I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw @thepokehive post a Pristine 10 1st Edition German Charizard. I read through the comments and learned that he had resubbed a PSA 8.5 and received a Pristine 10.
Lo and behold, I have a similar story. I opened a minty fresh 1st Edition German Charizard this year, and it came back as a PSA 8.5. Pictures below.
I’m going to crack my slab open and send it over to CGC.
Updates will follow!
Good luck! Lots of CGC-PSA happening right now with decent results. Not much of the opposite so it should be interesting to see what they give ya!
I mean your card looks very clean. Good luck!
Probably worth also including thepokehive’s reply to that comment:
Based on this, it seems more likely that PSA undergraded the card than CGC overgraded it. Likewise, I’m sure that there are CGC 8.5s that would cross to PSA 10. But that fact doesn’t mean that people should start cracking out CGC 8.5s in hopes of crossing to PSA 10. 99.99% of the time, it will be a failed endeavor (the same is true for PSA → CGC or CGC → PSA).
Regardless, good luck with the experiment. Perhaps your Charizard is another PSA misgrade (it does look quite clean for an 8.5…).
Yes, absolutely, you’re right. I didn’t mean to imply that all 8.5s should be cracked and resubmitted elsewhere, just that I felt in this circumstance that I also had an undergraded version of this particular card.
I’ve heard that PSA 8.5s are really odd grades that almost never get replicated upon regrading, and I’ve also read anecdotal/apocryphal reports of “population control” by PSA for vintage holos, so I thought I would try this for my own personal situation.
Centering and back look great on yours. I doubt it’s a 10 but an upgrade seems very possible. Good luck!
PSA graders have been instructed to automatically dock a card 2 grades if it says Charizard. …Kidding. But also not. 
Yup, I pregraded mine at a 10.5 so this checks out. 
I’m not sure who this is more embarrassing for… PSA or CGC
Another anecdote in the bucket 
showcasing the subjectivity of grading. It looks cleaner than an 8.5. I don’t know what to think about CGC 10s anymore. They used to be 1 in 100-200ish for newback Japanese promos but now they seem to hand them out like nothing
I’d been completely caught off-guard by the PSA 8.5.
No one is omniscient, but I knew enough about grading to know that the score was odd. A 9 I could’ve attributed to small blemishes that I somehow missed, but when I submitted to PSA, I was (even though I know I shouldn’t have any expectations when grading) anticipating a 10.
Wow, congratulations on spotting that. Very well done!
Nice card and everything, but CGC really did change their standards didn’t they? I remember it took a miracle to get a 9.5 in anything vintage, let alone a 10. Now I just see 10 after 10.
ok now send it as a cross grade back to PSA lol
I stand by this! 
Congrats! It certainly looks amazing from the CGC scans.
This man right here knows the play! Any sales data of that card in a PSA 10?
Time to buy PSA cards to cross to cgc 
I’m still seeing almost zero CGC 10 English vintage holos. But I agree that CGC has absolutely loosened up a bit at the top of the range. As you said, before it was basically impossible to get above a 9 on English vintage holos. Now 9.5s are actually obtainable.
I have quite a few old cert CGC 9.5 vintage English holos that are incredibly clean that I’ve been considering resubbing to CGC in hopes of getting 10s. But based on the pops, I’m not yet convinced that they’re giving out 10s easily on vintage. Despite having loosened up, they’re still much stingier than PSA on giving out 10s,
