Hi all, should i grade this charizard. It has a small dot over the right claw. Im not sure if its directly graded as a 6 or not…
That data is awesome. Is there a way to see what % of 10’s are coming from which sets? Are the high amount of 10’s being graded all coming from modern, or is it all spread out?
No worries if too hard to parse 
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I am looking to crossover grade this CGC 9.5 Neo Revelation Lugia (no subgrades) to PSA. Is there a chance that it could get a 10? The only flaw that I see is a white dot in the top right corner on the back. Imgur Link: imgur.com/a/TzH6WMV
I do have that data but it’s specific to each set and isn’t something which I can easily collate right now.
What I would say is that this data is a bit hard to make much sense of - people aren’t as likely to be submitting PSA 5-quality modern cards, so the balance is already off from that. The majority of lower grades are definitely going to be seen in the earlier sets.
What I can say is that there have been at least 473,872 Pokémon graded by PSA in the past 52 weeks including 161,717 PSA 10 grades. The 3 most graded sets in this time period are 2019 Hidden Fates, 1999 Base Set (unlimited) and 2016 XY Evolutions:
- Hidden Fates accounts for 7.24% of the total number of cards graded in the same time frame (34,353 cards) and 14.67% of the total PSA 10s graded (23,728);
- Base Set (unlimited) accounts for 7% of the total (33,185 cards) and 1.33% of the total PSA 10s graded (2,159);
- Evolutions accounts for 4.29% of the total (20,322 cards) and 2.4% of the total PSA 10s graded (3,894).
On that note: there have been more Champion’s Path Charizard #74 and #79 cards graded as PSA 10 than both Base Set (unlimited) and Evolutions in the same time period. Charizard #74 accounts for 2.9% of the PSA 10 grades seen in the past 52 weeks (4,683 cards) and Charizard #79 accounts for 2.7% of the PSA 10 grades (4,379): both have a combined 3,748 total cards graded in this time period which did not achieve PSA 10 grades - the majority of those being PSA 9.
If you’re curious, Champion’s Path as a set has seen 13,308 cards graded in this time period and those two Charizard cards account for 96.3% of that amount.
Modern cards aren’t at all a guaranteed PSA 10 though - the Special Delivery Pikachu promo from last year has seen 2,146 copies graded by PSA so far, of which only 14% have achieved a PSA 10 grade (307).
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Saying they “always look like strong 8s” is sus. It is known they were more lenient back then but cert number alone will not tell you the condition. I suspect certain 2 mil cert cards will be worth less but that should be determined by looking at the card and not looking at the cert.
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I’ve generally heard that PSA gave 10s more easily when the cert number was 2X million. TCA Gaming recently said in a video: “they used to let you get away with having a little bit of whitening in the corner, but now that will cost you the 10”. Also going off my collection, I have cards with 2X million cert in 10 and 4X in 9 and they look identical or even some 4x 9s potentially look better than 2x 10s. And many of my friends who have been grading for years swear PSA grades harder now.
Believe me, I don’t want that to be true. And as I said, just because it has 2X cert doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not gem mint by today’s standards.
Edit: there’s also a video where Scott talks about corocoro cards getting 9s today for something at the top of the card while he used to get 10s with the same thing present
It’s all speculative and always has been. Graders are human, just because you got lucky with a 2xx cert and unlucky with a 4xx cert doesn’t mean PSA were more lenient in the past than they are today.
I made a quick thing in Paint to demonstrate my view on the situation:
Maybe in several years we’ll have a good understanding of whether PSA were more lenient during a certain timeframe as more and more cards appear, but for now I think it’s way too soon to tell with any certainty.
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I guess because you made a meme you are more credible than veterans like TCA Gaming and Scott (smpratte)
edit: changed “trustworthy” to “credible”
That wasn’t intended to be a meme. It was to show that in time more misgraded cards are discovered and where 2xx certs are older it goes hand in hand that more misgraded 2xx certs will have appeared. PSA didn’t suddenly have a complete change of heart between 29999999 and 40000000 (or the brief stint they did grade Pokémon as 3xx).
In terms of credibility I’ve been grading with PSA since around 265xx and can tell you that I’ve experienced more questionable grades as 4xx than I did with 2xx (and the last PSA return I had was in the 45xx range, so I’ve experienced almost as many 2xx certs as I have 4xx certs). Also in terms of credibility I’ve been analysing PSA’s population data since 2019 and have not noticed any change in the numbers of PSA 10 grades awarded.
You can chose to believe that certain certificate ranges are graded better, but I don’t believe there’s enough data to justify that belief and think it’s nothing more than speculation - speculation which, as mentioned in the post I linked you to previously - started when people were trying to upsell their 4xx certs when the market had a high supply of 2xx certs.
Whether you believe that TCA Gaming and Scott are more credible in this discussion is your call to make and I’m not going to dispute that, but I will say that ultimately it’s important to come to your own conclusions. Don’t just buy a card because it has a high grade, buy a card because you believe the grade is justified. That isn’t new advice, but it’s advice a lot of people don’t follow - case in point: the 4xx cert Master’s Scroll which PWCC sold recently.
