I was looking for peoples thoughts on PSAs grading for GEM MINT 10 cards. I have a couple of points.
First how does silvering on the front edges of cards affect getting a gem mint 10 grade? I recently brought a card already graded in a 10, on first appearances it looks gem but tilting it in the light you can see silvering on both the bottom and right hand side edges. Personally I think if there is silvering it should be down to a 8-9 I was slightly disappointed.
FOR FUTURE READERS PLEASE IGNORE THE BELOW. IT WAS DAMAGE ON THE INSIDE OF THE CASE NOT A CREASE ON THE CARD.
Also I had a charizard card graded myself and it came back a 10 however I noticed a crease in the card when it came back. (didnāt see this in the prescreen) Now I know creases normally take cards down to a 4-5 grade. See in the picture near the bottom of the card in-between the water and fighting symbols.
My concern is if you buy a card in a 10 there is no guarantee it is actually going to be 10 worthy, obviously mistakes can be made by PSA, but I was wondering how often cards like these would get through as a 10. I think the worst thing would be to buy a high value card worth hundreds of dollars/pounds because it was graded a PSA 10 so you expect some sort of guarantee of the condition then to receive the card and find something like this when examining the card. If you brought it off eBay for example would there even be a chance of returning the card as technically you did buy a PSA graded 10 card in eBayās eyes.
Donāt know if anyone else has had any experience of something similar?
Thatās a pretty big crease on that Charizardā¦ Maybe it was graded 10 and a PSA employee made that crease after it was graded. Still, itās indeed strange to see something like that get a PSA 10.
Then again (even though I have zero experience with grading cards), I hear PSA being incorrect in their grades quite often, both positively and negatively in terms of grade.
Mistakes can of course be made, but from those kind of people you expect them to be experts. Itās kinda like a surgeon, they should be very, very precise, careful and professional. Of course a mistake can still be made; making mistakes is human nature of course, but it should be a very, very rare occurrence.
With some PSA graded cards Iāve seen itās sometimes a bit sloppyā¦ Sometimes there are even PSA 1 cards while they are Near Mint (like the one in this video).
Greetz,
Quuador
PS: I have zero experience regarding grading myself. I do have a few graded cards (1x PSA-10, 3x PSA-9, one Beckett-10 and one MAP-9+), but Iāve never send anything to grading myself, and I prefer non-graded cards if I can find them.
Iāve never seen anything like that crease on a PSA 10 before.
I donāt speak from nearly as much experience as others on here with regards to PSA cards, but I have owned a few dozen (a mix of 9s and 10s). I would say pretty much all of the 10s seemed like a clear step up from the 9s. All of the 9s had some noticeable flaw that made it obvious why the cards got the grade they did.
10s are certainly not perfect. They do allow for some flaws. While none of my 10s have had silvering, I have heard that can happen, and I agree thatās frustrating that a good amount of silvering would be allowed on a 10. Itās also fairly typical to see a stray tiny dot of ink on a 10. The centering can be a bit off. And the backs can have a *tiny* amount of whitening on the back, but it really has to be kept to a minimum.
That said, when itās ultimately a judgment call and clearly there have to be some cards that are on the borderline between grades, there is a certainly degree of randomness as to what PSA does with those ā9.5ā cards.
But going back to your pointā¦ I have no idea what happened with your Charizard. A crease like that shouldnāt allow the card to score more than a 6, in my opinion. In this particular case, it really does seem that something may have gone wrong in the grading process, which is very out of line with what I expect from PSA.
For all the arguments against PSA this is one of the things I think happens. Iāve had cards that were graded a few times but got a message saying thy were damaged in the sealing process. Iāve several cards with very minute marks which English cards are known for. Handling cards is a very delicate process if you arenāt careful (thats why I hate watching Mali728 whatever the way he flips and smacks the cards. Heās lucky he doesnāt deal with english cards). Iām currently studying motor behavior which deals with neurons and arousal/fine motor skills. I would put handling cards in the catergory of fine motor skills which require low arousal, slow, detailed work. Itās not something that can be rushed because of deadlines. I imagine a few of the cards weāve all used as examples of discrepency of difference between 9s and 10s is due to the handling after the cards get graded. This is all the theory and speculation so take this with a grain of salt. PSA is a long established company with statistics that will almost surely put them at 90%+ as being accurate.
