It’s great news for collectors. No matter how much of an influx it may seem, ungraded Vs graded is still a landslide in favour of ungraded in terms of quantity. It seems like you’re hinting towards being disappointed with it, because you see it as a way to make money, maybe above all else. To Joe Collector it’s a great thing, no debate really.
To quote an opinion I share:
I do not mean to imply I am more qualified to grade cards than PSA. However, I do wish that PSA could be more objective in their grades for the aforementioned cards (i.e. Japanese cards with the new back). Through my experience grading an estimated 200 cards, I have found PSA to be significantly more lenient on cards that meet this criteria. Evidence for this notion can be found in my PSA returns, which generally include well-picked cards. Moreover, I am happy to provide supporting pictures if anyone is interested. I do not believe there is a conspiracy with PSA.
Feel free to PM me to discuss further guys. I appreciate a friendly debate.
Cheers all. 
The issue, or perhaps perceived issue with how PSA grades the new back cards is nothing new. The 1979 Wayne Gretzky Rookie card has only one PSA 10 example. This is mainly due to how the cards were wire cut, which leaves frayed edges/borders, but the other major component is the fact that the Gretzky card is blue.
A blue card cannot hide whitening. It is blatantly obvious. White cards, or the goldish white backs of the new japanese cards do not show whitening as easily. This is partly why you see a greater disparity in achieving higher grades on old back japaense cards vs new back cards.
I don’t think the issue is with PSA being objective, but rather with the literal difficulty of trying to analyize new back japanese cards. For me, when I check larger New Back Japanese orders I have to triple check certain cards as the whitening is only apparent at a specific angle. I literally had one in a stack of “raw” not to be graded cards, and looked at it a second time and wondered why I accidentally put it there, then looked at it a third time and noticed the minor whitening.
This also goes hand in hand with why people re-grade.
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This has been going on for awhile now. The drop in prices for graded cards has a lot of contributing factors. These include:
- People grading cards they don’t want for their collection. This is a big one. When people are sending in 50+ cards per month and have no intention of keeping them they end up on eBay. There used to be a couple hundred PSA listings on eBay, today there are thousands.
- Increasing population. A lot of cards are breaking into double digit pop counts.
- Resellers looking for a quick buck. These people always find a way to make your hobby a headache.
- Collectors abandoning the hobby and trying to cash out quickly. When someone just wants out they will often drop their prices to ensure a quick sale. Then others start using those prices as benchmarks and nobody will touch the card until it goes down.
- People know that if they wait they can usually get a better deal. Because the population has increased so much there are many more chances for people to get what they want.
- More graders means less buyers. Don’t make me explain more.
So these a were the biggest factors I could think of while sitting in bus. Statistics. I’m going to go get an education now?
The easiest way to never be disappointed with a 10 is to only grade a card if you think it has a chance for a 10. You’ll either be satisfied with the 10 or disappointed it’s a 9.
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I have argued multiple times against those who grade solely for money. I most certainly DO NOT grade my cards with the express intent to sell them all cause it’s lucrative. It isn’t. Nothing against you, but it seriously annoys me when people accuse me of that. Mainly because I put so much work into finding mint/gem cards to grade for my personal collection, and not to sell. Yes, I sell cards, but so does literally every other person on this forum.
My issue with this is that grading English cards has become so financially unviable that I can’t do it. As newer English cards usually go for slightly above their ungraded value in PSA 9, I’m not making back the grading fees. Every English PSA 9 card I’m selling at the moment I’m selling at a loss. While I don’t expect to make mountains of money off of grading, I would expect a reasonable profit for the effort I take to find mint cards and grade them, and at the least to break even.
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Being off by 30% (12/38) isn’t a very good percentage for sure. I’ve submitted hundreds of orders and that has never happened to me. The worst I ever pregraded may have been 2 8s out of 50 and they were coros.
Would you mind sharing hints for pre-grading please Gary?
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Sshhhh. Gary owns PSA. Just don’t tell anyone.
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I’ve submitted probably close to 100 cards to PSA now and most being japanese, I’ve only recieved two mint 9’s, I pre-grade my cards pretty extensively. Centering and whitening is all I look for
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So far i’ve sent in 846 cards to PSA. 50-60% are my Own.
It’d be pretty cool if PSA broke down in a chart, our PSA lifetime submissions amounts of each grade earned, with percentages to break it down.
That would be cool to see who is the ‘best’ pre-grader, though not everybody just sends in cards that could potentially be 10’s. Highest % could win a golden ticket tour of PSA and become the new Apprentice!
Last year at Worlds we almost did a game like that. I had a stack of cards and we teased about all putting in pre-grades and seeing who got the closest. Haha
I have re-read OP and it seems as though you answered all of your own questions in it, so the question becomes what is the purpose of the thread, and judging from the language and general tone that is the only conclusion I can draw from it - of course I can be wrong.
From what I can gather (please correct me if I’m wrong), you’ve been in a great position whereby you can add to your hobby whilst simultaneously funding it (or to a large degree) by grading cards. Of course this is a fantastic position that we would all like to be in. I don’t mean to be rude or blunt here but you or nobody else is entitled to be in this position. It’s a free market that is susceptible to the rules you yourself mentioned in OP. Maybe to a degree this nice gravy train is over for you and some others.
What you expect is crudely neither here nor there, a free market doesn’t lie, things are worth whatever people want to pay. It seems a bit rich to enjoy all the fruits this market can bring you for a good period of time, but then complain as soon as the tide starts to turn on you, especially as this turn in tide, in my opinion, benefits a solid majority of people in the hobby. Nobody is forcing you to grade cards - if you can’t do it, then don’t.
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Being as I have literally only sent 1 order through a middleman to psa I think I actually will start an excel doc with all the cards I have sent away,my predicted grades, actual grades and then % 10 acheived with a cerrect prediction % too, I just think it’s a cool idea so I can keep track o things so I’m stealing it 
@xuzu The purpose of this thread is to ask for others opinions/experiences on a trend I observed.
I am gladly going to correct you, I am in no position whatsoever to fund my hobby solely by grading cards. I make very little profit off of grading cards and all of it goes back into the hobby. My issue here is that I can’t break even by grading cards 9s.
As such, the rest of your post is not applicable.
Then don’t grade cards? Maybe people accuse you of just grading cards because it is (or was) lucrative because you use terms like ‘break even’ and ‘profit’ routinely when discussing it and complain when you can’t make money from it. What is applicable is that nobody is entitled to make money out of grading cards - if you don’t like it, tough, then don’t do it.
Xuzu has a point and whether you like it or disagree your grading particles will have to change. While personally I lean towards forthstar I understand that many people are caching in on the market but not putting that money back into it. That means we as “real” collecotrs who grade extras in hopes of a 10 for us and maybe earn a little money will have to even more skeptical of what we grade. There’s a reason I auctioned off all my duplicates.