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I think the prices of PSA 10 versus PSA 9 are a lot of the reason why people talk so much about getting PSA 10 harder, because people expect, and hope to get PSA 10, because it increases the value very much on the card
And in addition, it is much more difficult to submit mint cards now on old cards than when they were opened. And there are probably significantly fewer cards that are opened now from old cards than new ones. Due to the high price, people also send in much “worse” cards than before, to get the most money with the extreme prices
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This is all anecdotal evidence, people can scream that 5X is better than 4X and 4X is more strict than 1X but in reality they´ve held maybe a few hundred or thousand cards, which is statistically absolutely insignifcant.
I can load some photos of 4 and 5X 10s I own/have owned that have scratches on the holo, significant whitening etc. but that doesn´t prove or debunk that any specific cert period (that in itself is laughable) was graded more “strict”, whatever that even means.
To be fully transparent, I own PSA cards from 0X to 5X with most being from 2X and 4X.
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@pichufan , I think @sadpokeboi actually has a very reasonable take on the topic.
He could’ve added “[certain 2 mil] …as well as certain 4,5,6 mil… [cert cards]”. But ultimately you both (+ myself) seem to agree that it is necessary to look at the actual card and not just buy a cert number.
It’s most probably not practically possible to scientifically prove whether or not PSA’s standards have changed, but when a growing number of some of the biggest submitters of cards claim to see a pattern of harsher grading, it becomes less and less anecdotal.
I don’t have a stake in this one way or the other. If everyone would actually practise “buying the card, not the grade”, the whole discussion would become obsolete anyway (for the buyers at least).
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There´s nothing more that needs to be said, people should just open their eyes and decide for themselve whether a card is a 10 or not.
Would be a fun idea to scan some of my 10s of different cert periods without showing the cert and see if people could actually tell a difference. I´d bet a PSA 10 1st ed wotc holo that they can´t haha 
I´ve submitted and pregraded for a few years now and my pregrade results did not significantly change from the end of the 2x period to now. Completely anecdotal of course.
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@muk the only part I disagreed with was the claim that “it is known…”.
The only way right now to know with any certainty if anything has fundamentally changed between 2xx and 4xx certs would be to have handled a very large quantity of cards steadily spread evenly between 200xxxxx and 499xxxxx, and I don’t think anyone fits in that category.
Yes, you have a few people at the top handling well over 50,000 cards, but it’s important to note that the 2xxx and 4xxx certificate ranges each consist of 10 million entries - you’d have had to have handled 200,000 cards between 2xx and 4xx for those to account for a mere 1% of the total.
To put that into some perspective, PWCC have sold 36,560 PSA-graded Pokémon cards since May 2012 - if those were all in the 2xx and 4xx range that’d only account for 0.183% of those cards. Even if someone was to go through all of their scans and collate all the cards which appear to be misgraded I still don’t think any reliable conclusion could be drawn.
I don’t believe anyone right now can say with any certainty that PSA’s grading standards have changed. It’s entirely speculation.
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It’s not “nothing more than speculation” if TCA is saying on multiple occasions, and Scott on at least one (referring to certain Coro Coro cards), that PSA has changed their standards. And I don’t think they’re doing it to upsell 4xx cert cards. Not to imply that you were speaking specifically of TCA or Scott when talking about rumor making but I’m saying they’re a more objective source than most.
Also, not sure where the evidence is that an upsell strategy is the origin of the idea that PSA up’d their standards? Regardless of the origin of the idea, it can still be true.
I respect your opinion and I’ll admit that 4xx, 5xx etc, can still be misgraded. I’ve come to my own opinion not just from them but as I’ve said my own observations too. And yes I also agree that looking at the condition of the card is what should determine the value as I originally stated. Just because it’s 2xx cert doesn’t mean it’s less valuable.
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I will recant “it is known”. I didn’t mean it was literally “justified true belief” to use a strict philosophical sense of knowledge with certainty and indisputable evidence. I was moreso referring to what I thought was the general sentiment/consensus which I’m now discovering is more controversial than I realized.
That being said, I think we ought to meet in the middle. I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s “entirely speculation”. Many credible people are arriving at that conclusion and so it should at least call our attention and warrant caution. It could perhaps be investigated more systemically too.
edit: grammar
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@sadpokeboi there was a big topic on E4 last year titled PSA - new certs Vs old certs which is well worth a read through (though it does begin to derail a bit the further you get into it): www.elitefourum.com/t/psa-new-certs-vs-old-certs/26069/1. I’ve already said everything I wanted to say on this subject and there’s nothing I’ve said above which isn’t already covered in that topic.
If there has been a big shift in mindset since that topic was active then so be it, I for one haven’t noticed much of a difference.
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You get 100 random PSA 10 holos as a gift from the PokeGods. You have the option of all 2XX, all 4XX or all 5XX certs. I pick 5 > 4 > 2 all day. That was my main point but poorly articulated at the beginning of this discussion.
EDIT: Without taking into consideration that the more valuable cards exist in a certain cert range >_<
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