PSA 10 have silvering a shit tun of the time. It wont get duct to a 9 because of silvering. Factory whitening or silvering on a card wont take much from its appearance so PSA will not duck it to a 9 just because of that. All the gold stars have a fair bit of whitening. I have seen all the charizards, rayquaZAS, mews pretty much in the last year and half that have been graded, and graded 2 charizards, 2 rayquazas, 2 mews, all Have factory whiteningā¦ 1 charizard got a 10, 1 got a 9, 2 mews perfect got 9ās but there is a couple of abominations out there compared to mine, both rayquazas I graded had whitening, both got 10āsā¦ I sent in a rayquaza and a charizard gold star to BGS which were better, and had less factory whitening " Very tiny dots left " and I know psa would have gave them 10ās so i sent them for testing thereā¦ Both of them came back 9.5. The whitening and silvering has to be pretty dam significant, and more like damage instead of left over white shit on the new back cardsā¦ The same cannot be said for the old backs when it comes to whitening, because the dark blue doesnt blend in well with the whites xDā¦ But the silvering on the old backs remains the sameā¦ If it isnt significant, they wont knock it to a 9, especially if the condition is gem on everything else from what i have seenā¦ If the silvering is very thick, and it is pared with a condition problem, then they probably knock it back to a 9. The silvering is usually really thin on a psa 10 if it has it, not thick at all. A Crease? Manā¦ This is not common at allā¦ Thats messed up.
Note here I am talking mainly for japanese cards. English I believe may be a bit differentā¦ or it is just most likely that english will have a secondary flaw to the silvering that knocks it to a 9. Because alot of the newer cards are always getting smashed to a 9, and that is clearly without any silvering. Do you see light-heavy silvering on modern full art english cards? I donāt and even if they had it, that wouldnt be the reason alone for the downgrade to a 9.
Lots of back and forth with some genuine proven PSA oopsies along with some issues that could not be proven either way who or what was at fault.
To recap: PSA does make some errors. Luckily yours there is in a 10 case (which the card is clearly not a 10), therefore you can send it FREE for review and they will re-encapsulate it and ship it back to you in the correct case as well as reimburse you the loss in market value (financial guarantee). They WILL NOT claim that they damaged it. They may have or may not damaged it, it is impossible to say at this point. They will simply say two of their professional graders as well as yourself all looked over the damage on its submission.
On the silvering note. I graded a lot of base set unlimited as well as jungle 1st edition and neo gensis 1st edition last year that were pack fresh with a lot of edge silvering. Some got 10ās while some got 9ās and a few got 8ās. All else being equal in my eyes, I never did figure out where they sat on edge silvering. Just note that a lot of them exist out there in 10 cases. In my eyes I would not call many of those cards GEM MINT, but PSA does. I donāt think so much damage should ever be allowed regardless of the source be it from manufacture, poor storage, wear and tear or what have you.
Just keep in mind that I sold this card last year:
There were a big flaw on the back (see the green circle on the picture), fingerprints on the holographic part and micro-scratches visible under certain light incidence on the front/back.
And the card was graded PSA10 few weeks ago!
Hmm, given how common silvering seems to be on PSA 10s, I suddenly feel quite fortunate not to have any noticeable silvering on any of my 10s (Iāve inspected them all very closely). Of course, I only own about 20 PSA 10s or so, so small sample size.
One thing I have noticed though is that PSA seems much more lenient when it comes to damage that was sustained in the factory, as opposed to damage that was clearly made outside of the factory.
Just going to say again that despite the fact that PSA 10s have flaws, my experience is that my 9s have much more noticeable damage than my 10s. The 10s are better. I would say there is a great deal of consistency.
Yeah it has to be pretty dam noticeable silvering to destroy it to a mint 9. Like you can have light gliscening all across the boarders on a japanese card that is really light, and it will still get a 10 if its mint in everyother way.
English is different for sure, but it still applies. I opened a fossil box, every card had silvering all around the cornernsā¦ Very slight gliscening i guess. And I needed to sell shit at some point cause i was in troubleā¦ like i always amā¦ sighhh
And person just got 2 of the best cards he sent that i sold him - Molres and Gengarā¦ AND GUESS WHAT?! SILVERING was along the boardersā¦ BUT GUESS WHAT!!!
GEM MINT 10!
I personally agree that if it is straight from factory/pack and has that factory silvering It should be a gem mint 10. Factory whitenings on new back cards compared to factory whitenings on old back is a completely different thing. Japanese wise, the appearance of factory whitening on the new back cards will kinda blend in, and not look so bad. But OLD back japanese cards, are similar to the english being Dark blue, and that whitening sticks out even when its minorā¦ So Alot of the times they will smash you to a 9 on the old back, and the english cards from what i have seen.
I think what @woolsluk said applies to, it depends what set aswellā¦ Jungle is a bitch. I had a psa 10 vaporeon that had silvering across all edges, but the dam card looked perfect apart from thatā¦ and then others go mad insane when they send in like a full box worth and get 8ās and 9ās (ć„ļæ£ Ā³ļæ£)ć„ Probably an english condition problem paired with the silveringā¦ I DARE ANY OF THEE HERE TO FIND A ENGLISH JUNGLE HOLO WITHOUT SILVDERINGā¦ and I BET YOU!.. It will have a different condition flaw if the silvering is not really thereā¦
With regards to silvering I think that the set itself makes a difference. I have seen jungle psa 10 cards with a fair amount however I own a psa 9 Japanese crystal ho oh that only has a tiny bit on the left side, itās maybe 5mm at most.
Thatās part of it, some sets are very rare to not have any silvering on them and so as such if every card is coming out like that then itās not so.much a condition issue as it is a production. The other side of the coin however are things like print lines which are very very common in some sets but always seem to consistently lower the grade despite being on almost every holo card from some sets.
