PSA Inconsistency with centering grade docks -- solutions?

[mcorey777]

@zorloth

@mcorey777

CGC all day! Only thing holding them back is the lack of sales data. And yes I almost wish every listing was raw cards. That would make things easy price wise. It seems like a lot of people are aggravated with PSa for numerous reasons. I don’t know why they won’t listen or change things as time goes on. They are really over using the phrase “If it’s not broke don’t fix it!” To me PSA is for sure broken it’s time they make some changes or people switch grading services. Just because PSA has been the gold standard for years times change. Keep up or get left behind!

It’s going to be really tough to get the hobby to move over to another grading company. The issue is that nearly all hardcore collectors have significant sums of money tied to the future stature of PSA in the hobby. Someone who has $500k or $1m in PSA graded cards isn’t, regardless of how appealing the new grading company is and how terrible PSA is, switch over to a new grading company. Doing so would be contributing to the MASSIVE price decline (of PSA 10s, specifically) that would result from the dethroning of PSA. With all of PSA’s faults, so many collectors have such a large financial interest in PSA remaining dominant that I would be shocked if PSA ever is dethroned.

I agree, though, that it is unfortunate that there’s no real way to put pressure on PSA to improve. PSA can just continue to do the bare minimum and maintain its dominance – they have no real reason to improve. Almost everyone is going to continue grading with them regardless.

Yup i already pieced this together and that’s the exact conclusion I came up with myself. Which is why there is so much backlash against the company.

[muk]

@Kh36

One of the key things I see is that we don’t pay for the level of service we expect. You send in all your top 1st ed cards with a bulk submission and expect that for $8 you’ll get a top notch grader. If you think your card is a PSA 10 then pay for that service! They’ll have three people cross check the card and verify the grading before the card is incased. Once you get it back you’ll know the card received the proper grade.

I agree to a degree. You can’t expect the highest service for the lowest price.
But since a PSA 9 given by a bulk level grader has the same weight and value as a PSA 9 by a premium level grader, they should still meet the same standards. If they were to specify your service level on the final cert, that would be a different story. Naturally people would be more sceptical of a ‘PSA 9 (Bulk)’ card and more confident on a ‘PSA 9 (Premium)’ card, which would then justify the different prices and standards of their service levels.

[pichufan]

Back at the start of the year a PSA 10 Meiji Blue Foil Pichu appeared on eBay and I was really disappointed to see that it was more off-centre than my PSA 9 copy:

Counting pixels I believe the left-right ratio on this is 67:33. That is to say that the border on the left is twice as thick as the border on the right!

I recently picked up 27 mint raw copies of this Meiji card and 5 of them have almost perfect centring - if none of those come back as 10s I’m going to be pretty annoyed. I’d argue that the remaining 22 all have better centring than this PSA 10 copy, too.

[elshod]

In a recent PSA return I received 4 of the same card back. I was expecting two 10s and two 8/9s based on centering. Got two 10s and two 7s. From that same return I also had a card that was so off center / mis-cut that the black centering dot from the sheet was fully on the card. That also got a 7. I really don’t even know what to expect.

[mcorey777]

@pichufan

Back at the start of the year a PSA 10 Meiji Blue Foil Pichu appeared on eBay and I was really disappointed to see that it was more off-centre than my PSA 9 copy:

Counting pixels I believe the left-right ratio on this is 67:33. That is to say that the border on the left is twice as thick as the border on the right!

I recently picked up 27 mint raw copies of this Meiji card and 5 of them have almost perfect centring - if none of those come back as 10s I’m going to be pretty annoyed. I’d argue that the remaining 22 all have better centring than this PSA 10 copy, too.

Very cool pichu. First time seeing this one

[sacari]

@sacari

I would love it if they gave a very quick description of why a card was graded a 9, and maybe 8. Just an email with a list of your cards that can just say “off center”, or “print lines” next to the card would be a bare minimum that would at least let you understand why you didn’t get a 10. Anything 7 or lower probably wouldn’t need it.
Having no idea why a card didn’t get a 10 is incredibly frustrating.

I had a quick discussion about this exact topic on discord and after hearing the other side of the argument and being given new information I no longer agree with this comment and do not believe it would be a good idea.

[qwachansey]

@garyis2000, do you remember what e4 members determined the centering to be/do you have a scan still? This could be a good use case, both for us as graders, and you with a $10,000+ difference between 9 and 10, if you can really drive home to them that the centering is within their own stated parameters.

[madden12ut]

@sacari what is the other side of the argument?

[justinpokemon2]

As long as it’s a 10, it doesn’t matter. It’s a 10. People pay for the grade.

[sacari]

@madden12ut

@sacari what is the other side of the argument?

Higher costers for grading, longer turnaround time, any card that is a 1-9 you will pretty much always have to keep a copy of why it didn’t get a 10 if you want to sell it. Might of been more, that’s just off the top of my head.

[ape]

This is actually funny to me because I JUST RECEIVED a PSA 10 Shining legends card I purchased and it 100% should be a psa 9. With definite marks on the edges. It is what it is, I got a good deal. But Its not a psa 10… Its a 9. And honestly Idk how to handle that situation hahaha.