So PSA graded 78,175 Pokémon cards in the past week. This is by far the largest number of Pokémon cards they’ve graded in a single week. Here is a screenshot of the PokéMetrics stats table for this week:
Of those 78,175 cards, 1,502 were SWSH050 Charizard cards from the Champion’s Path Elite Trainer Boxes (pokemetrics.org/sets/3spz/27azg), of which 846 graded PSA 10. PSA has now graded over 15,000 of those in total.
On top of that, there are now 21 PSA 10 metal Charizard and 2 PSA 10 metal Pikachu cards from the recently released Ultra Premium Collection (pokemetrics.org/sets/4bvp) - all but 1 of those cards were graded this week.
Finally the 26th PSA 10 Neo Genesis 1st Edition Pichu appeared on the pop report this week (pokemetrics.org/sets/1uwk-1/11r7f). Perhaps a sign that people are finally opening the plethora of Neo Genesis boxes which have exchanged hands this year.
I decided to plot the number of cards PSA has graded per week since the beginning of 2020 (which is as far as my data goes back) on a chart to put that 78,175 number into perspective:
Does anyone with indepth knowledge of PSA Grading have some advice regarding the lee way they give in PSA 10s by set. I.e Jungle has alot of discounting in harshness due to edgewhere and silvering around edges, but Neo cards that are known for print lines dont seem to make the psa 10 grade when its a similiar set specific issue?
This is more so as ive recently picked up a mint raw neo rev holo set, will grade either way but curious as to how print lines effect the grade.
It seems a print line will dock a minimum of 1 grade depending on the rest of the overall card condition. I suppose some cards could be better or worse in this respect where if it has multiple print lines it might even got docked down further. In other cases I’ve seen a few PSA 10s with a very feint print line that don’t take away the appeal of the card as much if the rest of the card is perfect it can still pull off a 10 as it may be the only flaw it has.
In general, it seems like the front of the card weighs the grade more than the back, especially with holo cards. I collected the Base Set 2 holo set which is also really bad for print lines and all my 9s usually have a print line that keep them from being a 10, while all the 10s have a perfect surface with no print defects.
So, I’m not sure if PSA is anymore lenient on Neo cards. The 10s in those sets tend to be very rare and low pop while the 9s tend to pile up due to those print defects.
Hi I have a submission with psa through graded gem and 2 of the cards were a dark charizard and an espeon, both with pregrade predictions of 9 or 10 The psa pop 10 went up by 1 about 2 or 3 weeks after my submission left psa, could it be my ones or would mine have been added instantly to the pop, thanks ( I don’t have patience to wait 2 weeks to find out lol) it’s the difference between them being 300 each and 1300 each
It would be very bad luck for the pop in a 10 to go up by 1 on both cards for the first time in probably months right in the few weeks of mine leaving psa, fingers crossed
PSA populations are (typically) updated right before or immediately after the shipment of your cards. I don’t know how Graded Gem does it, but with my middleman submissions in the past I’ve been able to look immediately after they told me the shipment was on the way back and see population increases. Three weeks to update a population seems too long, but again I don’t know how Graded Gem works. You will just have to wait.
Any eta guesses on value being done now that they seem to be focusing on tcg? So much grading and their ctd done is 35% january ;/ Maybe mid next year?
They must really be cranking out middle man orders. There has been little movement on the CTD tracker over the past week. Waiting for the press release stating they have completed all 2020 orders.
Got notice of upcharge on 1/11/21. Almost a month in and still waiting for the Ludkins tracker to update from the “grading” stage or even get an email of submission being shipped. Ugh. This is excruciating…
I decided to test my luck and send the PSA 9 Unikarp for a review. It’s a $1,000 bet that could’ve paid off by increasing the card’s value from around $30,000 to around $70,000. PSA promptly destroyed the card and returned it in a new slab, same grade.
This was my favorite card. This is so disheartening that I’ve decided to quit the hobby. I cannot partake in this while these extortionist monkeys are the de facto entity to deal with. We all know it will be hell for me to open a claim against them and the chances it works are slim, yet they were paid $1,000 to spend seconds to review and destroy the card. And warranty or not, destroying a $30,000 artefact is unacceptable. At this tier of service, the card should’ve been handled by a master grader and treated like the Mona Lisa. People need to wake up and move to BGS or CGC or whatever company that has a reasonable, flat fee structure. BGS is also said to be “more gentle” with cards (Rusty’s words). I’m done. It was a good to be here.
The card isn’t in my possession right now and I do not have other pictures of it. These are the PSA scans. My brother, who I sent the card to, confirmed that what we see there is a fold. I spent an hour examining the card before sending it and can confirm this wasn’t there. Also now obviously several grades and tens of thousands lower.
PSA
English Classic Collection: 1746 total graded, 1301 PSA 10 (74.5%), 260 sales recorded
Japanese Promo Pack: 243 total graded, 236 PSA 10 (97.1%), 17 sales recorded
Minimum of $230,550 in grading fees between the two.
BGS
EN: 155 total graded, 27 10s (17.4%), 90 9.5s (58%), none lower than 8.5
JP: 45 total graded, 2 black labels (1 zord sold and 1 Umbreon that hasn’t), 18 10s (40%), none lower than 9.5 (56%)
Got pictures back from my brother. It seems like they also aggravated the damage on the left corner. It’s so difficult for me to process what happened. It’s not so much about the financial loss, but about contributing to the destruction of an incredible piece of Pokemon history and contributing to the perpetuation of this horrible organization that PSA is.
Accidents happen, but at this level, is should be a gray swan event. It’s Pokemon heart surgery. The surgery can go wrong, but you expect a highly qualified surgeon to operate and a solid team to back it up. If the surgeon goes ape, they loose their license and get sued big time for damages caused. PSA will run away unscuffed with, at best, a financial penalty that is utterly insignificant to them.
Clearly, PSA puts $30,000 cards into the hands of underpaid, fresh recruits who couldn’t care less about what they’re doing and are too scared or uninterested to speak up about their oopsie. Further, QA is equally brain dead or a lie. Clearly, none of the $1000 grading fee goes into putting the card in experienced, careful, stake holding hands.
Clearly, risk management has assessed that the indemnity paid in case of an insurance claim isn’t an incentive for them to treat high-ticket cards any differently. And why would they? We pay them essentially $750 ($1000 - $250 (BGS Premium)) in insurance. If I get $20,000 back from them (and that apparently is if I’m lucky to get anything), that’s 25 times the insurance premium. I certainly hope these accidents happen less than 1 in 25 cases and less than 1 in 250 for that matter or even less than 1 in 2,500.
Here’s a note about the profitability of companies doing medical insurance in USA :
If they would be subject to the same regulation as other insurance companies and assuming 1 accident in 250 $30,000 card graded, then they should have a $150,000 dollars penalty for that oopsie (250*$750*80%). If 1 in 2,500 card is damaged, then freaking $1.5 million in penalty. Now, that would negate profit from the insurance policy they force upon us and incentivize them to care about what they’re doing and it wouldn’t leave their client empty handed and so disheartened.
PSA runs a superb money extortion scheme and I think this is demonstrated by their explosive market capitalization before their buyout. With the growing number of grading companies, clearly, competitors are also doing well, but I highly doubt they are printing money nearly to the same extent as PSA does.
It’s a shame that PSA is the de-facto grading company for Pokemon. BGS’ flat fee structure eliminates the insurance scam and the inner sleeve provides protection that would have likely prevented this incident from happening. And it’s more about preservation than display.
