The absurdity of conditional rarity

Grading
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Many people agree with the absurdity of the BGS black label premium: Black Label Bubble? đŸ«§

I submit the following to you:

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Now, I understand the why. Milotic ex Currently sits at pop 23 at the time of writing. And I wouldn’t stop anyone that wants to pay these prices.

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The one thing I will say is that there is actually a conditional difference here, unlike the typical BGS black label. That is, you will know which one is which without me telling you (and not just because of the case)

The argument I will put forward is that the Milotic ex is not worth $7,200. What the actual product here is the ability to say you have a Milotic ex PSA 10. It’s the cost premium of being able to put together a PSA 10 ex set. If I were magical and I snapped my fingers causing the cards to swap cases, you know as well as I do you wouldn’t see those prices swapped.

Again, if this is what you’re into, by all means build your PSA 10 sets. But for me, no thanks.

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Yep. This is why I mostly collect PSA 9s for Vintage English. I can’t justify the 3x, 5x, or 10x+ premium of a PSA 10 when the difference in condition is almost imperceptible.

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Listen man. We already talked about this. Why you gotta go being all charitable and letting the public in on our secret? I’m trying to be over here selling 10’s and buying ten 9’s with it and you gotta try and blow it for me.

Let them be man. Let it go.

Ahem. The 10 is GEM mint people. It is beautiful.

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Well, people have tried - Kindra Prime. :wink:
Seriously tho, yes. Personally, I prefer non-graded cards because I just don’t want to take space to store as many slabs, unlike how I can store non-graded cards.

Heck! I aim for 7s! Bahahah! Mostly kidding. Yes. 9s are perfectly good cards, and if I get one in a 10, I’ll usually forego that for a 9 and put the Gem away for later sale.

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Another great example on PWCC tonight


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It’s the same with wanting to buy a high-priced, luxury sports car.

It doesn’t do anything the regular person needs it to do any better than the plethora of more economical options in terms of transit, and in fact does a lot of those things objectively worse.
It’s about what it implies about you and your life if you own a Ferrari 458, or a La Ferrari. It’s the flex, it’s the image you want to project.

More often than not a product is more than what it actually does and this extends to every aspect of our lives. I spent 20 dollars more on a new kettle the other day because I liked the look of it better than the other option, it literally performs exactly the same way in every functional aspect.

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It’s a good analogy. One thing I would challenge is that the Ferrari premium is partially explained by higher quality materials and parts, whereas in this case the actual quality difference is borderline negligible.

The other thing I’ll point out is that when you see a Ferrari, you understand immediately it’s a wealth flex. The intention is extremely transparent. Which is exactly what I’m advocating for here. At a certain point, the actual condition is irrelevant to the price. I bet most people will agree with the statement “the PSA 10 copy is worth more because it is minter than the CGC 8.5 copy”. Often, that is true. But in these exceptional cases, that statement only explains a fraction of the price difference. Instead, the price is better explained via a luxury good flex or someone trying to complete a narrowly-defined checklist at any price.

This is now a bit of a stream of consciousness but what I’m really getting at is that we should just collectively drop the act that these massive label premiums have anything to do with actual condition of the card.

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Id argue, if PSA was legitimately consistent with their grading, you could argue a psa 10 warrants the price as it reflects the legit amount of ‘psa 10 quality’ versions left of that card. However, we know that is not the case and there is likely a subtantial overlap in quality between psa 9 and psa 10 versions of this card making the psa 10 price of this card purely buying the label not the card.

People act as if there is this magical barrier between psa 9 and psa 10 quality rather than a bleed over between the two.

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Let’s go for designer clothes that are often made in the same sweatshop and are of equal objective quality to something 1/10 of the price.

I think when it comes down to it most folk would be able to acknowledge that the PSA 9-10 variance in actual quality is often negligible at best, and downright incorrect at worst. But in support of your points, it doesn’t really matter, and the general collecting populace doesn’t care about it enough to disregard PSA 10s all together.

To be perfectly frank, if the PSA 10 I sell on PWCC gets 500 dollars and the PSA 9 someone else is selling in the same auction goes for 150, and they have only miniscule or even no noticeable difference on closer inspection? That’s on PSA and the buyer, not me.

Yes it’s absurd, but what isn’t around here?

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I think an aspect of this is that people really want to believe.

The appeal of a perfect mint collectable seems pretty clear to me. If you’re in to something, the prospect of a flawless pristine specimen — the platonic example of your favorite thing — is going to have an allure for lots of collectors. Even if you have an example already, the idea of a perfect one — certified perfect — is an easy hill to climb on the “I wish I had that” spectrum.

Most people likely start collecting PSA 10s to satisfy this desire and it doesn’t take long to realize a PSA 10 is often not a perfect card. If you paid a huge premium for a PSA 10 thinking it will be a perfect specimen you’re doing to find it very demoralizing when you see how many PSA 10 are off-center or have visible damage. This is going to get you off of PSA 10s, but it’s not going to kill the allure of the concept.

People disillusioned with what PSA 10 means are going to be drawn to the promise of CGC Perfect or BGS Black Label. These ones are supposed to be different. They show the subgrades right on the label, this product is deliberate part of their brand. They’re hard to get and they’re supposed to be what a PSA 10 is not.

These products dangle in the hypothetical. Collectors cannot easily obtain them and review them like they can PSA 10s. Theoretically, that’s the perfect specimen you’re drawn to. That’s the exceptional quality you’re craving. If it’s really what they say it is, maybe it’s worth a premium. Who wouldn’t pay more for it?

Things come apart under scrutiny though.

