Recent PSA Submission grades and comments from PSA

[kpod]

@pikazardcollector

I’ve decided my next submission is not going to have any hidden fates. I feel like that set has ruined pokemon tcg grading.

Hidden Fates in general has ruined a lot of pokemon TCG collecting. Insane print quality, printed into oblivion, and too many youtubers involved with it.

[pfm]

@kpod

@pikazardcollector

I’ve decided my next submission is not going to have any hidden fates. I feel like that set has ruined pokemon tcg grading.

Hidden Fates in general has ruined a lot of pokemon TCG collecting. Insane print quality, printed into oblivion, and too many youtubers involved with it.

A high quality products and a massive amount of consumer excitement has ruined pokemon card collecting

What

[kpod]

@pfm

@kpod

Hidden Fates in general has ruined a lot of pokemon TCG collecting. Insane print quality, printed into oblivion, and too many youtubers involved with it.

A high quality products and a massive amount of consumer excitement has ruined pokemon card collecting

What

Easy accessibility, no chase or game to obtain product, and almost guaranteed PSA 10s. Sounds like a boring game to me.

[pikazardcollector]

@pfm

@kpod

Hidden Fates in general has ruined a lot of pokemon TCG collecting. Insane print quality, printed into oblivion, and too many youtubers involved with it.

A high quality products and a massive amount of consumer excitement has ruined pokemon card collecting

What

Double edge sword I suppose since we are talking about grading standards that coincidently seemed to have changed since this print.

[pfm]

@kpod

@pfm

A high quality products and a massive amount of consumer excitement has ruined pokemon card collecting

What

Easy accessibility, no chase or game to obtain product, and almost guaranteed PSA 10s. Sounds like a boring game to me.

Ignoring the fact that hidden fates literally has some of the hardest cards to pull in the whole hobby, it sounds like the problem is your own expectations. No modern massed produced set has been difficult to acquire. That’s the point of a modern set. Even wotc cards are only a challenge because of their age some arbitrarily imposed requirements (1st ed, psa 10)

You could also employ your own arbitrary requirements on hidden fates, ex. Requiring that you pull and grade the cards yourself. But this is probably not an option either because what I suspect is that complaints about hidden fates really come down to about how the cards are more or less affordable and also coming down in price, and how this current state contrasts the initial impression of the set.

So no, Pokemon card collecting will live through the current scourge of high-quality product and youtube excitement. If you don’t feel that it works for you as a collector, that’s no problem. Try one of the hundreds or thousands of other options within the pokemon card collecting universe that actually offer a chase and aren’t active wal-mart products.

[KingPokemon]

Whether it’s the difficulty of the 1979 Topps baseball set or the easiness of Hidden Fates, collectors just love to critique. Explain, and justify.

I’d add this. Did Japanese grading, where all cards are easy 10s, hurt the hobby? Nope. Well don’t worry about hidden fates. Just on general principles though, I wouldn’t mix HF and Jpn cards with any other sets in a submission.

[null_user]

@mikejofthecoast

@23lugia23

I guess the rumor around the youtube/instagram pokemon community is that PSA has completely flipped their standards and are now being ridiculous with new submissions. At first I completely ignored this because PSA has always had a pretty good standard when it comes to grading cards. I mean, look at the pop. count for Typhlosion/Slowking 1st edition neo holos

This comment from an instagrammer named scott_wright123 caught me off guard though. Instead of submitting his next batch of PSA ready cards, he’s been thinking that he’ll just sell them raw because of all the recent PSA controversy. Someone asked him, “Hasn’t the grading got ALOT stricter from last month or something? I had fresh pulls to sub from base set and now is thinking it’s not worth it.”

He replied, “Yeah it has. The problem is they are basically saying any grade they have given out before they became much stricter are now useless grades and PSA wouldn’t stand by them. On top of that loads of people are getting 5-6s on cards that would normally get 9-10s. That’s unbelievable.”

Has anyone recently experienced anything like this with PSA?

