I don’t think you’re lazy. I actually share many of your frustrations and I’ve done exactly what you did several times. The purchases I made were in the 3 and 4 figure range as well.
The point I was making is that putting things into perspective is vital. It’s a minority of PSA 10s relative to the entirety of 10s that have the easily visible flaws you ended up with.
The points you made are all fair. I’d say that PSA grading is consistent when put into perspective. If you’re going to be critical of the card, then you would need to have researched the card beforehand and not just the grade.
Life is all about probabilities, there aren’t any guarantees. A PSA 10 greatly increases the probability of getting a virtually perfect card, but doesn’t 100% guarantee it. Every purchase in life requires research and legwork: buying a house, a car, a washing machine, etc. If you buy the brand, but not the item, you run the risk of ending up with a dud.
Buying a computer monitor from Samsung greatly increases the probability that I’m going to get a nice screen because Samsung is a reputable company. But Samsung makes a few low quality displays as well. If you blindly buy a Samsung without researching the screen itself you might end up with a dud. That doesn’t mean Samsung’s brand has no value: it still provides a standard by which you can compare, judge, and safely purchase computer monitors.
What’s really bothersome is when an amazing card comes back an 8. Now that bothers me! I sent a first edition lugia in for grading here on efour and I have not gotten it back yet, but I’m reallly nervous because the card is flawless, but has one corner white spot on the back and a couple “factory lines” on the front that can only be seen when twisted in the light.
It could get a 10, but deserves a 9 and may et an 8 if the factory lines are really noticed. The point is, I love the card, but it would be defeating to get an 8 when it can so easily be graded higher.
I just buy and grade a whole lot of PSA 10s and ill just pay a premium for strong 10s and under market value for weak ones.
I suggest you guys either do the same, or not worry so much about others that do.
If you really are so angry with PSA, don’t get into collecting graded cards because grades will always be subject to opinions. And all our ideas and opinions about cards are different so we will never reach a consensus about it anyways.
I have a PSA 9 and 10 1st edition base Venusaur. I thoroughly compared the two cards and the only difference I could see was the tiniest of whitening spots on one corner of the 9. This means there is a $2000+ difference in the value of the two cards because of one microscopic whitening spot.
On the other hand, I have a PSA 9 shadowless Blastoise that I’ve inspected and looks to be flawless besides for the fact that it’s just outside the centering parameters for a PSA 10. So again, it would cost me $4500 to get a card that may be every so slightly centered better.
I’ve been slowly upgrading my cards to PSA 10 and paying a hefty premium to do so, but the more I compare pairs of 9s and 10s, the more I question whether or not PSA 10 cards are really worth it.
Actually I might be sending 4 PSA 10s in for regrade to get them out of the pop, and to get compensation for ones they damaged during the encapsulation process.
Trust me I’d rather much not have had to rebuy those cards lol.
I’ve never understood the whole “some PSA 10s aren’t perfect so therefore all PSA 10s are useless/PSA is a fraud/professional grading is dead” argument. I know this is reductionary but the point stands.
We know PSA makes mistakes. That’s why you check the card before purchasing. Obviously some flaws aren’t clear in pictures and if it’s serious enough that you think it should merit the card dropping a grade, you can submit it to PSA under their financial guarantee and if the grade is reduced you get compensated.
In all my years of card grading it has never bothered me that some PSA 10s are subjectively less strong than others.
I think it is a function of the social media culture/immaturity in this hobby that we see a lot of these complaints. From regrading to shill bidding and more, I feel like there is a lot more shady practices in Pokemon professional grading than others.
I don’t know who’s position you’re arguing against. If it’s mine, you’ve twisted it into something I’m not actually saying.
The problem I have comes down to one word: consistency. Consistency should be the goal of every grading company. If I started my own grading company and used random.org to assign grades, the service I’m offering is useless. Likewise, in an ideal world at an ideal grading company, I should be able to submit the same card 600 times and get the same grade back every time.
