Pretty new to the forum, hoping you could help out on what grades these two cards may achieve with PSA.
These cards are nothing to get excited about, I’m just curious as to how the imperfections on them will affect the grades so I can attempt to get on a learning curve on picking up raw cards in the future. I’m aware that they obviously won’t grade 10’s but do they have a chance at 8/9’s? Looking at the slight scratching on the holo, how does this affect grades? Understand it is difficult to give a strong opinion over photos but I’m mainly hoping you can give me a lesson on what I should be looking out for? imgur.com/a/MNHnV
The tiny swirl to the left of the flower on the Venusaur is actually a hair, my bad on the picture taking skills. But still, appreciate they have other scratches on the holo. How’s the centering and edge wear on these cards? They both look decent to me but then again I don’t have much experience so looking out for some guidance.
Is this a good example of bad centering? imgur.com/a/eLv9K
The edge wear on the first two is enough to bring the card down to a 9. The scratches though probably wouldn’t fly for a 9 even if the edges were perfect.
The Venusaur has a fair bit of edge wear all around, so that would put my guess on an 8, though I’m more edging (no pun intended) towards a 7 because it shows wear on the front as well, which is a big no-no, even though it does have quite good centering. I’m not sure if the holo scratches even matter anymore at this point.
Same goes for the Clefairy, if it wouldn’t have front wear I’d see them getting 8’s or 8.5’s, but from what I recall front wear is usually a big no-no, so a 7 or an 8 is my bet.
That’s my take on it. Unlimited base set holos seem very hard to find in Mint condition nowadays, and the market is flooded with non-mint copies.
Thanks for your input guys! If I send them in to PSA could I request information on why they achieved whatever grade they achieve? Think it would be helpful for me and identifying grading trends.
I don’t think they give that kind of information. They only do if it is off center but then that marker is part of the grade. Different things cause different grades. It is highlighted on their website.
On the initial grading you can’t get that information. Remember, they average over 3000 cards a day. If they had to explain their opinions, turnaround times would quadruple for all of us.
If you’d like, you can resend the card in for a review for about the same amount you paid the first time, and they will point out(usually one) what docked the grade.
Good advice though. Inspect each card closely and write down the problems. Then after they come back from PSA, review your list and see how the info may have affected the grades.
It’s fun and you will soon be quite the expert with pregrading guesses:)