I think PSA being more aware of certain cards is a more reasonable claim than xx certs are more strict overall.
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Maybe some could argue that level of grading service is not “high enough” back then, for the case of old certs being weaker.
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A lot of it seems to in my opinion to be PSA over the years learning and adapting more. Yes there’s some cards that clearly shouldn’t be 10 and there’s some 9s and even 8s that make you question why they got the grade they did. To me I’ll never get over that 7xx cert Black Star Venusaur grading a 10, when I spoke to the guy who graded it and he told me it was originally a 6 and cracked and resubmitted it in hopes of a 8. Sometimes it does depend on the grader mood. Who knows
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I don’t think the level of service is much different today. The primary difference is that you could submit that Charizord in a bulk tier declared at $1 back then but today it would end up in one of the higher submission tiers.
But most cards submitted today are still done in the cheapest tier.
Ah maybe it’s time to close this thread
Why? Disagreement is great
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The past few years have seen an explosion of vintage pack openings and subsequent grading. This is why a large portion of PSA 10s appear very strong (i.e., they are retrieved from a pack and submitted ASAP). However, this was true in the old cert eras too, though fewer Pokemon cards overall were being graded.
An important point here is that we are only seeing a slim portion of the old certs (i.e., the ones that people don’t want to stash away forever in their collection), but nearly all of the new certs (whether in a collection and advertised on IG/Reddit/e4/etc., or for sale).
This argument is insane.
All certs have very strongly and very poorly graded cards. Although grade stringency may have changed with the massive influx of modern submissions, it doesn’t reduce the many “strong 10s” that were opened from a pack and immediately submitted years ago.
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Just feels like maybe it’s getting a bit argumentative 
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I think the discussion is good. This debate has been going on for years now. Some cards are factually harder to grade then others. Also PSA isn’t going to just hand out 10s like nothing. They didn’t in the past and don’t even more so now.
Edit:Referring to vintage not modern.
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And at that point, you don’t trust the grading company, so why even get anything graded at all?
Slabs are for the uninformed.
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I wasn’t trying to be rude, I’m just not interested in arguing about why I believe some certs are better than others; you’ve been around long enough to have heard everything. However, I am interested in how the perception towards different certs could affect the market, and whether or not it is something that will develop further. It’s significant enough in numismatics that the market is impacted by it, and I don’t think trading cards are immune. As evidenced in this thread already, it’s something some buyers care about.
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TM26 I don’t want you to think I was being rude to you either or anyone else for that matter. I agree with what you said. I think everyone had some great insight and able to get what they are trying to say across. I think some of it could be market manipulation bc earlier there was a post about a seller selling the same card same grade different cert numbers and had different prices. Some of the price differences has to do with the ones selling. Either way I have no issue paying for a card that rarely comes up in a 10 since I don’t resell or flip cards. I collect what I like and like to show my collection off to my friends and family. I feel content with my collection and to me that matters more.
One thing that is nice about mid 6x certs-now is that PSA always has a scan attached to the cert lookup.
I personally don’t care what cert number the card I’m buying is tbh, but I do love the attached scans with the newer certs when buying 
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No, I don’t think it’s rude at all. I’ve perhaps been around too long and I’m jaded by everything. I honestly can’t even keep the argument straight now. As others have pointed out, in 2020 the argument was that 4xxx certs were better than 2xxx. Now it’s that 8xxx is better than 6xxx. In October we had someone in a thread arguing that 23xxx was more lenient than 27xxx, and 6xxx and 7xxx were better than 5xxx (but I guess now 6xxx aren’t as good as 8xxx?)
Of course there’s never any evidence provided for these claims other than vibes. And if you want to go off vibes that’s more than fine, but don’t claim it’s anything more than a personal preference.
I agree with you that the most interesting thing about all of this will be where the market takes it. The substantive reality doesn’t matter if people are willing to pay more for their preferred cert number.
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Just to pop an extra bit of anecdotal evidence in with the harshness on newer graded cards, my infamous local store has managed to grade several WoTC PSA 10 holos just within the last six/seven months or so - all cards submitted from childhood collections they’ve bought from random walk-ins.
We’re not talking super easy stuff here either: unlimited Jungle Flareon, unlimited Jungle Scyther, unlimited Dark Charizard, 1st ed Rocket’s Mewtwo, Expedition Dragonite & part of a complete unlimited Shining set (I think Gyarados, Raichu & Charizard got the 10’s)…Just to name a few that I can remember off the top of my head.
Considering they only send subs of 10-15 cards every couple of months or so, that’s not a bad hit rate for a supposedly “harsher” time getting 10’s.
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Here’s a great example of how strong newer certs can be. Won’t post the front of the card, I’ll leave it up to everyone who is curious to look the cert up.(You’ll get a good chuckle out of it) Btw it’s higher than a PSA 8.
The unspoken part in this conversation is that PSA is a not a single person but a large number of underpaid workers that give a quick opinion and are all expected to know how to grade baseball, basketball, hockey, Pokemon, One Piece, Yugioh, etc.
So even if we all agree PSA is more strict on average, you will still get inconsistent results because it’s inherent in human-based grading
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Do you guys think that CGC and PSA offering high res scans of their newer graded cards has opened this pandora’s box? For the majority of card grading’s existence, this feature wasn’t so readily available as it is today.
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