Not sure how many are familiar with this fellows Instagram but I found it very interesting. He cross grades from PSA to BGS and posts all his results. There is a common theme…
But he posts all the of them or the ones that come higher? Easy manipulation there. I won’t discuss PSA is more strict with Pokemon, but I would take it very carefully
Regardless it seems like the general consensus holds truth, many people know and assume a BGS 9 would cross down to an 8 or strong 7. Just with all the new entrants coming in, taking advantage of the ignorance of many uninformed individuals who believe it’s “all the same”. People have been making a living off buying cheap (cheaper than PSA - under market) BGS cards they deemed strong enough to get an X grade and command an X price over what they paid with PSA for ages…
And his 6s that flipped into BGS 9s and looked crazy clean though lol probably due to very subtle indent or crease to get them such a low grade… interesting none the less.
Not sure if I would agree with BGS on an *almost* flawless card getting 9+ everywhere but having an indent and still getting a 9 and being labeled as “mint” vs. PSA saying it how it is and giving the card a 6-7.
This would definitely be more interesting with something like a video documenting all the cards before the bgs submission (and date proof of the submission) so we could be sure it wasn’t manipulated.
in any case (no pun intended) I despise the look of the psa label personally and wish it wasn’t generally worth more.
As I stated before each company has their own standards and PSA is more strict. But I feel if that person is only posting one side of the story, it’s manipulating the results
I have been following this account for a while, its pretty interesting. I agree, the best way to more objectively assess this would be to send 50 random PSA 9s to BGS and 50 random BGS 9s to PSA and see what grades come back.
The only anecdotal input i can provide is that i own a handful or BGS 9s, and i would confidently say that they would all become strong PSA 8s, but probably not PSA 9s. While their backs are usually ok, They all tend to have light holo scratching that i can’t see PSA giving out a 9 for.
I think if anything it’s just adding weight to why a PSA 10 holds significance and value… and confirming for everyone that anything under a BGS 9.5 is open territory at your own risk type of thing lol… he’s like reverse manipulating… but probably just enjoys the case and labels more / knows there’s money to be made by engaging in this type of arbitrage
I don’t think there’s enough “skin” in the game or opportunity for profit doing that, but you are 100% right that “for science” ultimately this would be the best challenge!
And even 50 BGS 9.5s and 50 PSA 10s! What this fellow is doing or proving is what is relatively standard knowledge among those who are more seasoned in the trade for sure
Kinda closed minded there, what if I do a page submitting PSA cards that came lower in BGS? What if this guy selects the cards he feels PSA was too hard on them and just send those. As I state this instagram is interesting but as it’s very manipulable it’s just that, interesting. AS someone stated here a good experiment would be crossing 50 or 100 random cards and then analyze the results for real conclusions
I don’t see how that is possible, but I understand your point and your concern for the individuals agenda and how he’s framing things to work in a certain way. But there’s a whole better than (>) phrase I’ve seen many members here paste in terms of each company and which grade is superior to the other etc.
Sure many agree there are a lot of weak 10s or 9s from PSA that just furthers the opinion on their quality control, but in general, using what is the most accurate analysis of their grading standards and processes, that this process is far superior (stricter) than BGS below a certain grade. Now wether they apply the framework properly or not or are prone to X margin of error / poor grading decisions, thats definitely debatable.
Example being can a card with a crease or indent as tiny or subtle it may be, all the rest flawless, still deserve a 9 grade or labelled as “mint”? It’s definitely highly subjective and a preference thing that’s for sure.
I called BS to the Instagram user posting these regrades.
They refused to make a short (3 second) video showing the front and back of the same card with the BGS grade in the same frame…
They conveniently don’t show the color of the label in the pics where they show the back of the cards…
They use suspicious language such as “I have nothing to prove” when literally their entire IG page is dedicated to attempting to “prove” a very specific point.
Also, in one of the posts, I did see a small part of the back of the label… and it was WHITE, when the card was supposedly a “9” which should have a silver label.
There is literally no point to these posts if they won’t show us the front surface of the card. PSA is super focused on holo surface and none of these pictures actually show us how the holos of these cards are