Misgraded Psa 9 Lugia?

As per the title , looking at this Lugia in psa 9 and it’s one of my bigger goals to acquire for 2026. I do see 2-3 print lines on the holo yet the rest of the card looks great. Was psa being generous with giving this card specifically a grade 9 ?

Lol if you think this is a misgrade of a Neo Genesis Lugia, you haven’t seen enough of them out there. Print lines are so common in this set, many PSA 9s will have 10+. Even the PSA 10s have print lines. I have yet to find a perfect or near-perfect Neo Genesis Lugia.

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You are correct , I haven’t seen many in person lol That is super interesting to know though , I did not think Lugia would have this as a common issue and grade a 9 but 10’s also have this ?… holy smokes.. :eyes: Now I know to expect print lines. So this copy is the norm

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Looks like a 9 to me

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I would even go so far as to say that this is a nice 9.

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that card is especially harder to grade because of all the extra holo it has. It’s honestly not surprising. It’s brutal to grade.

Does this look like a pretty decent 9 to you ?

To be honest, this is a really nice Lugia PSA 9 copy. It looks very clean, with only “factory” issues like print lines.

When you collect PSA 9s, there’s a fairly wide range of minor defects that are still considered acceptable. On the holo specifically, PSA 9s can definitely have scratches! I’ve personally seen PSA 9 holos with scratch levels that are basically the equivalent of multiple print lines. With ~150–200 PSA 9 cards in my own collection, I’d say a faint single 2–3 cm holo scratch (especially if it’s not visible from every angle) is completely within the normal PSA 9 range and counts towards the cleaner copies.

And beyond holo surface flaws, PSA 9s also often show corner dings, minor edge wear, or some edge silvering. The latter is especially common with Fossil and Jungle.

So overall, the Lugia copy you showed is definitely a very clean PSA 9: no obvious corner/edge wear, and only factory print lines. I’d be super happy with it.

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That’s a few more factory print lines than I would personally like on a 9 grade, but to each their own.

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Bonjour!

Graded this for a friend. Insanely clean card, zero print lines.

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Beautiful orb too!!

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It’s a 9 but I’d rather a cleaner surface with a ding on the back

0 print lines but didn’t get the 10 sub grade on surface? thats unfortunate.

Honestly not much difference between 10 surface and 9.5

I have 1 print line on my 9 copy. It is nearly inevitable