Weren’t there suspicions that he manipulated some 9’s to look like 10s? Cardhouse had a T17 PSA 10 at one point, and someone on this board did some detective work. Turns out something was shady about that card. Maybe others know more about this.
About weak PSA 10s in general, let me say that much: Some PSA 10s are in better condition than others, that’s a fact. I have one that’s flawless and above the average PSA 10, and I also have one that is horribly off-centered and has a scratch on the picture, and I have no idea what the grader smoked when he gave it a 10. For such an extreme case, I would sell the card below market value because I try to be fair. But I certainly wouldn’t have to. If there’s a 10 on the label, you can demand the full price of the average 10. I’m also skeptical when someone sells a card for premium because he calls the card a ‘strong 10’. Things like that are usually hard to measure from just the pictures.
In a nutshell: Don’t overestimate “weak/strong” 10s.
I have a few like that as well - bad centering or one small piece of edge / corner whitening. It’s just hard for me to stomach people paying premiums for 10’s when in reality it looks like a 9. But, as other have said, people are paying for the PSA grade.
Although, I see a lot of people saying “buy the card, not the grade” so that’s sort of contradictory to state don’t worry about “weak” 10’s. Unless they’re meaning EXTREME examples of misgrades - which has been mentioned.
@ripguyfawkes through the PSA cert from older pics, people were able to determine that his new PSA 10 T17 was a previous PSA 9 that was regraded
Yes, the same cert was originally a 9, then he submitted for a regrade and the cert updated on both the card and PSA website to show a 10.
Worth noting that PSA’s gem mint definition allows for 75/25 back centering. That means a card can look very off Centre and still get a 10 from PSA due to the card meeting the criteria on their site for a 10.
In regards to the Latios PSA 10 gold star from card house, is it the small corner dots on each corner which make it not a 10 or am I missing something else?
It has a flaw on all 4 corners. A decent amount of times, if there’s even two corner dots, the card is not getting a 10(at least from what I’ve seen.)
My experience with “weak” 10’s is that as long as the flaws don’t impede the card’s appeal (mainly front), then they can be graded a PSA 10. I say this because I have a couple cards with slight whitening on the back corner and a single mark on front that isn’t clearly visible. These cards can be clearly displayed and nobody would notice their imperfections unless they scrupulously hunted for them.
I personally find the damage on the back not to be so bad either. I mean, sure it could be labeled as a weak 10, and it might definitely grade as a 9 when this were to be graded before the grader’s first morning coffee.
But from what I’ve seen so far, the 10s I own in my collection and the 10s I have observed from other collectors/online scans, this doesn’t seem to be outside of the realm of what I’ve come to expect from a PSA 10. PSA 10 is not a flawless card. If collectors want a truly flawless card, the closest thing they could probably try to find is a Beckett Black Label 10. Even then, it’s an opinion in the end.
I’m definitely not a fan of Cardhouse as a seller (different story), but the whole drama surrounding his T17 was also in the end just about a cracked and re-submitted card. That in itself isn’t mega shady. Although I definitely don’t support cracking and re-submitting, I understand the financial temptation in cases of cards where the value of a PSA 10, is roughly 15-20x that of a PSA 9.
That Typhlosion could have also been submitted first time around, and gotten the 10. Or it could have happened after 5 resubmits. In both cases, it can probably be described as a weak 10, which can exist since PSA 10 = / = a Beckett Black Label 10.
where is that umbreon artwork from?
@madden12ut, @kpod,I see. Not sure what to think of this. It’s technically not illegal, but it’s also a bad business practice. I try to stay away from cardhouse anyway.
@pokaholic, I made it myself. I mean, the Umbreon artwork itself is of course Ken Sugimori at his peak. I took the png, merged it with a Pokemon card holo background from deviant art and improved lighting and shaders a bit in photoshop.
i’d kill for that card if it existed.
@pokaholic ,me too. It would fit right in with the Neo Genesis holos.
I tend to agree…if you have a choice of 2, you’d always pick the cleaner looking card, but that’s not likely to happen
If it’s at a reasonable price and there is no serious visible issue I would say a 10 is a 10
Something like really harsh jungle-era slivering might give me pause, but that’s about it
It’s a shame that none of the modern sets have at least done a callback to the oldschool style of art for holos at least. Would be amazing to actually see that card be printed by the pokemon company
Also, I’ve never seen a real black holo that I can recall, at least not one that looks as good as the one you came up with 
It’s elitist jargon. Pretentious arrogance at it’s funniest. Simply because they are turning the other cheek to the fact that it’s a subjectivity from a 3rd person to an item praised to others except for those grading. If your suspicious card got a suprisingly higher grade then expected and you start comparing to others of equal pane by definition and get triggered that’s a inferiority complex cope or so that another copy for comparison would want you to think. It’s definitely an obsession over nothing as the PSA Secret Gem Mint 11 should be underway to battle with the leading grade label around that are doing the most accurate job overall. The BGS Black Label Gigachads.
At the end of the day people will pay more for a weak 10 that looks more like an 8 and pay less for a strong 9 that looks like a psa 10
The psa label and grade is the only thing most collectors care about
I personally hate the way psa has a stronghold on Pokémon cards and their value
At the end of the day you have some minimum wage workers grading your cards and deciding the fate of its value. Not bashing them but I just think their opinion on the grade should not be the final deciding factor of a cards value
its almost as if potential buyers are somehow unable to look at the card inside of the psa 10 case. Do old cert 2xxxxxx psa 10s have a reflective coating?
Maybe off topic, but these types of debates are at the heart of why I have become such a huge fan of binder cards. Once the PSA case is removed, you are left with the fragile piece of cardboard that is the essence of what we are collecting. You can take the card out and hold it in your hand. Binder cards are a great reminder of the “value buy” that 8s and 9s, or even lesser grades, represent. They don’t look much different than the 10s, especially once the “label” is removed that screams out what an “inferior” card they are. It’s all quite subjective anyways.
Most my PSA 10 cards have either 1 or 2 corners with white dots. I think it’s very normal. Most my 10s are also 4 series cert for what it’s worth. That Latios has 4 corners with dots so maybe you can argue it’s on the weaker side of a 10?