It seems to be suffering from the classic shadowless “dull cut” edges, where it looks a tad choppy but the back is very clean and there isn’t any silvering showing through on the front edge as is common on jungle.
It isn’t silvering really in the standard sense - you cant really see it unless you look at the edge directly from the side. The images I shared above don’t show silvering at all, just the rough edge. Tough call!
Even though I don’t grade my cards, if there is one thing I have learnt from all of the grading threads on E4 is that there is always a possibility. The only way to find out is to send it for grading.
Probably could be BGS 9.5 with 9 edges sub potentially. Hard to know. I’d probably just leave it as a PSA 9 as the premium gained with the risk & hassle may not be worth it. Blastoise also simply doesn’t gain a huge premium like a Charizard would from 9 → 9.5 typically.
I think 10s with edges like that probably exist, but idk its rly ur call if u wanna risk it for the biscuit. The back looks cleannn love to see that deep blue
There are definitely modern 10s with edges worse than that. I’ve been looking at Brilliant Stars trainer galleries and learned that basically every “near mint” copy you can buy online has a horrible frayed looking edge. Checking the listings on eBay, I’d say about 30-50% of the posted 10s I see have something similar (from Brilliant Stars trainer galleries, normal cards no).
Most of that was on the PSA slab tbh, I wouldnt have cracked it otherwise.
The top circles are not scratches at all so not sure what you are circling there.
The only scratch that does exist is the short one above his right hand, but I do own 9.5 surface cards with similar minor scratches (and PSA 10 cards).
What I mean is that mint implies undamaged but “gem” mint implies that the card is even better than mint.
It’s just funny that we would all agree that centering (entirely a factory trait) could hold back a card from being gem mint but that this type of factory flaw appears to be overlooked, despite there being a category specific to for edges.
Not saying you did anything wrong at all, just commenting on the BGS grading system.