What you’re buying is an idea. Maybe that idea is worth a premium, but it’s probably not worth a 10x-20x premium. Then there’s the likelihood the card in that slab isn’t the flawless fantasy you wanted it to be, shattering the whole illusion. So you start to think maybe it’s just never worth it.

And if the CGC Gold/BGS Black Label is pointless, PSA 10 is even more so. And if you can’t place any stock in the promise of premium condition, why collect graded cards at all? What are they promising you that you can’t get from a binder?

So now you’re a binder collector, and you’re much happier, and you’re pretty much over the prospect of graded cards except for meaningful exceptions. But something itches in the mind. If you’re only collecting graded cards in special situations, then that grade should be special too. It only makes sense to achieve as high a grade as possible. It’s just this one card, you think. If it’s not in the highest grade possible there’s no point. PSA 10 doesn’t do it for you, so that means


Back throwing up in your mouth over the conditional premium for hypothetical cards that feel hollow when you hold them. Your life is pointless and you’ll never be happy.

This is a cautionary tale, a tragic play, a fable of whimsy and woe. This is the tale of Stagecoach.

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almost like that’s what drives most of “high end” collecting in general

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I have a couple of noob questions. Is the premium price justified if:

  1. We know how the cards were distributed and have a condition flaw based on the type of distribution? Eg: UNIQLO promos which were shoved in bags of clothing, MASAKI mark promos, promo cards distributed in school magazines to kids which were loved and played etc

  2. If the card also has an Absolute Rarity to it. Only 1000 cards in existence etc?

Or are these still arbitrary parameters which still does not justify paying a premium since it is all subjective?

Cheers!

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Exactly this! The difference between a 9 and 10 is so arbitrary to me yet the cost for 10s is multiple times higher. 9s all the way.

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I’ve definitely found the PSA 10 premium to be totally insane on some cards, especially just regular set cards. I guess a lot of people look at it as an “investment” grade, but I really prefer largely focusing on NM/M condition cards these days for most cards I collect. It’s also somewhat understandable when they may only make up 1% or less of the overall graded population, but it definitely seems tough to justify paying the price at times. I think if buying a 10, I would say do it for your absolute favourite cards out there.

I own a few high valued (and low pop) 10s, and I love them because they fill a rather niche/unique spot in my overall collection, but for most collectors I would seriously recommend just sticking to NM/M grade cards when you build your collection up early on as you’ll get a lot more cards in great condition for your money and still be “invested” in the hobby as well.

Either way, it’s nice that we all have different ways to collect and engage in all this.

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For a lot of classic cards, I prefer the 9 grade, but that may just be because the 10 grade is something my pockets cannot handle. I suppose for the collector that has an obscene amount of money to throw around, they can compete among their own class for those 10s. I just cannot handle paying 6-10x the price just for what is often times the most miniscule difference in condition as it’d severely hamper the quantity of cards I would be able to collect.

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I don’t fully buy it. Yes, the ability to showcase your item is a very important component of the price. But here’s the difference. The cost of ownership of a mint Milotic ex is relatively low, a few hundred dollars. Whereas the floor cost of ownership of a genuinely rare card or item is typically very high. In one case you see a massive premium just so you can put a little asterisk on your card to say it’s amazing and in the other case the high cost determines whether or not you own the item at all.

For me, the question I always come back to is “what exactly are you paying for”?

I don’t think there’s a “correct” answer to a lot of this, it’s just opinion so I wouldn’t write off your questions as noobish. Whether or not a card is worth the premium is up to each individual, I’m just here hoping people put more thought into it.

The thing with the Masaki cards that I find funny is that there are many 9s and 10s that still have the indent and were just missed. Yet this doesn’t really seem to affect the price. Technically, PSA’s grading scale shouldn’t allow a card to receive a PSA 8/9 if it had the dent, so the price difference between a PSA 6 and a PSA 9 should explain the “value” of an undented card. The price difference between 9 and 10 in this case has little to do with corner dents.

I’ve already answered your second question above. In one case, you are the paying cost to own a copy of a card, in the other case you are paying significantly extra for a label.

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unironically this meme. I think we’re all aware grading premiums are a scam but that 10 label just hit different.

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I think we can all agree that the pursuit of the highest professionally graded cards is not only a dispassionate search for the objectively best condition copy of a card, but also contains some other motivational elements–anywhere from the arguably pointless hype/flexing/Veblen goods to more justifiable reasons like a scarcity of truly “gem mint” copies, completing a set, or a desire to own the highest possible grade.

I also think we can all agree that most people who are buying these cards for these prices are completely aware that they are not paying for a perfect condition copy but rather are paying for something else. I think if you asked people who paid thousands of dollars for PSA 10 copies of set cards with 9s available for much less, obtaining a perfect condition copy would be one of many different answers you’d get and I bet it would not be the number one reason.

Personally, I see the appeal of a correctly-graded PSA 10 for something like old English ex era cards. These cards are incredibly hard to grade, pack-fresh condition is often PSA 9 at best, opening EX era sealed product is probably the most negative EV out of all Pokemon boxes, and the cards are quite scarce compared to other set cards. Completing a full PSA 10 ex set is a landmark achievement in the hobby.

I don’t think it is absurd to pay very high prices for a PSA 10 compared to a PSA 9 though. I think the prices for many 10s are completely justified, and not just in the sense that someone paid them, but that you can find multiple compelling reasons for why these cards are as expensive as they are.

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My favorite thing to bring up on this topic is always going to be that Master Scroll auction a few years ago.

A 10 and a 9 we’re both auctioned, and the back of the 10 is the picture below. Very obviously nowhere near a 10 at all. It ended for less than a “real 10” was going for at the time, but it still went for thousands of dollars higher than the 9 which of course looked way better than this.

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