I was curious what your guys’ take on strong grades vs weak? I’m of the mentality that a 10 is a 10, there’s no grey area between… I mean after all, isn’t that why we send it to a 3rd party service? To remove the seller/buyer’s subjective opinion on the minty freshness of a card?
I get there are cases of obvious incorrect grades, and lately what seems to be very lax grades, but it seems like a phrase made up by sellers to get more for it. I haven’t seen anyone upselling their ‘weak 9’ psa grades or anything…
It’s a valid desire to want strong or weak grades. As well, valid to advertise as weak or strong.
Why?
Because PSA is not perfect.
So while a PSA 10 is a PSA 10, it’s entirely possible that a card may get a 10 that could have easily been a PSA 9, but maybe a flaw was overlooked. Or maybe the coffee machine broke and the grader missed out on his morning cup of joe and didn’t do a good job that morning.
I personally don’t care much. I go by the grade. However, there are many collectors that want a PSA 10 with no edgewear for example and the fact is, sometimes PSA 10 does have a minor white nick that some collectors don’t want.
No two cards are identical so no two PSA 10’s can be identical either. PSA is simply a third party opinion. I try and avoid only buying the third party’s opinion and try to focus more on buying the card itself. This means if I see two PSA 9’s available of the same card, I’m going to buy the one I believe to be in superior condition. This helps with lowering risk in the future and creating more potential for added value later if the third party’s credibility takes a hit or if I decide to have another party look at it.
That’s what I haven’t been able to understand since starting to collect, it seems PSA is valued higher, but doesn’t give information on why they went with their grade whereas BGS shows the four criteria, seem to be harsher with grades and their cases look cooler.
I may buy a 9 I think could regrade for a 10, but otherwise if I had the money I’d go with the locked in 10 regardless of if it’s strong or weak, it’ll still hold more value. I also can’t imagine PSA ever taking that big of a hit
BGS 10 > PSA 10 > BGS 9.5 > PSA 9 > BGS 9 when it comes to expected condition and therefore also when it comes to value in most cases where the card is well established and frequently traded. Almost any* BGS 10 will cross to a PSA 10, almost any PSA 10 will cross to a BGS 9.5+ and then on down the line. Going PSA 9 => BGS 9.5 or BS 9.5 to PSA 10 can happen but isn’t a certainty nor even expected. It is actually often quite difficult, but it is a thing people look for.
*I say almost any because there are anomalies existing at every grade and in every type of case.
So naturally anyone would prefer a “strong PSA 10” that may have a shot at crossing to a BGS 10 over a “weak PSA 10” that may have already crossed from a BGS 9.5. There can be a lot of money made in the higher end cards making transitions to the left of the hierarchy as you can see from eBay sold listings of things such as shadowless and 1st edition base charizards. Plus if not even looking for upgrading who wouldn’t want a nicer card compared to a worse off card. Buy the card not a grade.
For any sports/nonsports card under 1000or2000, I’m in the 10 is a 10 camp.
If you don’t like the card that arrives, sell it and get another but don’t snivel to the seller about it. If there’s a blatant error contact PSA.
Now I admit I don’t have many problems with this cause for 15 years I only sent in what I believed were 10s so I mainly have good 10s or strong 9s. Plus, I don’t need to sell to eat so anybody who asks for “additional” pictures I decline and block. Every card I have I’d rather keep anyway;) That comes with loving the joy of collecting and simply selling for fun.
Isn’t it nice to think that in 40 years you can be more discriminate too? Lol.
