I have personally cracked and re-submitted a few dozen PSA 8.5’s. It is an abomination of a grade and I have yet to have a card retain the 8.5 grade upon re-submission. They have always resulted in either a PSA 8, 9 or 10 upon re-submission. They gave 8.5’s out like candy for a few months and currently I think given them out still at a higher rate than historical, yet much lower than the end of 2016/beginning of 2017.
I’ve regraded dozens more since this initial work outlined here I’ve just not updated the spreadsheet or tracked it closely. I had a fairly even split in the past work linked below between PSA 8/9 but have had more success recently getting 9’s. I’ve opted to resubmit only the more solid looking ones whereas in the past I did it quite indiscriminately to prove a point that 8.5’s were a joke and not remotely replicable.
www.elitefourum.com/t/psa-8-5-grading-anomaly-december-2016-january-2017/18738/1
Edit to add: I would always advise a crack and resubmit for this grade and specifically advise against an in case review.
- I speculate that using the review service they would be much more likely to retain the 8.5 grade.
- The in slab review service is a bit of a joke in itself.
It could just be that my tin foil hat is too tight though.