Well I trust the PSA Brand. When ever I purchase a PSA 10 card I am fairly confident that the card is of a top tier compared to its usual counterparts. I believe they also have more experience in grading and handling Pokemon cards compared to other Grading services that are out there. PSA is by no means free of Sin, they make mistakes too as they are humans like ourselves, I personally haven’t experienced any mishaps at their hands. However Ive seen people get cards with the wrong label on them. Overall the card quality has been consistent in my experience. I am happy with every single PSA 10 purchase I have made thus far and I do not regret banking on PSA. Every PSA 10 I have received have a striking, very clean appealing aesthetic look about them despite their tiny minuscule flaws. To me the flaws never over shadow the overall appeal of the card.
Ultimately my friend it is entirely up to you, If you are unsatisfied with the quality of the cards in my examples than stick to your guns. Never commit to buying something if you feel unsure and underwhelmed by the product. By no means will I judge you for that! i appreciate your opinion for sure. I do remember my first PSA 10 card. I was expecting a completely untouched card with absolutely no whitening on its back and precise centering. The card had a small tiny bit of whitening on its top left corner lol, and I was thinking what the hell is this? Since than Ive developed what I believe to be more realistic expectations of the elusive PSA 10. By no means am I belittling your expectations, If your are expecting an absolute flawless card for your money, than sure as hell you have every damn right to expect that!!!
I hope this helps you my friend in coming to a conclusion about PSA Grading or grading cards in General!
I’d like to people to drop the term perfect for the english psa 10 discussion. I think the majority of
us have come to understand that PSA 10s are perfect. I have the other dragonite FA (thank you very much
tash) and I’ll pull it out and look at it later. Since I’ve got around 100-120 English PSA 10 FA, SR and Megas
just in my personal collection I’ll add some pictures later. I’ve also bought a few psa 10s that I know shouldn’t
have gotten a 10. Most of that can be attributed to centering because that is quantifiable compared
to edge wear on the back corners. I’ve gotten quite a few psa 10s where the back corners had 1 or 2 very
small white marks. My problem is this:
If eye appeal can be a big enough factor to move a card from 9 to 10 how do I know that? English and Japanese
Pokemon cards have the same. How can their be eye appeal for the same back? If psa 10 standards on the front
say 60/40 how can eye appeal, which is qualitative/subjective, make up for a quantifiable standard. Unlike BGS who
tells you why you got the grade you got PSA does not. Since PSA has become the choice for pokemon cards I’d like
near perfection with my grades. I understand there is a human element to it which will cause it to be subject to flaws.
While we’ve had the discussion of PSAs consistency I know they are doing a great job overall. Based on what I’ve seen PSA could be doing better.
I have no issues with PSA I can promise you I will stick to finding the most pristine cards I can as that’s just what I look for, maybe I will have to buy multiple 10s of one card before I find one which meets my, as I now know, high expectations. This thread has inspired me to go for some English 10s though so now I know what to look for I am better equipped to find them than before! I also appreciate the level of discussion we have just had as nobody belittled anyone’s opinion or anything like that so thanks to both @dragontype and @darkrai for a nice little debate!
That is true I can see what you are saying there. its all really relative in terms of the graders opinion on what is physically eye appealing as an overall. Tough grey spot there when you consider the customers own expectations. I heard some where that they actually have two people grading any single card.
From my first submission I got 26 cards graded. Of those, 24 got 10’s which I attribute to all the advice and tips I got here on what to look for.
The other 2 got 9’s which initially upset me. I really look at all my cards to determije what cards are worthy of the 10’s I want in my collection. The 2 9’s are perfect in edges, original gloss and perfect holo. The backs are centered well, no nicks, no edge wear.
The only thing wrong with both is they are a little OC which I didn’t really notice until I had checked every other part of the card.
I guess I’m just a little miffed that a card with absolutely no damage at all got a lower grade than a card with very minor damage all because of the way it was cut. Oh well, lesson learnt from me and I have their replacements ready to go.
@notzeldagilroy or Gary or old Man as I lovingly call him. Used to work at PSA and he mentioned somewhere that they dont do that for any single card. For higher level grading services they likely do use it but for bulk services I think he said it was used on 10s.
Did the 9s get the oc grade with them or not? With the oc grade for 9s I would say at least you know it is actually deserving of a 10 condition wise but it is just lacking slightly on aesthetics because of the centering.
It has been mentioned before, but it is definitely worth inserting this into this conversation as well.
Anyone used to grading Japanese cards that doesn’t understand why some of these in the OP got 10’s because of the specks of white on the corners is likely just not used to the color difference. If the back of the Japanese cards were blue, I believe that we would see a lot more specks on the corners. This is not to equate the quality of production, but just a known reality of the blue coloring and its exaggeration of minuscule defects. These are top tier cards, especially given the blue backing.
That card does indeed look pretty immaculate in my opinion. I do see it is a bit off center on the back.I also can see that nick on the top of the card. PSA 9 is still pretty good though! I freakin love that Lugia!! he looks so powerful in it!
It’s story time! Gather around my friends… NOT YOU NAAN BREAD!!!
This Rayquaza Gold Star in particular was bought raw by myself from Collectors Cache. This was at the time the Australian dollar was stronger than the USD. Collectors Cache had it for 130.00USD. I though that was a lot for the card at the time however I truly desired this magnificent bastard so I bought it.
This card has been graded by two Grading companies. I had it first graded by Card Grading Australia! They use a scale of 1 to 100, 100 being PRISTINE ! To get pristine the card required a score between 96 and 100. This card in particular received a grade of 99 Pristine. One of Card Grading Australia’s perks is that they give you a printed report on what was wrong with the card and vice versa. I cannot find the report unfortunately, however if I find it I’ll upload it here! From memory the card had a tiny abrasion on the top right I believe. The overall service was excellent, however the card moved around in their case. Which I felt concerned about.
It was only later that I decided to break the card out of the case and send it to PSA. I choose to do so because PSA is the market’s preferred grading service. Long story short it got a PSA 10!!! I was over the moon. So I believe receiving 2 companies highest grade that his may be an exceptional card! This card will hold sentimental and cultural significance to myself!
That Charizard is pretty damn pristine. I think that’s what people are looking for in the mythical “perfect PSA 10”. Again, thanks so much for doing this!
I will stick to finding the most pristine cards I can as that’s just what I look for, maybe I will have to buy multiple 10s of one card before I find one which meets my, as I now know, high expectations. This thread has inspired me to go for some English 10s though so now I know what to look for I am better equipped to find them than before! I also appreciate the level of discussion we have just had as nobody belittled anyone’s opinion or anything like that so thanks to both 
