I have been noticing lately that a lot of cards are coming back 10’s that in my opinion, really do not warrant a Gem Mint grade… Cards with very low pops that were considered very tough cards to grade are all of a sudden seeing a rise in PSA 10 population, and I don’t think it’s due to the card receiving the grade it actually deserves. I feel like either their standards are dropping, or they are simply getting lazy with the grading process and not fully looking over every card for every imperfection like they should be. I’ve also noticed long turnaround time orders (45-50 business days) are being finished extremely quickly which could be due to the fact that they are rushing to finish orders and not taking as much time on the cards as they used to. I’ve even considered making the switch over to BGS as I feel most NM+ cards that should be getting 8-9 are now getting 10’s and are making them lose their value in my eyes.
I’m slowest starting to feel this way based off what I’m seeing on eBay lol.
The first ever PSA 10 Hyper Rare Darkrai popped up yesterday, and the amount of white on the back is astounding to me. Not only that but cards I’m receiving from orders that I didn’t even slightly think would be 10, are getting the 10 grade.
Just makes you wonder what’s up that’s for sure.
(btw I’m not off the PSA train, ride or die PSA, just a concerned collector in the world of cards)
It really depends on the grader. There is a bit of a gap between what one grader considers a 10 and another, most often the key difference is white specks on the back ime. I’ve had graders let a small factory corner white edge pass so the card still gets a 10 and others that don’t.
When you send in a card you expect to get a 9 and it gets a 10, are you saying you’re disappointed? Imo if they want to give me a 10 I won’t argue with them one bit. 10s are still tough to get even if it’s easier than a bgs 10.
Also, what will going to bgs do to resolve the issue, other than that you wouldn’t be supporting them?
I had a similar feeling at one point and I was seeing much better results than in the past few years on my personal grading of WOTC cards namely pack fresh Fossil 1st, Rocket 1st and Jungle 1st cards. What I see though is only a small subset of what actually is out there, so I decided to investigate by updating my “PSA grading difficulty” article.
Volume is up, so errors at the same rate with a much higher volume will clearly result in more errors. With social media and such, most issues will spread quickly and I think that is what we are seeing. I still think there are issues, but not in any higher portion than before. Higher than they should be? I think so, and probably many do, but it is hard to quantify what should be acceptable as 100% accuracy will never happen. Regrading really affects this as well and will only get worse as once a card is “overgraded” it will remain in that case forever. E.g. 9’s of some cards can be submitted 50 times profitably if that 50th grading results in a PSA 10.
Earlier this year I noted this. I had an order come back 10/15 GM10s. Now, I didn’t expect any more than 1 or 2 and was very surprised with the allowance of whitening and borders compared to all my orders in the past. BUT I will say that my last order in late July was very similar to what I thought in terms of conditions when the cards were graded.
People forget that a gem mint 10 in psa’s books can have minor flaws if it doesn’t deter it’s face value.
I think what they are doing is fair, and have a relative range for each of their grades. Yes, they seem less strict on edge wear recently, but boy they are strict on surface scratches.
I’ve had a 18 card order come back a few weeks ago and I think it was pretty much on point, PSA 10 allows for very few minor imperfections, but it comes nothing close to a BGS 10 card.
Except I did get one (low value) card that I got back as a 10 which I kind of doubt, I thought it would get an 8 (without personal experience at that point), Ludkins thought it would get an 8.5 (I still think they give lower grades than it actually gets just to be one on the safe side and two insurance on returns), so I suppose it should have gotten an 9. My personal notes say “Light whitening on all back corners, back left top is worst, card is noticeably curved”, though now I do know that being curved is no issue at all.
