PSA Inconsistency with centering grade docks -- solutions?

Grading
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Over the years I’ve seen countless otherwise gem mint Japanese Pokemon cards receive PSA 8 or 9 grades due to being off-centered.

If PSA had a clear justification for when they dock a grade, it would be understandable. But their decision making when docking a mint card for centering is nearly arbitrary.

Here are the centering standards for PSA and BGS, taken from their website.

PSA Overall Grade with required centering parameter:
10: 55/45 to 60/40

9: 60/40 to 65/35

8: 65/35 to 70/30
www.psacard.com/resources/gradingstandards/#cards

Beckett Centering Subgrades:
10: 50/50 both ways
9.5: 50/50 one way, 55/45 the other
9: 55/45 both ways
8: 60/40 both ways
7: 65/35 both ways
www.beckett.com/grading/scale

In MTG, it is normalized in the hobby to have high end BGS cards reviewed for centering based on blown up high res scans measuring ratio based on pixels. For the other 3 subgrades, I think constantly sending cards for review/bump-ups can quickly cross a line into trying to over-grade your cards. But centering is completely justified, given that they have specific parameters listed, so if your card falls within those parameters, you should expect to receive that centering grade.

With Pokemon, I haven’t seen people do this much, and when they have it’s failed. PSA seemingly eyeball most Japanese cards, and since the borders are slimmer than English variants, differences in centering can be more immediately obvious.

That being said – PSA has their centering standards listed. Why are they not held accountable for misgrades based on centering?

Here’s a few examples I’ve seen, where the difference in grade, solely due to centering, is now a five-figure difference. I have blown up high res scans and measured the centering myself in Photoshop.

– A flawless card can have 57/43 centering and be visually unappealing, leading PSA to knock it down to a 9. Tecnically, they state “approximately 55/45 to 60/40” for a 10, to give them wiggle room. But if 60/40 centering is listed as 9 worthy, that should mean anything better than 60/40 deserves a 10.

– A flawless card can have 55.5/45.5 centering and be given a 9.

– A flawless card can have BETTER than 55/45 centering (eg 54/46) and be given a 9.

– A flawless card can have 59.5/41.5 centering and be given an 8 based on eyeball grade, despite being within 10 parameters.

– A flawless card can have 62/38 centering and be given an 8 based on eyeball grade, despite being within 9 parameters.

It’s gotten to the point where when an ungraded trophy card is listed on Yahoo Japan, people eyeball and will point out it won’t get a PSA 10 grade due to centering. And from experience, they are right! But if you blow up said card, it’s almost always within their PSA 10 standards and sometimes even better.

Regardless of one’s personal opinion on if a card with visually unappealing centering should reveive a 10 grade, the reality is PSA publicly writes that 55/45 - 60/40 is worthy of a 10 grade, yet throws this out the window with Pokemon.

In the past, it hasn’t been worth spending so much money on graded card reviews. But as cards rise in value, and the difference between 8 - 9 - 10 grows higher, it’s going to be increasingly frustrating to get a 9 grade due to 56/44 centering.

I’d like to hear people’s experiences of reviewing graded cards for centering docks, and if any progress can be made on this issue. Heck, if PSA wants to have different standards for Pokemon, and demand 50/50 - 55/45 is required for a 10, then they can do that – but if it’s something they already have as an internal standard, it’s not fair for the Pokemon community to be left in the dark, while the Sports card collectors can properly estimate what grade a card can receive based on centering.

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Personally in 2016 I had one PSA 9 card that seemed flawless to me condition wise. It didn’t have perfect centering on the front but it also didn’t look like a badly OC card at first glance. The back centering was worse and looked more obviously OC however as you say the standard on the back is more relaxed. I did as you said, took a scan or photo of my card, blew it up and counted the pixels. I felt confident that my card was well within the parameters of a PSA 10 (as far as centering goes, was always possible I missed some other damage that PSA spotted). Anyway I sent it to PSA for review and they reviewed it into a PSA 10 at the first time of asking.

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From thread: www.elitefourum.com/t/psa-grade-description-and-accuracy-discussion/14155/1

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@gottaketchumall, I don’t calculate centering unless I can get a minimum of 100px per border width. Otherwise too much guessing.

The comments on the thread speak for themselves though. This card looks like a 60/40 or slightly better. People are surprised it got a 10 because 57/43 - 60/40 nearly always get a 9. If PSA had consistent centering standards it wouldn’t be an issue. For every no rarity like that Machamp that was on the verge of 9/10 centering but got an overall 10, I’ve probably seen 5 that have better centering but got a 9.

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If a card looks like that it should not be in a 10, in my opinion, from the centering alone… It just looks bad. Maybe everything else is a 10 about the card but the centering? 9.5 grade would be nice lol.

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Yes but here lies the issue. PSA states it’s within 10 parameters. If you want a prefect centering card you can go with Beckett. If PSA thinks Pokemon cards should have stricter centering grades, their standards should reflect it, because for every 10 with this centering there are plenty of nines.