This is in sour grapes because I’m pretty frustrated. I was thinking about doing a large PSA submission with cards I’ve accumulated over the past year that seem to be in Mint/Gem Mint condition, but now I’m thinking I’ll have to grade them through BGS which sucks because I much prefer PSA(also PSA prices generally are higher for resale value than BGS) other than Black Labels of course which are insanely hard to obtain

edit : other reports I’ve been seeing are PSA sending out damaged cases and sometimes the cards themselves being damaged within the case

Heres a link to a thread I made of a card from my last submission. I dont know how PSA did this to my card, but they did damage it. TCA has had several cards damaged recently too, he goes over them in his return videos on YouTube. And I can definitely say something has changed at PSA, my last submission had the trashest grades on super nice cards I’ve ever gotten.

www.elitefourum.com/t/do-you-think-liquid-caused-this-damage/25065/1

I don’t get how they aren’t holding any accountability when the consumers(like yourself and TCA) document their cards before submission. Imagine if they did this to a gem mint Typhlosion 17 candidate?

[null_user]

@KingPokemon

Whether it’s the difficulty of the 1979 Topps baseball set or the easiness of Hidden Fates, collectors just love to critique. Explain, and justify.

I’d add this. Did Japanese grading, where all cards are easy 10s, hurt the hobby? Nope. Well don’t worry about hidden fates. Just on general principles though, I wouldn’t mix HF and Jpn cards with any other sets in a submission.

This is probably the best advice in this thread, to not mix HF or JP cards with other sets in a submission. The % of Wotc cards that are even comparable to the worst Hidden Fates card in quality must be like 1% which is why PSA’s standards must be slightly changing(even then it doesn’t make sense why you wouldn’t just keep your grading with certain sets consistent with the past)

No point throwing in $10 Hidden Fates GXes into a submission with potential $1000 Jungle 1st editions and having the graders compare the quality between the two

[pichufan]

Statistics time!
In the 2 weeks between 1st January 2020 and 15th January 2020 there have been:

16x … PSA 1
1x … PSA 1.5
13x … PSA 2
20x … PSA 3
63x … PSA 4
117x … PSA 5
232x … PSA 6
1x … PSA 6(Q)
3x … PSA 6.5
403x … PSA 7
6x … PSA 7.5
1,271x . PSA 8
1x … PSA 8(Q)
72x … PSA 8.5
2,799x . PSA 9
8x … PSA 9(Q)
2,342x . PSA 10
7,276x . Total full grades
10 … Total qualifier grades
82x … Total half grades

Looking specifically at Hidden Fates, in this period there have been:

4x … PSA 6
6x … PSA 7
26x … PSA 8
1x … PSA 8.5
122x … PSA 9
1x … PSA 9(Q)
443x … PSA 10
601x … Total full grades
1x … Total qualifier grades
1x … Total half grades

Hidden Fates accounts for 8.18% of the cards graded in this period, of which PSA 10s account for 18.92% of the total number of PSA 10s seen.

[craigc]

@pfm

I wonder if the IMMACULATE condition of Hidden Fates (compounded by the large amount of it being submitted) has skewed the average grader’s opinion of what a gem mint English card should look like.

Imagine grading 100 Hidden Fates cards and then switching over to a WOTC order

It’s funny on my recent submission I have Hidden fates cards doing worse than the WOTC ones in the same submission. I thought what you stated also previously.

[null_user]

@pichufan

Statistics time!
In the 2 weeks between 1st January 2020 and 15th January 2020 there have been:

16x … PSA 1
1x … PSA 1.5
13x … PSA 2
20x … PSA 3
63x … PSA 4
117x … PSA 5
232x … PSA 6
1x … PSA 6(Q)
3x … PSA 6.5
403x … PSA 7
6x … PSA 7.5
1,271x . PSA 8
1x … PSA 8(Q)
72x … PSA 8.5
2,799x . PSA 9
8x … PSA 9(Q)
2,342x . PSA 10
7,276x . Total full grades
10 … Total qualifier grades
82x … Total half grades

Looking specifically at Hidden Fates, in this period there have been:

4x … PSA 6
6x … PSA 7
26x … PSA 8
1x … PSA 8.5
122x … PSA 9
1x … PSA 9(Q)
443x … PSA 10
601x … Total full grades
1x … Total qualifier grades
1x … Total half grades

Hidden Fates accounts for 8.18% of the cards graded in this period, of which PSA 10s account for 18.92% of the total number of PSA 10s seen.

