I have this BGS 9.5 Japanese Dark Charizard that I bought off of ebay for $1,083. The sub grades are fantastic, but I know PSA is really strict with vintage, as they tend to try to have a sort of population control. This all being said, would y’all recommend me go the PSA re-grade route by sending in the card, and only have them crack it if it is a PSA 10, or am I better off cracking the card out myself and sending it in, knowing that this card coming back a psa 9 is a significant price drop.
Also, I don’t have pictures of the back of the card yet, as I haven’t received it just yet.
Entirely up to you. You will be charged for grading fees regardless if you are ok with that. I dont usually do risk, but if you think thats what you want then go for it. In the end no matter how good the card looks its going to be up to the grader to determine how that crossover looks. If you arent too concerned with getting a 9 then I would say go for it as the card itself doesnt look bad. I am curious now what the back looks like.
I am also curious what the back looks like lol. Im a bit surprised the sellers listing didnt have the back posted, but i did purchase it within 20 minutes of it being listen on ebay, as I thought the price was quite low. I will update this post with the back once I get it. That all being said Im just concerned both ways of grading lol because on one hand sending in the 9.5 is showing my hand where as cracking jt is far riskier and psa tends to be pretty harsh on vintage based off of what I have seen. None the less thank you for your response and I will update the post when I have the images of the back of the card.
Whatever route you go, I would watch this video for an honest review of the state of grading at the moment, especially with PSA.
I personally wouldn’t crack it. Even if it should be a PSA 10, I think odds are extremely high it would still comeback a PSA 9. I would wait a year or two, since PSA and Beckett are now owned by the same parent company, and then send it in to PSA and have them crack it if they think it is a PSA 10. (Again, I think the odds are still tough.) I’m in the same boat with a similar 9.5 Beckett card.
Bro lol trust me I know spending over $1k without seeing the back is wiiiild but if the subgrades are accurate I got a feeling its pretty solid lol. Fingers crossed also thanks for the welcome! Im glad to be here!
Thanks for the advice! Im gonna realistically send it in as is, and not crack it myself. That being said, you saying not sending it in for a couple of years, lets say I do send it in now, and they deem its correct they would have made it a PSA 9 but send it back because I said to only re-grade if its a 10. Is my beckett card now in their system with the certification as a “PSA 9”? If that’s the case I will easily wait to send it in down the line. Also for your similar situation what are the sub grades and what is the exact card if you don’t mind me asking. All in all thanks for the response, and I will definitely check the video out.
@LilSwammy I honestly don’t know if PSA would take note of the Beckett cert number and internally mark it as a “PSA 9” in their books. Probably not, but I’d send it in slabbed as a Beckett 9.5, and if they send it back, and you really want a PSA 10, I would then crack it and send it in at a later date. My card is a Game Boy Meowth promo in a 9.5. It has a 9 for one of the subgrades, so I decided it most likely wouldn’t get the PSA 10 bump up. And I didn’t want to crack it and risk it.
Any vintage Charizard in a PSA 10 is going to be tough nowadays. My biggest concern would be why is it a 9.5 on surface. But that might actually work to your favor, if someone is reviewing it in the BGS slab, as a surface issue might be harder to catch with it in the slab. Either way, it is an awesome looking card!
If you’re dead set on cross grading and you’re confident in the card you really just have to crack it out and accept the risk. Very few people have had success crossing a card in slab. PSA has no incentive to judge it objectively as they get your money regardless.
Given the large price difference between a BGS 9.5 and a PSA10 you’re also running the risk that the previous owner already attempted to cross it and it didn’t work out. If that’s the case PSA already has the BGS cert# on file and the chance of getting an upgrade is essentially zero.
Hopefully this doesn’t sound harsh but the price you paid is high and the seller didn’t even post pictures of the back of the card. I hope the listing title and/or description didn’t mention anything along the lines of “STRONG SUBS, PSA10???”. If so you might be in for a bad time.
Beautiful card regardless! Let us know the results if you decide to cross grade!
Funny enough, the title was the incorrect card lol. He listed it as a Blaine’s Charizard. The description was just a generic paragraph on the incorrect card generated by ebay lol. That being said, I agree the price is high, and your assessment wasn’t harsh. Worst case scenario I have a beautiful card that I really wanted regardless with fantastic sub grades in a 9.5. I do plan to message the seller, after he actually ships the card out, to see if he tried to cross grade it, but hes a small ebay seller, with 6 total sales, and there is a world this card just sat in his collection for a while, and was not sent for regrade. I will update the post based on my decision, and I appreciate your input.
Do people actually believe PSA try to control the pops of vintage cards? What possible upside is there to them for doing that? What arbitrary cut of point did they decide on when to not do it?
I guess I would rephrase my statement then. Obviously vintage cards are much harder to 10, as preserving a card that old to be in good enough condition to 10 is tough. I guess my “pop control” opinion is formed around the fact that I see a lot of success stories of cross grading modern, but cross grading of vintage is much tougher. I get the grading has probably gotten much stricter since these vintage cards were graded, but theoretically a BGS 9.5 graded in November 2023 (which is when my card was graded at Beckett) should be recent enough to cross to a 10. Also PSA doing anything illegal wouldn’t shock me all that much lol.
@woolsluk@wisewailmer This is the type of stuff I’m talking about. Rusty sent in 50 brick fresh non-holo promos. I think one got a 10. When I see this kind of stuff happening to Pokemon dealers who grade with PSA all the time, I say good luck everybody! I assume it is from inexperienced graders, but it seems like PSA has a lot of those these days. And crack & resub benefits PSA, so probably not a big incentive to fix it at the moment.
Little update on this one as a whole. I messaged the seller of the card asking if he ever sent it in for cross grading and he said “I only graded it with Beckett. Thought about sending to PSA because it has a high chance of a 10 but never pulled the trigger on it.” So he actually hadnt sent it into psa at all which is good news to me. I will update this post if I decide to send it in for crossgrade.
I’d send it in slabbed as a Beckett 9.5, and if they send it back, and you really want a PSA 10, I would then crack it and send it in at a later date. My card is a Game Boy Meowth promo in a 9.5. It has a 9 for one of the subgrades, so I decided it most likely wouldn’t get the PSA 10 bump up. And I didn’t want to crack it and risk it.
Rusty sent in 50 brick fresh non-holo promos. I think one got a 10. When I see this kind of stuff happening to Pokemon dealers who grade with PSA all the time, I say good luck everybody! 
I assume it is from inexperienced graders, but it seems like PSA has a lot of those these days. And crack & resub benefits PSA, so probably not a big incentive to fix it at the moment.