Recently I have been watching card restoration videos and it has me thinking about all the poorly restored PSA 9s and 10s that may or may not deteriorate over time. Then I watched a video from Slab Rehab and quickly realized how short term this whole card restoration fiasco truly is. Basically in short TAG detected the water damage he caused with a cotton swab on the back of a card.
I get it, a lot of people are anti-AI but when it comes to card grading I think it works well and gets the job done so why not? I think its healthy for the hobby that TAG is able to detect this kind of stuff. Lots of people have been telling me their dig reports suck but clearly they dont if it can detect card restoration. If TAG can detect all of this heat pen and water damage mumbo jumbo then im rooting for TAG. The more accurate the grade is, the better. Especially with the premium people are paying for 10s.
Thats simply not true because I’ve been watching a bunch of these card restoration videos mainly from Giovanni of Pokemon Master Center and usually when he gets a card back for alteration its due to something obvious like over doing it with the card polish or the card has a weird curve to it. Otherwise they easily get the grade upgrade and resell it and again, we dont know if that card will deteriorate over time.
This is the first time im seeing that the cards are being detected for water damage, something PSA and BGS hasnt been doing. Mind you most people that do this card restoration thing rarely ever choose TAG. So for them to already be able to detect it this early on speaks volumes.
Im glad that tag is doing things potentially a little more thoroughly than psa’s maybe 30sec per card. Hope the “restoration” phase dies out quickly.
I’m really cheering for tag personally. wonder how they will deal with being consistent with grades as their models evolve…one can only imagine that their models will keep getting better over time
PSA takes like a 5 second look at your card and everyone still grades with them.
edit: Also they seal your slabs with another single-use plastic infused wrapper? It’s like there’s competition to make this hobby even worse wasteful.
You’re speaking in theory. Yeah it doesnt require AI to do these things but are companies like PSA spending the time to actually detect card restoration thats difficult to see with the naked eye? No. They’re barely taking the time to evaluate these cards as it is.
Also it makes 0 sense to wait for another company to do what TAG is already doing. If TAG is already leading the charge with these detailed dig reports why would we wait for a PSA/BGS/CGC to do the same?
Again im rooting for TAG. I know they’re not perfect and there’s been some controversy with them but I dont even view them as the “lesser evil” option. They’re actually pretty solid with the transparency they provide and that’s a big step in the right direction. I’m not going to wait for another company to do the same.
Card restoration/alteration is becoming a big enough problem that I guarantee you PSA already has or is working on technology to detect this stuff. I’m not defending PSA, they’ve been doing lots of questionable things lately, but it’s in their best interest financially to detect this stuff and I am positive a multibillion dollar company is working to stop it.
That old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies here.
Could the latest released Pokemon games easily see major improvements? Yes. Have they? No. Why not? Because they dont need to. The formula they’re using right now works just fine.
The same can be said for a company like PSA. Taking a few seconds to grade a card and slap a number on it is working just fine for them. There’s no need for them to change.
Also wasn’t PSA claiming they were going to clean cards and remove scratches for an extra fee until they recieved backlash and began to backtrack?
Card altering directly threatens PSA’s business model and they have already been forced to pay out for altered cards they graded which subsequently disintegrated in the slabs. If anything, they will be addressing the issue because it is a financial liability for them and not because of some moral opposition to altering cards––although I’m sure that’s a reason too. TAG is not uniquely positioned to detect altering, in fact it’s the opposite. Many alterers specifically send cards to TAG and other less-experienced grading companies because they have a higher chance of passing the cards through.
PSA’s “cleaning” service was just wiping the cards down to remove dust and fingerprints, but it was overblown online as many things are.
Exactly! PSA wouldn’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts, rather because they don’t want to pay out if graded cards start falling apart in the holders a year or two later.
There was a person who bought a freshly-graded PSA 9 Rayquaza reverse holo from Emerald, when they got it in it looked fine, but then the layers delaminated and the card looked like it had been water damaged. This happens when people soak cards to try to press out dents, but the delamination can happen weeks to months after grading due to changes in ambient temperature/humidity.
Not mentioned in the original post but my understanding is that the person sent the card back to PSA for a grade guarantee, obviously it did not merit the PSA 9 grade and so PSA paid out in compensation.
