I am in agreement with @smpratte. Fair grading is absolutely paramount to anything else. I don’t care about your labels, your cases, your Pristine all 10 grades, if you don’t treat every card fairly.
I never really considered using BGS, but any doubt of that decision is now basically wiped away. Compromising your integrity as a company in exchange for exposure and profit is inexcusable and why I will always use PSA. I won’t comment on the sports name any more than I already have in other threads.
I agree with you on Beckett being too lenient on the top tier cards because they want the publicity. It’s the wrong way to go about it. I like the way PSA thinks.
PSA knows those top tier cards are going to be seen by many, so they grade extra harsh because they don’t want that reputation you pointed out for Beckett. PSA would rather deal with people saying the grade should have been better than the grade should have been worse.
HOWEVER, PSA is not perfect. While they are extra tough on the top tier cards, they do not maintain the same level of strict judgement that Beckett does on lower level cards. Beckett is much more consistent with your average card grade than PSA is.
Also, don’t forget my personal conspiracy with PSA. Submit a high value card with a low declared value and they’ll grade it easier than if you put the real value and used a higher submission service.
This is not true. More specifically, what are you basing this off of?
The absolute worst “mis-graded” pokemon cards in my collecting career are all beckett. I have a flareon gold star, graded BGS 9, with literally four corners of heavy whitening. I am talking that whitening that looks like fur, which would be a PSA 6, maybe 7 at best.
However, my sports cards are not as mis-graded. I think Beckett does not know what to do with pokemon cards when they are not gem mint. In my experience, the middle condition cards are not as consistently/concisely graded as PSA.
Putting anecdotal evidence aside, the more objective approach is that PSA receives absurdly more pokemon cards than beckett, thus, there will be more “inconsistencies”. I put that in quotes as this is all human opinion. I would never say PSA is perfect. Nor Beckett. I also don’t think Beckett is absolute garbage. For sports cards, PSA, Beckett and SGC are all viable options. As things are right now, the best overall choice for pokemon is PSA. They have the most history, volume and experience with Pokemon cards.
99.9% of the time, the PSA grader has no clue what value is declared on a submitted card. These dudes are trained in how to determine a grade and nothing more. Very few are enthusiasts by design.
I’d bet if you asked them all to complete the phrase “Tinker to Evers to ” Only 1 or 2 could do it.
I actually have sporadic bouts of extreme OCD. They’ve become less frequent but it was a serious issue 2-3 years ago. Made high school really tough for me.