What looks “not good enough to be a 10” to you may look totally fine to someone else. The annoying thing is, every other factor of grading is subjective (I could argue corners should be 9, someone else may think 8, etc). With centering, there’s empirical data about the exact border ratios, and PSA chooses to ignore it.

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I think a big problem lies in the fact that you don’t know if the centering is what docked an otherwise “flawless card” because PSA may have seen something the submitter didn’t.

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@qwachansey I understand your frustration. Print lines and centering are two major issues that are out of our control because they were produced this way. It also sucks that they list specific ratios and don’t follow them. And i completely understand with some cards like 1st ed base zard or snap cards trophies etc a grade lower is thousands of dollars.

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Sometimes yes it is a toss-up. But when every card from the batch is the same condition and some clearly get docked for centering it’s more apparent.

An easy affordable example – the Neo premium file cards with Johto starters. Almost always perfect condition but off centered. I opened a box of 20 folders and everything but a few were flawless. However half the cards were off centered enough for me to not bother grading even though plenty of those were within 60/40. Since they were all from the same source and all mint maybe I should’ve just graded them all to better show centering grade docks.

I ended up including the holos as freebies in sales cause they’re cool. But if I order another box of 20 folders I’ll do a centering test.

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This – but also one other thing that no else has mentioned yet: measuring the centering based on a scan of the card in a PSA case is not going to be 100% accurate. Cards don’t lie entirely flat, and so it’s impossible to know if the angle at which the card is resting or the card being very slightly warped could be making the pixel measurements not accurate. And when you’re talking about 55-45 vs. 60-40, every pixel matters.

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Good point. And not to derail thread but quick question. I heard PSa doesn’t dock for warping if there is no crease’s. Is this true or false guys?

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That’s true if the warping is natural curvature. If the curvature/warping is a result of something other than natural curving that happens to many holos, then they would dock for it. But my understanding is they don’t dock for it if it’s normal, non-damage curvature.

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PSA undoubtedly knows that it’s business is booming right now and that, despite grading inconsistencies, it won’t lose any kind of marked business. Due to the sheer number of submissions they get, sending a stern email over a few cards - to them - won’t likely warrant any change.

If the community wants to make a significant change, have a bunch of people either threaten to pull or actually PULL their business from PSA and inform them why.

If that doesn’t work, I promise you that there’s a place for you if you want to switch back to collecting raw cards. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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CGC all day! Only thing holding them back is the lack of sales data. And yes I almost wish every listing was raw cards. That would make things easy price wise. It seems like a lot of people are aggravated with PSa for numerous reasons. I don’t know why they won’t listen or change things as time goes on. They are really over using the phrase “If it’s not broke don’t fix it!” To me PSA is for sure broken it’s time they make some changes or people switch grading services. Just because PSA has been the gold standard for years times change. Keep up or get left behind!

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I would love it if they gave a very quick description of why a card was graded a 9, and maybe 8. Just an email with a list of your cards that can just say “off center”, or “print lines” next to the card would be a bare minimum that would at least let you understand why you didn’t get a 10. Anything 7 or lower probably wouldn’t need it.
Having no idea why a card didn’t get a 10 is incredibly frustrating.

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It’s going to be really tough to get the hobby to move over to another grading company. The issue is that nearly all hardcore collectors have significant sums of money tied to the future stature of PSA in the hobby. Someone who has $500k or $1m in PSA graded cards isn’t, regardless of how appealing the new grading company is and how terrible PSA is, switch over to a new grading company. Doing so would be contributing to the MASSIVE price decline (of PSA 10s, specifically) that would result from the dethroning of PSA. With all of PSA’s faults, so many collectors have such a large financial interest in PSA remaining dominant that I would be shocked if PSA ever is dethroned.

I agree, though, that it is unfortunate that there’s no real way to put pressure on PSA to improve. PSA can just continue to do the bare minimum and maintain its dominance – they have no real reason to improve. Almost everyone is going to continue grading with them regardless.

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Grade: 1
Notes: fuckin look at it

I agree with you though. In a world without turnaround times being extended by logistical complications (more things to do), they absolutely should be able to justify their grades. The “why is it a 9 and not a 10” seems to make the most sense, but it would arguably more helpful for 6s that look pristine aka the “did I miss a crease” cases. But, of course, 6 has a wide range of other factors like heavy whitening. Since this would take extra time they probably don’t do it at all because it would realistically have to be an all or none thing. Would be nice though

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That’s why subgrades are arguably important

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I get orders back monthly and it’s rare that the final grade doesn’t match my pregrade. Amazingly accurate.
There was a notable exception. Last year I had members here measure the centering on a 1st Base Blastoise that apon review psa deemed too off center front left to right. The guys here found it to be well within PSA 10 parameters. I didnt dispute it again, and still have it, but it was disappointing.

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One of the key things I see is that we don’t pay for the level of service we expect. You send in all your top 1st ed cards with a bulk submission and expect that for $8 you’ll get a top notch grader. If you think your card is a PSA 10 then pay for that service! They’ll have three people cross check the card and verify the grading before the card is incased. Once you get it back you’ll know the card received the proper grade.