I’ve been involved in a naturally heated discussion about PSA OC qualifier grades this evening. The usual situation where someone takes to Facebook to complain that their card scored a lower grade than they were expecting as if the whole world is about to end, however in this case the grade they received was PSA 8 and the grade they were expecting was PSA 9 OC.
Anyway…
During this conversation somebody linked to PSA’s Sports Lingo glossary: www.psacard.com/resources/lingo. Under the heading for the letter O sits an entry for the OC qualifier grade term. It reads:
It links to a glossary entry for the broader Qualifier term, which itself reads:
For as long as I can remember I’ve been blissfully regarding all qualifier grades as being better than the grade number assigned to them; acting as a mid-way point between a main grade number and the next higher grade. In my mind, PSA’s grade hierarchy looks like this:
On PokéMetrics I’m currently placing qualifier grades between the base grade and the higher grade, and have even gone as far as noting that a qualifier grade reduces the overall grade by 1:
Before I make any changes to both my mindset and how I order grades on PokéMetrics, I figured I’d turn to the community to ask what your views are on this. I’m sure I’m not alone in the belief that OC grades add to rather than take away from a grade number, but then again I may be the only person with this belief and it may have simply taken this long for me to realise otherwise.
Do you regard OC grades as being higher or lower than the grade number they represent? Have you graded cards with qualifiers in the past, and if so do you feel the qualifier saved them from a lower grade number or blocked them from getting a higher grade number?
I know people who prefer PSA 9 OCs to PSA 10s in some instances. Some people love them.
Personally, I would just prefer to have the plain 9 over the 9 OC because of uniformity, but there are a number of error collectors who will go out of their way to pick up a PSA 9 OC.
I guess my short answer is that it completely depends on the individual.
10s don’t have qualifiers so anything that is 9 to 10 grade but too oc would get a 9 OC theoretically that means some amount of 9 OCs are otherwise 10s except for the fact that they aren’t because their centering doesn’t qualify which makes the whole thing silly to me.
Sports and many other hobbies qualifiers detract from the value a lot but it’s fine that some people like it more and value it more that is the subjective part. The objective part though is that a qualified grade by definition is lesser than the flat grade overall because it is stated to be missing an important requirement for the grade.
E.g. idc how GEM a card is if it has 80:20 centering and would otherwise be a black label 10 or PSA 10 it isn’t even a PSA 9 even and is by definition lower than a PSA 9 on the hierarchy.
You can still prefer a lower condition card though and disagree with PSA hierarchy. I prefer many PSA 6s with near invisible surface issues to well worn PSA 7s.
Qualifiers are meaningless because they are applied arbitrarily and their application has changed over time. It is also incredibly difficult to differentiate quality between qualifiers which are designed for vintage sports cards and not modern trading cards. For example, an OC card vs an MK card would be considered very different qualities today.
It is a lose-lose situation trying to figure out whether they’re “above” or “below” regular grades
I dont believe this would be exactly accurate either, I know in the sports world a 9(OC) is equivalent to a 7 so knocking -2 in grading.
In terms of using dents as reference a dent equates to an automatic PSA 6, if there was a qualifier the card it would be a 9(D)
There is definitely a different sentiment for OC/MC in pokemon and sports - so I’d personally arrange the hierarchy based on premiums which your assumption would be accurate- though in terms of actual grading standards in my opinion it would look more like
I personally think the OC designation adds value but it is hampered by PSA’s inconsistency. Also it is highly dependent on the card, popularity of the Pokemon and the set. 1st Edition Base Set holo? Yes adds value, Hidden Fates? Not so much.
Most Japanese cards I would say it adds value since the printing standards are much higher than English, so for a truly OC card to escape the factory it almost certainly will add value.
I do not mentally place it in the same “hierarchy” you mentioned but instead as a separate grade. Even among 9 OC cards there is a range of “meh this just looks aesthetically unappealing” to “wow it’s almost miscut”.
I once traded a mint OC 1st Ed Base Dratini from my binder for a PSA 9. The guy was thrilled to trade and actually bought the PSA 9 directly from eBay in order to swap. I probably could’ve gotten more $$ but didn’t mind. I don’t know if he is still around but he was a huge OC collector username gumber. So by this standard, if a card that could grade PSA 9 OC can be easily swapped for regular PSA 9, the PSA 9 OC would be ranked higher.
