I’ve been collecting PSA 9 cards for my personal collection for a while now. I crack the PSA slabs and put the cards into my toploader binder because I wanted to ensure that my binder collection maintained a certain standard.
Today, I bought two new cards, and after cracking the PSA slabs, I noticed something surprising. One card looks perfect on both the front and back, but the other card has scratches on the back (even though it came from a PSA 9 slab).
This made me go back and inspect some of my other cards, and I noticed a pattern. Some cards have no flaws, while others consistently have small scratches on the back. You can only see the scratches if yu look closely at the cards with a light. I’m certain that I carefully cracked the PSA slabs and didn’t cause any damage during the process.
Is it normal for PSA 9 cards to have such scratches, even though other PSA 9 cards are almost flawless?
I’ve attached some photos of one card as an example, where the scratches are very noticeable. Is this normal?
Cards can be misgraded but a small amount of wear is expected somewhere on 9s. I wouldnt be happy with it if i was expecting a 9 in quality but grading being subjective is part of its charm for some people.
Thank you for your response. I find it unfortunate that there can sometimes be such significant differences, but I guess there’s nothing that can be done about it. It’s just disappointing when you spend a lot of money on a card, and the quality falls below expectations. Would you still consider the back of this card to be Near Mint?
The scratches are not unreasonable. You are buying PSA 9s so theoretically you should be expecting some kind of flaw. Because they are light scratches and on the backside I think it’s very reasonable for PSA 9.
The point of grading is not to remove subjectivity. All grading is subjective because you are assigning a score to qualitative features. For example, the fact that centering affects the grade but an ink spot does not is entirely subjective. The value in grading is not objectivity, it’s consistency.
9s exist in a range of conditions. There are some that really should be PSA 10 and some that are probably better off PSA 7. No company is perfectly consistent but any reputable one provides a better expectation of condition than buying raw.
So to answer your question, yes I think it is not suprising to see light scratches on PSA 9. Your own experience of looking at multiple cracked cards confirms it. And even some PSA 10 will have it I’m sure.
I think if regrade a 5! I noticed it straight away after getting it.
