I wanted to ask the opinions of more experienced eyes, hence the thread.
I have read the PSA guides in the forum, as well as watched smpratte’s video on grade comparisons, but im still not convinced.
I have zero experience with psa submission, but I do have 2 graded cards (both psa 9) that i feel do not deserve their grade due to the numerous nicks and white spots that are blatantly obvious on the card backs. So my question is, do you think these cards are rightfully 9’s? Is it normal for psa to hand-out 9’s for cards in this condition? If so, is it possible to get 10’s on cards with even 1 obvious nick?
Below are the samples,
1 english card and 1 japanese card, the nicks are on the corners (total of 6-8 per card)
English one looks completely fine. Japanese one looks a little weak. Yes a 10 can have an obvious nick. However the other attributes must be very clean then to deem it a 10 such as centering and holo scratches.
I’d say they’d qualify for 9’s, if there’s only that 1 damage on each, yeah.
Although the damage on this one: imgur.com/gallery/TRB7dXN would (in my book) lower it to an 8, if the rest was flawless.
But I must admit I’m definitely no expert, and only have minor experience with PSA cards.
Thank you for all your feedback thus far.
Yes, there seems to be no other imperfections aside from the white spots in the photos; only reason im asking is because i was planning to get some of my favorites graded, but i became hesitant when i got those 2 samples because the grading system and their definitions seem inconsistent.
Also hearing about recent horror stories about cards coming back way worse (handling error?) from collector friends has been really off-putting.
They look like 9s to me. I’ve seen better, I’ve seen worse. Keep in mind PSA tends to be more lenient on the back. With whitening on the corners, my experience is that the difference between an 8 and a 9 is the position of the whitening and how far it extends into the card. Corner specs do better than whitening on the edge. The second picture shows pretty extensive chipping, something that could potentially drop it to an 8 if it were to get graded again. Keep in mind it’s all subjective. If you’re looking for 100% consistency and a definite answer you are not going to get it. If you submitted those cards multiple times I’d expect the Japanese one to get 8-9 and the English one to get 9 on average.
As for 10s, they are not necessarily perfect cards and are allowed to have minor flaws.
All grading is subjective, it’s just an opinion. It’s a qualitative measure so there will naturally be inconsistencies. That doesn’t mean there’s no value in grading. If you want to sell your cards, it’s a way to very quickly easily establish value. There is a lot of consistency in the prices of graded cards, despite any inconsistency in the grade itself. If you want to just get your favourite cards encapsulated for protection/for fun, then does the grade really matter? I graded my goldstar Rayquaza I pulled when I was younger, it got a 4. I don’t care if it was a 4 or an 8, I just wanted it slabbed because it was one of my favourite cards. Obviously everyone wants that 10 and there are financial reasons to aim for a 10, but if you’re grading for yourself the value you put on the grade is your decision alone.
In regards to horror stories about PSA, it is totally a possibility that PSA could damage a card. But there’s a possibility that the package could be damaged or lost on the way there too. There’s unavoidable risk when getting your card graded. In general, the vast majority of cards that get sent to PSA get returned with no issue. People only remember/talk about the small percentage of cards they do fuck up so naturally the stories you hear about grading will be disproportionately negative. In cases where it is obvious that they damaged a card, they are pretty good at providing compensation. If you insure your package and declare the cards at the appropriate value, the risk is minimal.
Remember that edges/corners only affect part of the grade. If the centering is perfect and the front/surface looks flawless, a 9 seems totally appropriate here.
On the other hand, you can have a flawless back and think a card will get a 10, but it has other issues that will knock down the grade.
Grading is not as inconsistent as people say. No card is the same, even fresh out the factory. It’s also not an exact science.
Once you get some experience, you will pregrade your cards properly and probably guess right 80-90% of the time.
Thank you for this very informative and detailed reply, it definitely cleared all the doubts i had.
Thank you also to not_zelda_gilroy and pokenoob, your replies have also helped. Cheers.
