I’m looking for insights on this current grading fiasco. I’ve graded roughly 1,000 pack fresh shadowless non-holo’s with PSA Card since 2021, averaging about a 60/40 split between 10’s and 9’s, with a few outliers being 8 or 7.
I just got back my first sub of 2025, and the number of 10’s wen’t from 58% to 3%. Mind you, this submission was pack fresh cards I opened from 9 different individual shadowless theme decks. Thus, the lack of 10’s is not “a bad print run”. I called customer service and the agent said there was only one grader note on one card that looked like a scratch on a charmander, which looked like a hair. No other notes, no explanation when asked about stats discrepancy and lack of 10’s on pack fresh cards. They CS manager said they have graders that have been grading these for 30 years (Holy Airball)
Please see first my pre-2025 breakdown below.
This most recent submission in 2025 was below.
I’ll add a few examples of cards from each grade. Any inputs are greatly appreciated.
CERT 131628729
CERT 131628730
CERT 131628735
CERT 131628755
CERT 131628757
CERT 131628757 - This is the one below that the agent said had a scratch from grader notes.
These Bulbasaurs and Ivysaurs were opened from the same theme deck, and presumably on the same sheet. One ivysaur gets a 7, the other a 10. lol
It is tough trying to understand how the Machamp and some of those NH cards both received a 9. I guess the 9 is the widest grade since there isn’t a decimal, but some of those NH look strong. Not sure what is going on with that PSA 7. Either way this is how you present a point, glad you shared the data!
For the Machamp specifically I imagine its the top-bottom centering?
@thegamingport Based on saying its your first sub of 2025 I imagine this is your first return since the centering strictness change? I’d be interested to know if this is the case.
Absolutely not excusing all the grades, especially the 7s and 8s, but a few of the 9s do look like they’d be close to being OC enough to knock it to a 9
EDIT: I have Run The Numbers on the Machamp and apparently the top bottom front centering is 38:62 which would be enough to make it a PSA 9 on that alone
So the question is, is PSA suddenly “stricter on vintage”, or is it more likely that the current workforce there is presumably so numbed by the mass influx of pack-fresh modern and/or unfamiliar with vintage that any perceived imperfection is an auto subtraction, regardless of the overall shape of the card? The lack of apparent nuance is frustrating.
Posts like this scares me after not grading anything with PSA for like 3 years and I still have like few thousand old cards which I would want to grade eventually, mostly japanese old back/ex era cards thought.
I think I will be really disappointed with the newer grading standards after being used to the really high 10 rate
I haven’t graded with PSA in a few years either, but this stuff continues to disway me. I can’t zoom in on the pics, but aside from the centering of the Machamp, all the others looked in range of centering I have seen on many vintage 10’s.
PSA seems to be adding the gambling premium aspect of the hobby into grading now too!
I think the 7s and 8s ran into the issue of PSA grading cards against others of the same cards in the sub. I have found lately that when more than one of the same card is submitted there is too much grading against the other copies instead of objectively grading the card on it’s own.
What’s baffling to me is how when someone shows rock solid proof that PSA doesn’t know what they are doing anymore, that so many on this forum try to rationalize it instead of just admitting that grading vintage now is a joke.
The following 2 cards is all one needs to see that demonstrate that. The bulba has worse centering than all his other 9’s and even 7’s and 8’s.
The 2nd squirtle is clearly a 10
3rd squirtle a 10
1st charmander a 10
2nd charmander a 10
3rd charmander a 9 (one scratch on non holo knocking it down 3 grades? lmao)
2nd bulba only actual correct grade so far
3rd bulba a 9 (10 in old days)
1st ivy 2nd correct grade
2nd ivy easy 9
your machamp gets a 9, my pack fresh with a single hairline scratch and better centering would get 7’s on my last few submissions before I lost interest in grading years ago.
Also OP plainly states the machamp has scratches and is greatly OC and still gets a 9 and are clearly saying it deserves lower — not questioning its grade — while non holos clearly deserving of 10 are getting 7-9. Are people even reading?
I don’t think people understand that even after centering standards changed invisibly, that 55/45 is still not perfect. So often you see cards as 9’s and people are rationalizing/scrutinizing, when it is clearly still in that range.
You didn’t, but 3 of some of the earliest posts do that thing where they are like “yeah I can kinda see some centering issues”. Happy to see the the rest of the responses just express frustration though. That’s the only response one can have to this post really. Sometimes I just see a few posts with people dissecting the grades and it’s enough to make me rant
I also felt it. In 2025 I opened a Base Set pack (direct from a sealed booster box) and had every card in the pack graded. I got two PSA 7s on non-holos.
In contrast, in 2020 I submitted over 100 Base Set non-holos, also pack fresh. Mostly 9s and 10s as you’d expect. The rare 8. No 7s.
Had something similar with out of 39 cards from opened base set theme decks, only 4 cards received 10’s and the rest were 8’s and 9’s. Upon inspection, it looked like the grades were completely random.
I think PSA has a problem with inexperienced graders who only see modern 90% of the time. I’d be curious to see what % of graders have been hired within the last year.
Graders are going through hundreds of cards a shift, wonder what percentage of that is ultra modern. I’d imagine that’s what changed in the past handful of years. This complaint has also been shared on the sports side. It’s unfortunate..
I’ll be honest I COMPLETELY misread the last part of the post and thought OP was saying the Machamp should be a 10. Because of that, I was merely curious if this was his first submission post-centering changes. Because if it was, and he wasn’t aware of the changes, and maybe it had some impact on his grades, then surely thats a good thing to be made aware of? Trying to start a conversation about why there may be a grade disparity between his pre and post 2025 submissions is surely just as valid as immediately going to ‘psa sucks’?
I even said “Absolutely not excusing all the grades, especially the 7s and 8” but yeah sure