Overall, PSA is a pretty consistent company which one of the reasons they are the market leader for Pokemon. I also don’t expect to ever see humans grade at the “ideal” level since there are many variables outside of the card itself that contribute to the grade when we are talking about human graders. It’s also very hard to quantify “consistency” without spending a lot of money resubmitting the same 300 cards multiple times to get a decent sample size.
The problem I have and the argument I’m putting forward is that I don’t think - specifically when it comes to English Pokemon cards - that the premium associated with the PSA 10 grade is warranted given the level of inconsistency in PSA 10s. This is based on my own tastes and my own tolerance to variance within a grade. For me and probably others, I’d be much more lenient if we were talking about PSA 6 vs PSA 7s since you expect there to be some level of damage. But when we are talking about a grade literally defined to have nothing taking away from “the overall appeal of the card”, consistency matters a lot more.
On a side note, in my own opinion based on what I’ve seen and the cards I own, I find PSA 10 Japanese cards - especially the new back cards - to be a lot more consistent probably as a side effect of the higher print quality. Conveniently, this is a large portion of what you collect, right @fourthstartcg ? I definitely have a lot more confidence in getting a truly gem mint card when buying Japanese 10s vs English 10s.
Last thing I want to mention is it’s not just a matter of putting all the blame on PSA. Unfortunately, there is a strong bias in the market in favour of so-called weak 10s. The massive price discrepancy between 9s and 10s means that there is a very strong motivation to regrade up and absolutely no motivation to regrade down. When it comes to selling, if someone owns multiple copies of a card in 10 and they want to sell one, there will be a bias for them selling the weaker of the two. Additionally if I was more of a seller and more dishonest, I’d probably be inclined to sell this kingler to get rid of it because I don’t like the condition. I think over time we’ll see this become a bigger and bigger issue.
Sorry for the wall of text. Apparently I am more passionate about this subject than even I expected…
We all have to ask ourselves, how can we demand consistency from a company that has a team of graders that are allowed (according to PSA’s own grading standards) to have slight variance on opinions between themselves.
I’ll be making a thread soon enough that tackles some of these issues from a pure output perspective that PSA is currently achieving.
It’s not bad to want consistency, it’s just hard when there are human factors to it, especially multiple.
If I’m ever lucky enough to come across one that grades a 10 Gary I’ll call you up to trade it for a complete 9 set +.
If you love the card then why not just be happy loving the card? Why be bothered when a 3rd party doesn’t “love” it with a 10 grade. Also as another mentioned it sounds like you know it has issues and therefore shouldn’t get a 10. It’s funny the fact that so many people out there send in cards that end up getting PSA 9’s/8’s that they thought/hoped should have gotten 10’s. Yet then people are also fairly constantly complaining about weak 10’s.
I’m not going to enter the 9 vs 10 debate that’s going on, but I just want to say I buy 10s because I’m weird and don’t like that I don’t have the highest possible grade of something. I’m not satisfied with 9/10 I need 10/10, that’s how I am with everything though. My wife complains because I can’t do anything casually and always go full retard.
And you can only get the higher grades if you have more money.
Jokes aside, the grade depends for me. To me, a 10 is usually noticeably better than a 9. However, 10s are not perfect always. I would always prefer to have the higher quality of the two. 9s and 10s are both going to be quality cards but the 10 is always more desirable. The bigger the card, the bigger the premium for the 10. The big spenders who want their perfect cards are naturally going to compete more to get the finest example of the finest cards.
This kind of leads into my system for buying individual cards. For example, a new back Japanese card is usually only worth getting as a 10 (say an EX full art card). The 10 will be just as affordable as a 9. However, from a more pragmatic stance (in terms of available money to spend), I will take my Shadowless and 1st Edition holos in 9 because I acknowledge that they are still high quality but still in some demand. I hope that made sense.
I personally wouldn’t crack to get a 10, but I WOULD crack to get a 9. I just got some cards back and I’m happy with most of the grades, but a couple cards with flawless backs did get 8’s which can oly be for some factory lines. I would never expect a 10, but 9 would be fair still considering the 10’s we have been discussing.