Anecdotally, I’ll say that in my last few submissions, my grades received have become noticeably lower when compared to submissions sent in 2023 and early-2024.
I pregrade every card I send off, and track it so I can compare how accurate I am vs the actual grade received. Note that almost 100% of the cards in these submissions are vintage, with only a few modern sprinkled in here and there. Here is how I did:
| Date of Submission | % Correct Pre-grade | % Overgraded Pre-grade | % Undergraded Pre-grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 2023 | 37% | 19% | 44% |
| Late 2023 (1) | 19% | 19% | 62% |
| Late 2023 (2) | 38% | 23% | 38% |
| March 2024 | 45% | 25% | 30% |
| May 2024 | 53% | 29% | 18% |
| June 2024 | 41% | 26% | 33% |
| August 2024 | 45% | 24% | 30% |
| September 2024 | 39% | 45% | 15% |
| October 2024 | 48% | 19% | 32% |
| November 2024 | 41% | 44% | 15% |
| January 2025 | 45% | 50% | 5% |
As the numbers show, I have fared significantly worse the past few submissions, and I can promise that my pre-grading eye has not changed.
Huge disclaimer though that I am aware I have a very small sample size and I could be just getting very unlucky. To be able to get more accurate results on answering the question on if PSA is becoming more strict, we would need a much much much larger sample size.