These numbers seem pretty healthy right? I guess that means that damages must be one offs and the reported lower grades must just be the cards not being as good as the graders think they are lol

[pokecollectoramy]

@23lugia23

@Dizzle

@23lugia23 , I havnt heard any of these claims myself, except for when @smpratte talked about grading some Japanese promos (I believe there was a Marill Togepi etc which were printed onto sheets via coro coro comics but correct me if wrong) a few weeks back where the results were less than desired, but other than that I have not heard much on any harsher standard myself. In fact, like @shoe , I received a few cards back from my submission through Ludkins and got way better results than expected (Gem 10s on A shiny Charmander and Charmelon from Hidden Fates which I was sure were coming back as 9s as well as a 10 for another card) but Id like to look into this more too being I just submitted a bunch more cards this week.

Are there any larger businesses speaking on this by any chance as well? I see Scotts comment about the bulk service, but im curious if any larger company has seen these issues rise or if it could just be a fluke. I mean, The holiday season just passed so maybe things were rushed quicker resulting in some poor grades (I heard somewhere PSA tries to get things graded before the end of the year because of memberships or something to that degree) but yeah this is all things id like to look into as well before making a judgement

That’s awesome on the hidden fates but the majority of problems being reported(as far as I’ve seen) is that PSA is population controlling wotc holos hard. Basically even the best pack fresh wotc cards I guess are being snubbed which of course is angering people because the difference between a wotc 9 and 10 in price is so large at times and it seems like PSA is handing out 9s like candy to these pack fresh holos

Also people are reporting damages to their older cards which just seems more like PSA being careless while grading, but this has been random and happened even years ago to people like Pokesoup who documents every card before he ships them out to PSA

Again though you can’t properly tell whether or not these youtubers/instagrammers are telling the truth because a photo/video won’t give you the whole rundown on a card and its errors so I’ll just have to see for myself how a PSA submission will go in the near future

Why would PSA start pop controlling now after they’ve graded 200k cards?

[smpratte]

The thing people fail to realize with PSA is graders change, and the label stays the same. PSA’s bulk graders are separate from higher service levels. All grading companies do not pay well. PSA was unwilling to higher a new grader at $15 an hour… To emphasize how ridiculous that is, property in New Port Beach (PSA’s location) is on average above 1M.

As long as customers keep coming back, which they do, there will never be any incentive to upgrade quality. From PSA’s perspective, continued profits say they are fine.

[thane]

@smpratte

The thing people fail to realize with PSA is graders change, and the label stays the same. PSA’s bulk graders are separate from higher service levels. All grading companies do not pay well. PSA was unwilling to higher a new grader at $15 an hour… To emphasize how ridiculous that is, property in New Port Beach (PSA’s location) is on average above 1M.

As long as customers keep coming back, which they do, there will never be any incentive to upgrade quality. From PSA’s perspective, continued profits say they are fine.

Their stock price has rebounded over the past year so they must think they’re doing something right

[Fireftw_TCG]

This topic makes me a little nervous as I’ve just sent my biggest submission yet to ludkins. Hoping that it’s not as bad as it sounds.

[spitfire42]

Hey everyone

As im sure alot of you have heard or experienced PSA has been changing the way the grade which is resulting in lower grades coming back. Ive been hearing it more and more lately and am curious to see if anyone here has had issues recently with their returns? I am currently debating sending a sub in and am not sure now. Please let me know your opinion or previous results.

Thanks

[fourthstartcg]

@spitfire42

Hey everyone

As im sure alot of you have heard or experienced PSA has been changing the way the grade which is resulting in lower grades coming back. Ive been hearing it more and more lately and am curious to see if anyone here has had issues recently with their returns? I am currently debating sending a sub in and am not sure now. Please let me know your opinion or previous results.

Thanks

Moved your post here as we already have a thread about overreacting to gossip and small sample sizes.

[spitfire42]

Sorry i should have checked existing threads first. Thank you for putting me in the correct thread!

[shockerb37]

I’ll share a bit of my perspective. I don’t submit too often, but I had some returns come back through Ludkins a couple weeks ago at the start of this month. I didn’t notice any abnormalities in the grades I received; I got mostly 9’s on the cards I expected to get 9’s, and I got my first ever 10 as well. These were mostly unlimited WotC holos from Base Set to Neo Revelation, about 30 cards in all. I actually had a couple shadowless holos I expected to only get a 6 or 7 get 8’s, which was a nice surprise. Overall I thought their grading was very accurate and fair, and I personally am looking to submit some more cards in the near future.

[shadowless]

I´m by no means a huge grader myself but the few cards I´ve recently graded myself were all accurately graded in my opinion. It´s always the unsatisfied who cry the most.