I have a GEM Mint 10 card but I’ve seen enough videos to know it’s a bit off center. So my inner perfectionist tells be it slipped through the cracks! Or I don’t deserve a 10! Or if I sell it in the future, buyers will report me for misleading them on an O C card?
Is there a margin of acceptable Off-Center ratio to not affect grading? If I got a 10 then how could it slip? Ive seen 9 (OC) grades for cards or rules about bumping down grades to accommodate a OC.
It’s harder to tell when they gave me sideways pics. The upper (or left here) is slightly thicker than the lower ( right) side. I feel like it somehow managed to escape a OC rating.
PSA are considerably more lenient on the back of the card. They state that the as long as the back’s centering is 75/25 or better, it is eligible to get a 10. Your card looks like it is well within these parameters
That card isn’t too bad. A lot of these cards were printed a little off center, it’s quite common. It gets rarer when the card is like 75/25 or more and it catches your eye when you first see it. Here is what PSA says about the OC qualifier on their website:
“When the centering of the card falls below the minimum standard for that grade will be designated “OC.” PSA determines centering by comparing the measurments of the borders from left to right and top to bottom. The centering is designated as the percent of difference at the most off-center part of the card. A 5% leeway is given to the front centering minimum standards for cards which grade NM 7 or better. For example, a card that meets all of the other requirements for PSA MINT 9 and measures 60/40 off-center on the front automatically meets the PSA front centering standards for MINT 9. If a card meets all of the other requirements for PSA MINT 9 and measures 65/35 off-center on the front, it may be deemed to meet the PSA front centering standards for MINT 9 if the eye appeal of the card is good.”
In my experience they aren’t consistent with exact parameters. It seems the grader is left to decide subjectively. @gemmintpokemon has sent in a ton of cards that PSA didn’t label OC but definitely appear OC or are just as off-centered as other cards that did get the label.
Here’s one of my own that didn’t get the label but is pretty darn off-centered:
Ok good to know! I saw the 75/25 and still didn’t know what that meant so I just chalk it up to luck since psa 10 was given. Or if the person left off qualifiers and got away with a 10 somehow.
It’s a very generous standard. It means that you could have a side that is three times as wide as another. PSA is very lenient about back centering, even with respect to 10s. Just eyeballing your card, it looks like it’s probably about 60/40, which would be well within the parameters. 60/40 would be within PSA 10 parameters even for the front.
Your card is fine… I haven’t seen the front, so I’m guessing it’s well centered. The back also isn’t bad. I’ve estimated 47/53 Left/Right and 56/44 top bottom.
Now if you compare with the Clefairy above, it’s about 31/69 Top bottom on the Front which is WAY more important. I’m not sure it should have qualified for a OC qualifier, it was probably a close call. It probably would have earned at a 8-9 if it was centered… or 9(OC) or something.
Centering is calculated measuring the borders of the card. The numbers I posted above are estimates from pixel counting, but if you have the card in hand you can use a ruler to calculate it accurately.
