There should really be more verification for 0 rep bidders 
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Those guys absolutely love gold stars and 1st Ed base holos
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This is why I donât tend to trust anything besides PSA. How is this Charizard a 9? Look at the back of this. Psa would give that a 7
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Itâs a little hard to tell, but it almost looks like a rough cut from the factory on the edges (back left edge). Iâve seen that on WOTC holos before and usually theyâre PSA 8. Definitely not what youâll find on most PSA 9s, unless itâs the only flaw. With this said, I do have a few PSA 9s that look flawless, but once scanned, I could see some minor silvering or a rough edge more clearly that most likely prevented them from being PSA 10.
I think itâs been fairly well understood that BGS 9s are usually PSA 7-8 on average in Pokemon at least, with some exceptions here and there. CGC on the other hand I have found their 7-9 grades better than BGS (on average).
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Probably an 8. Or if it was back during 2 certs it would be a PSA 10.
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Yeah old certs were really lenient
Yeah I think youâre right with Pokemon at least. Whatâs crazy though is cgc used to be really tough on grades but they changed
The centering on this card is visually pretty bad though
Itâs unhelpful to paint old certs as lenient. There is leniency and strictness in every cert era. I would say that the variance (i.e., variability) was greater back in the day, but that doesnât necessarily mean that those slabs are inherently weak on average. Youâll find strong and weak certs in any era.
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Thatâs true
It was very rare to ever see CGC 10s with most sets (especially vintage), before the label was updated. Lots of speculation on here as to why, I think mainly it was concerns around market value or competing better with PSA 10s in Pokemon, so they lowered the grading scale slightly it seems and a lot more 10s started showing up. Donât think the valuation gap really closed, but Iâve never done a deep dive into the sales data to confirm that or not. Seems like PSA 10 was outselling more often than not. Regardless, I still have found CGC more consistent than BGS in Pokemon. BGS you really have to go for 9.5+ for some better consistency it seems.
@mechmonkey - It looks pretty good to me. 1st Ed/Shadowless Charizards can have some awful centering compared to this at times. With this said I feel my PSA 5 copy has better centering, probably 9.5 sub-grade if I were to guess lol.
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Still very toughâŚthey just used to be impossibly strict, especially on centering
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Haha fair enough, what I meant was the CGC Gem Mint card looks visually more appealing (at least to me) compared to that BGS 9.5 example, thus potentially contributing to some of the price discrepancy. Although I agree people prefer 10s in general 
I agree CGC grades pretty consistent. Just an opinion but I reckon CGC will be pretty strict on their Pristine 10 grades going forward given there is no longer commercial pressure to give out â10sâ
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Maybe some of the long time collectors can help answer this. Do cards get damaged in cases? I know bags has them sleeved in the case. But what about psa and cgc?
No, not really. It takes an insane amount of movement for damage to show up.
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Wonder if there is any damage to the surface with normal shaking/movements. Seems like you need crazy amounts of movement for edge damage.
Cards do not touch the inner surface of PSA and CGC slabs, so there will be no damage to note.
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Wonât the card be resting on the surface in the slab? Be it front or back inner surface.
No, the card is suspended between both surfaces by the inner edges on the case.
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