However, it is entirely dependent on collectors and on individual cards. Pokemon definitely appreciates OC more than sports. For modern it’s funny where there’s basically a scale of OC for which say pulling a card from pack 10% OC you think damn it off centered won’t get PSA 10 but for 25% wow miscut nice profit which AFAIK is not a thing in sports market.
I think also the lackluster quality control of recent sets has led to a huge amount of OC modern cards so they have lost a bit of specialness to me, but being in several Facebook errors groups there is still a lot of enthusiasm for very OC and vintage OC cards. For example the other day someone posted a super OC Hidden Fates Articuno GX and the offers were much more than PSA 9 price.
Edit – I went back to Facebook to confirm and I would classify the Articuno I mentioned as miscut not OC. But again this speaks to how subjective it can be.
Mint card with 50/50 centering - wow perfect
Mint card with 55/45 centering - nice mint
Mint card with 60/40 centering - darn off centered
Mint card with 62/38 centering - bleh really off centered
Mint card with 70/30 centering - wow nice OC!
Mint card with 75/25 centering - wow score!
Mint card with 85/15 centering - sweet miscut!
Mint card literally not centered with a border cut off - super sweet miscut!
For me personally I think true severe miscuts (as in another card is visible/some other zany shit) are kinda interesting but regular OC cards are dreadfully boring and seem like an attempt to find meaning in things that don’t need it. 9OC No Rarity? Yeah they’re all like that. 9OC modern common? Who cares? I like the sports philosophy where OC is seen as lesser and the factory error isn’t glorified, but of course others can collect how they see fit outside one guy’s opinion.
If you have a PSA 8 with a qualifier then you have a PSA 8 quality card if you ignore the issue that is causing the qualifier. So a PSA 8 OC is a card in PSA 8 condition if you don’t factor in the centering.
PSA 9 qualifiers are a bit tricky though because there are no qualifiers for PSA 10. So a PSA 9 OC could be completely flawless with exception to centering but would never get a 10. So I would say ON AVERAGE, a PSA 9 OC is actually in better condition than a regular PSA 9 in all characteristics OTHER THAN centering. Ignore centering may make sense if you’re purposely buying an OC card but from a pure grading perspective, there’s no reason that one should not consider the centering. Since a PSA 9 OC is a more flawed card than a regular PSA 9, I would rank it PSA 9 > PSA 9 (OC)
I feel in the pokemon hobby there is a theory of ‘is this rare’ because its technically a flaw or error. In the ceramics industry or other collectibles its all about condition, minter the better. You dont get people collecting ‘seconds’ in vases as they have a flaw and are not desired. Pokemon has this thing where people buy an error because they think someone else will pay them more, not because they actually like it. Of course there is exceptions and this is just my opinion.
If 10 vases are perfect and worth 10k each, one with a discrepancy in manufacture would be worth 1k, not 100k because its different and technically rarer.
I don’t really see PSA 9 and PSA 9 OC on the same hierarchy. To me, they are on completely different levels and the reason i would purchase one or the other is based on whether or not I want a very high quality card (9) or an “error-like” card (OC).
I couldn’t disagree more. Sure there are people who do this but it’s naive to ignore all of people who just collect errors because they like them. I myself have bought something on the order of 50-100 error cards over the years and there’s only one I’ve ever sold because the offer was too good.
Although true, it’s defintely not just Pokémon. With most TCGs (Yu-Gi-Oh, MTG, etc.) error cards are worth more than the regular versions. But even outside of TCG we see it with some collectables. Some misprinted post stamps or coins can be worth a lot more than their regular versions for example, with the Inverted Jenny 1918 stamp being the most famous example of this.
Also, I couldn’t care less about value of errors. I would prefer it if they are actually a lot cheaper than they are, since I do enjoy collecting them (for both Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh)…
There are no 10 OC grade. For PSA 10s are suppose to be “perfect” (whether they are or not is up for debate), but a qualifier means that would have been a higher grade if not for the qualifier. IE 9 OC means it would have been a 10 if not for being off centered. Since there is nothing higher than a 10 it can’t have a qualifier.
To answer the original question I usually value 9 OC as less than a 9.
I view the OC qualifier as more of a niche thing that a few people might like, but ultimately 9 (OC) means the centering does not meet the published standard for a 9.
