Hi all!
Just was wondering from a collectors standpoint is it worth it to collect PSA 8 WOTC (unlimited) cards from Base Set, Jungle, and Fossil? I’ve heard different opinions from people. Some say PSA 9 or 10 is best for collecting unless it’s first edition or shadowless. Others have said anything in an 8 or above is good with vintage. Just wanted to get some opinions. Any help is appreciated!
It’s an interesting question. At the current moment you can buy 8s for cheaper than raw tcgplayer NM a lot of the time. There is value there but from an investment standpoint I’d personally wager it’s not the best route. Especially for the types you listed. Collection is different you can do whatever you want
Anyone can go to their lgs and find NM raw 8 quality WOTC holos. So what are you really investing in? You’d need that supply to dry up around the world and it most certainly will not. For what it’s worth it’s not too hard to find 8ish quality raw 1st Ed base and shadowless either with enough looking. Though there certainly is more of a reason to pay a graded premium on those imo
Overall I think PSA 8 price was inflated around the entire hobby. PSA 8 should be raw NM price and not really command any premium
Pros of 8s:
-Cheap
-Plentiful
-Decent quality
-Good “value”
Cons:
-Not mint
-High pops
-Not investable
If you only care about collecting and aren’t worried about the investing side of things, as in you aren’t buying in hopes of values increasing significantly long term, then I think 8s are fine to buy.
Honestly it sounds much more like you are interested in the investor’s standpoint. Personally no I don’t think PSA 8 copies are going to hold value compared to PSA 9-10s. The # grade is too big of a psychological factor, and the people willing to shell out $$$ are probably willing to pay for a higher grade.
As a collector you can independently choose what condition you want your cards to be in, and setting “PSA 8” as your baseline will probably give a wide range of cards in different conditions based on subjective graders and inconsistent definitions of what an 8 means. Honestly you could probably make a hobby of finding misgraded PSA 8s and cracking and resubmitting to get 9-10s.
I’m actually collecting some 8s and I think that you can’t really get awesome cards at big discount. Vintage 7s and 8s usually look really good.
I chose this route because I prefer having more cards than few 9s or 10s. Maybe one day I’ll upgrade my favorites, but for now I’m satisfied.
However, they need more diligence when buying, since it’s indeed a broad grade, and It happened a couple time that the amount of silvering or edge wear was too much for me.
From investment/stonking perspective, I agree with the others, PSA8 + unlimited isn’t the right combo.
The way I’ve always seen it is that the difference between PSA 9 and PSA 10 is very small in terms of condition but very large in terms of price. Not only that, but both PSA 9 and PSA 10 are “pack fresh condition”. Meaning, for what you are paying, PSA 9 WOTC cards are nearly always a better value purchase from the perspective of what are paying vs what you are getting. From an investment/speculation perspective, that is a different goal, but from a collecting standpoint PSA 9 has always been #1 for me.
The issue with PSA 8 is that you are now entering a territory where you are buying very slightly damaged cards. I would personally not qualify PSA 8 as “pack fresh condition” (though it sometimes happens), so you are typically buying cards that have accumulated some kind of damage since being pulled. Not only that, but generally the price difference between PSA 9 and PSA 8 is small. So while you are saving money, I think the trade-off between money saved and conditional difference isn’t justified.
It also depends on which cards we are talking about. For modern cards that are very abundant, the difference between 9 and 10 shrinks dramatically and 10 becomes the better choice. For trophy-level cards, buying an 8 instead of a 9 can save you thousands of dollars and the condition matters less when a card hits a certain level of rarity. For unlimited WOTC, it is much closer to a modern card than a trophy card, so I definitely would not be buying PSA 8s over 9s personally.
I would agree with @pfm
I also think it’s important to ask what your goals are— if you want to make a great collection for you it may not be a great investment all the time. Sometimes wanting a specific card is emotional and hard to explain, but if you want these items to go up in monetary value, eventually enough people must also want it for their own collection.
I would see if you could collect lower grades of first edition or Japanese Wotc at the same price. I think there is better longer term value there
@pfm mostly said it all here and is correct. Unlimited has basically unlimited supply so you’d want the 9s as best bang for buck for those as long as the price is right. This year I bought the Japanese base holos in cgc 8 to put into a slab binder for my young son because they were really cheap but truthfully the 9s really weren’t that much more expensive except for the Charizard so I’ll likely upgrade most of them. The 8s all looked quite nice on the front but had varying degrees of whitening on the back, all noticeable.
This is too general of advice.
-It is not uncommon to find Mint 8s.
-They are investable.
-Third point is truth at least for those 3 sets OP quoted.
The way PSA has been grading vintage holos, shinings, crystals, gold stars, etc. recently, you can easily find mint+ PSA 8s.
There are no certainties with this stuff, but the general rules are:
My recommendation is to collect the card, not the grade. Find the good deals and enjoy your mint-gem mint cards for a fraction of the price.
Thanks everyone!! Great opinions and advice!! I’m collecting and at the moment I have a variety of grades in my collection. Have the big 3 shadowless in grades 7, 6, and 5. 9s with shadowless Pikachus. 8s with Blaine’s Charizard and Erika’s Venusaur and 9s with Dark Charizard and Blastoise holos.
I guess I was just weighing other cards I liked growing up Nidoking, Alakazam, Gyrados etc. in getting them in 8s being a little more reasonable than 9s but still holding a little bit of monetary value
As someone who exclusively collects psa 8s for shadowless I have to agree with everyone here. 9s and 10s are premium. 8s and down should really be for the love of the card.
But this is how I see it. For shadowless or 1st ed base set nothing under a psa 8. But 9s and 10s are too expensive so I went with 8s.
For just about every other set/card besides prize/trophy cards… 9s and 10s
Thank you! I have heard from others that but also heard it’s not too bad to get the Big 3 Shadowless in the mid grades.
The data on pokemonprice.com completely counters the argument that 8’s are not investable but the pop will definitely increase faster.
Ofcourse i havent checked every single card but i have seen 100+ cards and psa 8’s have the same roi as a 9’s.
It’s just a matter of personal preference. What I said before was just how I collect
Im wondering what a psa 7 vs psa 8 vs psa 9 1986 Jordan rookie has done over the years. Could be a hint for the future, although it is the chase for sports cards.
Shout out me for buying 1st edition red cheek pikachu PSA 8 for $1200 near the peak. Still waiting for that to recover… maybe in 15 years lol
I have always found PSA 8 underrated and even undervalued for most WOTC holos. At least the most desirable/popular ones. Even when you factor in supply factors, you can find ‘strong’ 8s that could probably even be a 9 in some cases. It’s true that the investor types tend to focus more on 9s or above, but if you’re less worried about that, an 8 is a very solid value most of the time.
When you get into the Neo era, you can find entirely pack fresh 8s that got an 8 because of factory print lines. To me this is still a great card, especially for a binder set if you break it out. I still break most 8s out for my binder sets and only keep a few in the actual slab.
Anyway, I also like to have a range of grades in my collection. If I only focused on 9s and 10s I’d have way less cards in my collection due to the amount of money I’d have to tie up. 9s & 10s are the more premium grade, but for straight value it’s hard to beat an 8 and you can still be “invested” in the cards long-term as you still have many NM collectors out there who will gladly buy them if that’s all they can afford compared to 9s and 10s 
That’s my point plus on personal experience.
Usually, not always, but most of the time when the 10 goes up it pulls up all the lower grades at least for wotc set stuff.