjective metric, it creates a lot of controversy. I think the 55/45 addition gives the grader more flexibility and discretion. I like the change personally. 60/40 is rather extreme for a ten but makes sense for certain ancient cards that were almost impossible to have truly centered
in fact, take a look at the psa grading page to what they consider a ten… the Mickey Mantle card that they actually use as the poster child for psa10… its very noticeably off center.
My grades have been pretty much in line with prior periods. I suppose it’s worth noting that I mostly grade modern.
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I answered “in line with previous” because grading is and always has been a crapshoot. In our current “10 or binder” climate, there’s an undeserved pedestal built below 10s when in reality grading is subjective. You can use tools to help determine things like surface quality and centeredness, but even something like a 60/40 ratio is arbitrary. Is 59/41 centered but 61/39 isn’t? That seems odd.
We can look at cards and be reasonably sure something will get, say, an 8 or better and not a 5 or lower, for example. But to have a clean-looking card, assume it’s a 10, send it and when it gets a 9 be upset you sent it in at all, seems futile to me personally. It could be a 10, could be a 9, could be your grader’s partner just broke up with them, could be a hurricane is headed for the grading center (jokes but not really), who knows. Even grading reports are suspect. You could just write whatever
End piece of the rant but the current obsession with vintage 10s makes me really sad and puts a bad taste in my mouth, because it implies fans all should have been double sleeving and toploadering their pack-fresh Charizards and keeping them locked away from light or dust rather than just be kids enjoying a toy.
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People see it as a crapshoot because there’s always going to be a level of subjectivity involved. I think we’d all like to be able to reduce grading to a strict 100% replicable formula where, based on the criteria, we know exactly which grade we will receive ahead of time.
The reality is grading is performed by people. So long as that remains the case there will always be a level of inconsistently. What stands out to one grader may not stand out to another.
People react to this by attacking PSA because people only talk (complain) about the grades they’re dissatisfied with. We don’t hear about the 100s and 1000s of cards that receive the grades people expect.
My view is that PSA is fairly consistent all things considered. I accept that my pre-grading isn’t going to be 100% accurate and factor that into my decision making process when I’m considering grading a card.
This year I only send in 6 cards, and only to the autograph department. Sadly 3 of them came back as “unsure”. So I would say; spot on. Especially since these are old autographs and quiet possible that they not close to their current day reference material.
I am sorry but this is a very shortsighted display of statistical misinterpretation. Allow me to refute your “statistics” even though I anticipate engaging in this manner will end up being unproductive.
Your argument is that since the PSA 10 rate (as measured by 1999-2021 vs 2022-2024 populations) has significantly decreased, this means PSA is now grading, as you say:
The problem with this is that it is only true if you assume the average submission quality of a LC Charizard has remained stable over time. This is an incorrect assumption for multiple reasons:
- Finding perfect mint condition cards gets increasingly more difficult over time
- Submitting cards in lesser conditions becomes financially more viable over time
- With the massive difference in PSA 9 and 10 values, regrading PSA 9s and even PSA 8s in the hope of a 10 is further incentivized
Combined, these factors mean that (A) we should reasonably expect a significant decline in PSA 10 rates over the years and (B) we should not trust the 9 vs 10 pop report when regrading is done so frequently. Indeed, you mention that point A is in fact true, we see much more PSA 9s and 8s now than we have previously. You recently regraded your PSA 9 LC Charizard, so I assume you have already returned the cracked label to PSA to ensure that your card is removed from the pop report to maintain the sanctity of the 9 vs 10 rate, correct?
Of course, we can’t prove whether a decrease in 10 rate is due to PSA changing their standards or whether more lower-quality LC Zards are getting graded/regraded. But what makes more sense?
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I think this is a healthy (ier?) way to look at things. I also admit that the big companies are in a tough spot because people criticize grades they don’t like but also a lot of people view more technological grading (like a machine “grading”) as gimmicky. Idk I know I could just mute and ignore and not engage but every once in a while I’m like guys/gals you should like the card if you like the card, not because it’s a 10 and not a 9
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I think there is room for AI investment.
Right now it may be cost prohibitive but in the future i wouldnt be surprised if AI studied models and then graded accordingly
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One problem with this is you need training data to tell the LMs what’s good and what’s not, and presumably scans of previous cards will be used as said training data, which reintroduces that inherent subjectivity
Another is what that will do to the market. Imagine PSA launches a new cert and says hey everyone from this cert forward all grading is done by AI. I can envision a scenario where the snootiest among us want an ‘AI graded’ premium on their 10 over and above the normal premium. Because if a computer said so, it’s gotta be truly perfect
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yall will do anything to try and say things are not harder… but i dont think your being objective in your reasoning. 13x is not a reasonable decline. if you said 20%, 50%… even 100%. but 1,300% is reasonable? 76 vs 8 is normal?
look at the cards man. Go ahead and click
This is not a “missed” card that grader let slip, I I literally pulled up all psa 10s from LC. I can turn it into a screenshot thread with 50 examples but then you will say, “well the bad ones are most likely for sale”
show me a 9 cert high value card that looks like this and we can entertain that.
the reality is this card could have been submitted 50 times in 2024 and it would never get the psa10
Reminds me of when Amazon’s in-house ATS turned out racist because it was trained on data with racial bias
Garbage in, garbage out
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PB I hate this for you bro I really do but either something’s docking the card from being a 10 that you can’t see or your grader just had a bad day but otherwise literally your only recourse is to keep it, crack it for a binder, or try again.
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