Looked up the cert on the PSA website and none of these marks show on the scans. What do we think this is , maybe mold ?
Cheers !
yikes. it does look like mold and almost like a stain? It has the same look when you’ve spilled something and when you look at it from the right angle you can see the drops. I’m gonna have to say it looks like mold though
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The second image makes me think that it’s on the case and not on the card. I recently bought a card that looked like it had mold developing, but upon further inspection after speaking with the seller, it was found to be a dirty slab. PlastX made the slab look brand new.
I would recommend speaking with the seller.
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Don’t some of those look like those weird square-shaped artifacts that occur on the slabs? Especially in the first picture. We’ve had a couple of threads on those that I remember.
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Looks like the usual PSA square defects, just that there’s many of them in this particular case.
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I have a couple of PSA slabs with a single square artifact. And I found 2 slabs where i have many of those (top and bottom of the card, similar to your picture). Its difficult to tell whether it is on the card or on the slab. I iwill have a closer look later and take some pics.
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Sounds good thank you! Will help me decide if maybe a reholder for this would help a bit
I did some further online research. That’s what I found:
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Mold on cards usually doesn’t show up as clean geometric shapes. It’s more like irregular speckling/spotting, sometimes powdery/fuzzy “colonies”, and can be white/gray/green/black, often clustered and uneven.
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These tiny square/rectangular “artifacts” in PSA slabs are observed by many collectors:
Eliteforum: Link
Collectors Forum: Link -
What you see are most likely holder imperfections, not the card. Another E4 member mentions that these are most likely plastic injection-molding / encapsulation artifacts, e.g., a small inclusion where a pellet/fragment didn’t fully melt or a minor flow/pressure defect left a square-ish mark in the plastic.
Later tonight, I’ll take a few comparison photos of my own slabs that show the same issue and share them here.
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Thank you for this info , so this possibly could be made to look better if a reholder process were to happen ? Also from what I am understanding from your information is that this isn’t on the card itself correct ?
Correct, from the information I found my best guess is that this is not on the card, so a reholder could eliminate it if its in/on the plastic.
You could also leave it as it is, which will avoid the small risk & cost of handling & shipping. Reholdering is generally safe, but there’s always a risk when the card is handled.
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Def dont think its on the card bc of the second image
You won’t get rid of the squares, but some PlastX should clean up the scuffs nicely 
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