Did you notice that graded card sleeves often leave long vertical scratches on PSA cases?
Although these scratches are light and can be easily removed with PlastX, I began to put these sleeves on my cases to prevent scratches. However, it turns out that the sleeves are actually causing scratches on the case.
Going sleeveless has increased my enjoyment of looking at my slabs because of the increased clarity without the sleeves. Is sleeveless the way to go?
raw dog it
One thing I like about sleeves is they prevent the slabs from locking up into their stacking feature. I like how I can flip through them or lay them at an angle in their boxes. It’s kinda hard to do that without the sleeves.
I’ve never seen my graded cards get scratched from the sleeves that I use, but maybe I’m not looking hard enough? 
I’ve had a return from PSA where they sleeved the slabs and they came back with light vertical scratching.
I have no problem with superior fit sleeves.
Same problem faced here. The tight fitting sleeves scratch up the surface of the psa slabs. You can see these faint long lines of scratches.
Solution is to use a looser fitting one, or skip the sleeves.
It depends on your hand placement when you put them in the sleeve. If your putting any pressure at all on the face of the slab (like just resting your thumb on it) while its sliding down into the sleeve itll likely scratch it.
Ive started holding it like this:
Yeah I figured that approach would likely alleviate the issue but now I’m really digging sleeveless. But if I ever do switch back then I would definitely try this.
I wonder if sliding in a raw card into a penny sleeve can actually scratch the card now >_<
For a PSA case i need a sleeve on it, it just has a “sharper/rough” feel around the edges compared to a cgc case imo.
As far as sleeving raw cards, if they still get 10’s i guess who cares… unless you go full 40 grit sandpaper sleeve mode 
Personally never understood the need for a sleeve for what is already a case
Just to prevent any scuffs or the like, and there’s plenty of 3rd party cases for cases that are pretty popular and look great too. Just added protection for the cards thats all
I understand the argment of protecting the case, but I just don’t see the need for it: I’m not interested in the conditions of the edges of the PSA case - it’s a case. What I’m interested in is the card inside and I would rather keep the visibility as clear as possible.
Sure I can see the point of the visual aspect, but it just doesn’t interest me I guess. Each to their own!
I’ve noticed that the adhesive can leave a streak, but I’ve never had the sleeve itself cause scratches on the face of the slab. The case should be recessed away from the sleeve, so I’d be curious to know exactly how you’re inserting the slab into the sleeve… sound like a stupid question, but I’ve never had this problem.
This is definitely a reproducible thing. I had no idea it was happening before I read this thread.
I just tested it out on a junk slab. Originally it looked very nice with no vertical scratches. Then I put it in one of the graded card (PSA-size) sleeves. One of these:
[Look at some of the 1-star reviews on that page. You can see people talking about the same thing. One person included an example picture.]
After testing it on a slab I noticed that tons of vertical scratches appeared on both the front and back, even though I only put it in and took it out once. By design these are tight fitting sleeves, so it’s natural for one to want to apply some pressure on the face of the slab as you slide it into the sleeve.
If you look in the right light with the right angle, the scratches are super obvious. However, if held in a normal position, not an angle, and in normal lighting, you might not notice the scratches at all.
As mrtz mentioned, hand placement really does seem to be key to mitigating this issue.
It’s really annoying that the PSA slabs scratch so easily. Now I wonder if there are other sleeves that would be less likely to scratch, while still being just as tight fitting…
Many more examples can be seen here:
https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1522481
Great post. Fantastic examples via blowout and Amazon. I would give you gold if EFour was similar to Reddit.
These are actually the same sleeves that I have been noticing the most scratches from. But most perfect fit sleeves do the same damage if you slide them in with pressure on the front or back of the slab. Most people don’t even realize they do damage to the slab.
Even PSA puts sleeves on their higher tier returns without even realizing that they damage the slab. Thank you for validating my concerns.
