Well I did have a recent sub return last week. I have never received an 8.5 on any graded card since I started grading cards and in this sub I got 20-8.5’s.
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Base 2 is one of the worst grading sets, especially the white back holos. Wigglytuff is just about impossible to get in a 10, as is Clefairy & Chansey. Terrible QC on this set.
Best grade PSA could ever give. 20 is a massive amount for one sub. Congrats.
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Thats why i was so upset
I feel like i found the magic card and i still got this
When a card is so hard to grade and you pull a gem you feel like it should be recognized
As a side note, i pulled a pretty bomb Clefable from the same box
Im NOT sending this to PSA. It will probably come back a 7 after the clefairy 8
I will be putting this in a binder
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Exactly why 8.5 is a made up fake grade. People send thousands of cards in over years and never get a 8.5 then suddently one submission gets a ton of them. If it was a real grade, it would show up as part of the normal distribution of grades. But there are 1000s of 8s and 9s for every 8.5. Makes zero sense
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Yikes, that seems really odd. Any pictures to share?
I feel like I have a decent grasp on the PSA grading scale but if you asked me what constitutes an 8.5 I’d be lost. Or any half grade for that matter
It’s funny cause some of the 8.5’s are either the only graded 8.5 to exist or are apart of like sub 10 8.5’s of the card to exist. Just shows they don’t throw the 8.5 out hardly ever.
All 8.5s are given when Ms. Wheeler is too sick to come to school, so substitute grader Mr. Robins takes over for the day
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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.
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Damn I fell for you. I’m still lost as to why those are 8.5.
I took a quick peak at the pop report when I was looking at your cards and noticed that 8.5 seems to be heavily overrepresented (relative to other half grades) in base set.
This could’ve always been the case. I honestly have no idea.
Would be interesting to see if the 8.5 pop skews toward recent certs
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Did you crack a Base Set 2 booster box to grade the holos? You must be thousands of dollars in the hole. 
Best of luck with the next submission!
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if they use “machine learning” will the old grades be invalid when they inevitably get more data to update the algorithm 
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This thread makin me nervous 
Mine was pack to sleeve to PSA. To be fair I haven’t seen a 10 on vintage in many subs, they must be seeing something we don’t see.
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Yes Base set 2 getting some love!
I opened 4 heavies last year…
Sadly had two poliwraths, a scyther and alakazam…
All not grade worthy🤐
Still, a fun experience!
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the cosmos foil looks pretty dope tbh but i can see why ppl dont like them it is essentially a reprint of base… i will go after any 10s i see at auction ofc 
Better holo pattern for sure but that “2” looks so ugly to me lol
while my collection is roughly 98% psa, i recently tried TAG for the first time, at least they have coherent standards and tell you what is going on.
my last few psa subs were in the 8XXX range and i felt they overgraded the cards, now they might be in the untergrading phase again. I cracked a few of them to resubmit them again, let´s see what happened in a few months 
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The problem from my perspective with TAG is that what they do is not really “AI” grading. It’s all done by human beings, just using cameras and computers. It isn’t something that can be patented and with relative ease over the next 1 - 3 years companies like PSA and BGS can and likely will incorporate the same tools into their process and probably to better effect.
Additionally as someone that has been working in the embedded systems field for the past decade - TAG’s plans for “self-grading” pods at stores is so absurd and likely to be hindered by a lot of ridiculous issues.
Combine that with their astroturfed marketing strategy, investors promoting the company as if they’re just simple customers without disclosing their investment and they just come off as a bad choice. Not to mention the brittle slabs…
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