Thanks for the replies all! There are some shocking grading stories out there thatās for sure! It least I get a bit more of an idea of what to expect. I have a number of graded 10s but up until now they have been what I would call 10 worthy. These two are the first I have noticed which I would say were less than a 10 in my eyes.
@gottaketchumall Do you know how PSA would work out the value of my card? I am not even truly sure of the market value of this card at PSA 10 as not many sell on eBay. I would estimate around Ā£40-Ā£50 based on popularity of the card. Also I definitely feel like this happened at PSA as myself and ludkinscollectables pre-screened it and nothing was noted before hand, not that this matters by the sound of things.
Another thing, if someone was selling a card is it the responsibility of the seller to highlight faults in a PSA 10 card like this? Iām mostly thinking of the silvering issue, I would sincerely hope anyone that had a crease in their card like mine would state that and most people would notice if the picture wasnāt taken on a potato camera lol. Or is it just accepted that if you buy a PSA 10 it may have these silvering faults so no one mentions it?
There is such thing as a flawless cardā¦ Its called a BGS pristine 10 xD
I will fight you girlington! TILL THE COWS WALK HOME! Nah Im outtie (ć„ļæ£ Ā³ļæ£)ć„
UNFORTUNATELYā¦ GARINSONā¦ A.K.A @garyis2000 Decides to take POTATO PHOTOS of his cardsā¦ So we will never see the 1st ed shadowless charizard pristine bgs 10 and all its perfect condition glory untill he buys a new phone.
WHich at this pointā¦ Im wonderingā¦ How does someone with 9 1st ed shadowless charizards take a photo with 2mp cameraā¦ Its the thing that keeps me up at night. Its what i think of when i wake up in the morningā¦ Will I ever see a proper picture of that cardā¦ DOES HE HAVE A SCANNER? I have seen homeless people take better photos of there pokemon cards there selling.
Here you go garinson, buy this. It has a really nice sensor in it, and its 21MPā¦ The phones sensor and specs are better then the flagship phones of the start of 2016 of those stupid mega corporations, and its much cheaper. Sensor is capable of 4k Video recording aswell. Better Build quality then alot of the crap out there, Full Metal Unibody.
Would like to second everything Marie said here, couldnāt have said it better myself.
I think itās also to mention that threads like this focus the issue and attract people to post their supposed āmisgradesā which distorts the picture of PSA grading as a whole. While we may find a few cards with issues we forget about the 99.9% of cards that are graded fairly and correctly.
Unfortunately when you visit a restaurant and have a bad experience it is far more damaging to an opinion of the place than what a good experience adds to one. The same applies to any company. At the end of the day however, to quash any conspiracy theories, mistakes are made as with anywhere. We all choose to grade with psa because 99.9% of the time we are happy with the opinion given and itās almost a given that it will be consistent every time you use the service they provide.
@fireftw87 I sold a PSA 10 unlimited zard last year that had TONS of silvering. I put āsilveringā in the title and I put in huge bold and caps in the listing that it had silvering around most of the edges. IMO it should be well known to the buyer if you think the card has some issues. Anything 100% blatant like a crushed edge or crease should NEVER be sold in the wrong case IMO. If it is 100% without a doubt a PSA error, return it and allow them to fix it and pay you the difference. But in the case of a judgement call like silvering, personally I didnāt want to have to deal with a return over it so I mentioned it.
Honestly though, I think more people collect cases than cards. Where did that unpopular opinion thread go anyways?..
What I mean by this is, people just want the PSA 10 case to match their other PSA 10 cases in their collection. What is inside is less of an issue than what is written on the label. I have sold many cards that were $100+ or more without sending scans or photos of any kind as the buyers assured me they would be happy with it as long as the case wasnāt cracked or scratched and that the card inside legitimately graded a 10.
We also all chose to grade with psa because if we graded with bgs, none of us would have a single 10. and it would take 10,000 Years to build a collection and cost alot moreā¦
But im going to do it, and destroy you all (ć„ļæ£ Ā³ļæ£)ć„ You shall see
If PSA allowed a crease to pass two of their graders and they put it in a PSA 10 case they 100% give him money or credit for it. It happened to me (supposedly).
That is where the whole argument I tried fighting came from last year in the thread that I linked when I said they damaged my cards. I was reimbursed for a few cards that were graded as PSA 9 with huge dings/creases to the top right of the card. All the same damage. All my wife and I could not have missed, nor two professional graders. They reimbursed me under the financial guarantee policy that I linked. They did not admit to damage. They admitted to āoversightā. Either way I was paid and OP should pursue that option. That card should be put in its proper case and OP should and will be reimbursed if he makes a phone call and send a few hi res scans in an email to them the same way I did.
Thatās a pretty big crease on that Charizardā¦ Maybe it was graded 10 and a PSA employee made that crease after it was graded. Still, itās indeed strange to see something like that get a PSA 10.
