I know at least one of the BGS 10s has print lines and the 4 CGC Pristines I know of (including mine) does as well. Mine just happens to be hard to see and faint up by the tail. But I mean even for pristine CGC and BGS you only need a 9.5 surface. I know CGC specifically has said that how visible surface defects are does determine how hard it hits the score.
Like I said these micro scratches exist on most of these. But since the holo is silver you can’t see them unless you scan and get the holo dark (not sure what kind of scanner they use to do this) or you have to scan and invert the colors like I do. Even adjusting the angle makes it near impossible for super shallow ones that still show up on these scans.
Also some more fun here is a not so old cert PSA 10;
If you watch betapoketrader’s video clips of the card you can’t really see these at all.
Here is what it looks like when you invert it (more of a goldish color when I do it with mine since my scanner light still makes the holo come out silver)
In my experience, the surface is usually the dealbreaker for a lot of cards becoming a 10, especially WOTC era holos. This is assuming it actually is enough to be a “distraction” so to speak. Having to blow the card up under bright lightning or using a magnifying glass I think is unfair in judging the surface for most cards because that’s not how most would normally view a card. Not saying you or anyone else does this, but I think sometimes people forget that the WOTC holos went through not always the greatest manufacturing process and were easily damaged in that process as a result.
Anyway, I have personally found that PSA will look past the centering the most and even sometimes allow a tiny amount of whitening on a 10 if it’s not a big distraction, but the surface tends to be very strong on 10s that I own and have looked at. In other words, on all the PSA 10s I have owned, the main visible/apparent flaw has always been in this order: Centering → Edges → Corners → Surface.
I know this is very anecdotal, but this has been my personal experience so far. With my CGC cards which I only have a few of, I have found that the 9.5s for WOTC era cards are usually within the realm of a PSA 10, but if it had a 9 surface grade for example, it was much closer to PSA 9s than my PSA 10s.
Of course. I wasn’t really suggesting that precisely, but more so saying that it generally has to be as flawless as possible where you have to look hard to find the flaw (whatever flaw it is). In some ways I have found that PSA is critically harsh on the surface of most cards, but almost too lenient at times with the centering. In the end of the day though, this is how they grade cards. That’s why personally I have preferred low grade PSA slabs and then high grade PSA/CGC for everything else.
Last CGC 9.5 sold was for like 5.something. That 12k sale never happened.
Seems like I might just mail in my Lugia. They said even high value re-labels are ETA end of show and they recommend dropping off the wednesday prior. And there is no way I can stay around Chicago that many days.
The two 9.5’s got shill bid multiple times and then the buyers never paid. So both sellers decided to just hold them and relabel. We haven’t had one legit sell on eBay since the announcement.
One thing I’m curious about is if these 10s start selling well above the BGS 9.5, if the price of those start to go up also.
Still not sure how anyone can see an image like this and actually think the blue label looks better. But I also included one of those ugly GMA labels for comparison. The blue label looks like it was made by an etsy seller for a fake slab next to it.
I think it comes down to this as well. At the end of the day cfc is still technically the third most popular grading company when it comes to the big three plus sports. When you think of Pokémon you think PSA followed by bye then cgc. Magic is bgs. Yugioh is bgs and sports is split down the middle for PSA/bgs. That’s why cgc historically has sold for less than psa
This is true lol. I’m just looking at let’s say 1st ed charizard. A bgs 10 is considered priceless since there are only three in the world owned by two people. Followed by PSA 10 around 150-250k. Then cgc 10 going under 100k.
