In my humble opinion, i think PSA 9 cards are incredible underrated and under valued. (english WOTC, not japanese)
Everyone is chasing those PSA 10’s, wich makes perfect sense, that the 9’s are almost forgotten.
I personaly invest in PSA 9’s. for my collection and also investment future wise.
The price difference between 9 and 10 is a huge gap, more affortable and they still look great.
As @smpratte mentioned in his latest video, ppl overlook the lower grades.
Pokemon collecting keeps going up every year, and in my opinion, over the next 20 years the pool of PSA 10’s will be dried out.
Collectors will keep em and the market will ask and get ridicilous prices for it i think if any will be available.
The 9’s will be much more available but prices will certainly go up.
So (dont shoot me, just my opinion) but i’ll buy 9’s while prices are still affordable.
Totally agree with you on this one! I’m still amazed at the prices WOTC 1st edition jungle and fossil psa 9 go for. For me I would rather buy the guaranteed psa 9 for £25-40 than risk trying to purchase and grade raw cards myself from these sets at this point.
@nicor123 I only keep 9’s in most cases for my collection as well. I enjoy the cards immensely, but the difference between a 9 and 10 for me is just not enough to justify keeping it given the price difference. There really isn’t added enjoyment for me. When I grade a card for my collection and it ends up getting a 10, I just see how many more cards I can add or figure out what old school box that profit would allow me to open instead of sitting on a 10 card. I would always rather have the PSA 9 plus about 10 more 5-10 more PSA 9’s of different cards than any single 10.
I’m totally on board with this. I’ve been slowly accumulating a PSA 9 1st ed English base set since 2012 and I’m about 75% of the way there.
The way I see it, 9’s are pack-fresh cards. For the most part, the only difference between a 9 and a 10 is how the card is cut and shipped. If I was in the market for a T-Rex skull, I wouldn’t care if the head was a little oblong nor would I want to pay 10x more for a perfectly shaped head. You’re buying a piece of history and the shape of the head is part of that history.
I understand the fascination over 10’s but I can’t personally justify the difference in price over a little bit of eye candy. The fact that people are paying >$500 for a PSA 6 charizard tells me that there are people out are staring to value these cards for the historical significance and not just the condition.
I loved the reference to the head so thought id have a laugh ^.^ I cant afford a deformed head let alone an oddly shaped one hopefully ill be able to get a mishapen one in the future
PSA 9s are fantastic, I think a lot of people pass them up because they’re relatively easy to get especially on cards post-2003 or so. A lot of cards in my collection are 9s and I’m 100% happy with them and feel no need to upgrade them to 10s.
I think for personal satisfaction a lot of people in the future will become 7/8/9 collectors. Even a PSA 7-8 is still a really good looking card free from major damage like creases.
However for the investing side, I think it’s important to note that the 9 market will only stabilize when a significant amount of collectors are priced out of the 10 market. I don’t think people are being priced out of the 10 market now, except for 1st Edition base. Outside of trophy cards and 1st Edition base even the most desirable cards in PSA 10 can be had for $1-2k, which isn’t out of reach for a lot of people. I think that PSA 9s are undervalued right now and they’ll increase and see some market stability in the future, but for investment purposes PSA 10s are gonna be the ones that are setting the trend and are going to be the prime investment pieces.
I’ve been slowly getting into PSA cards and I currently only have 6. My original plan was to only go for 10’s, but when I saw that I could get PSA 9 Entei, Suicune, and Raikou gold stars for the same price as a single PSA 10 version, I said fuck it and got the 9’s. That’s when I noticed the huge price difference between 9’s and 10’s, so 9’s are much more appealing now
Plus, you won’t feel disappointed in receiving a 9 with some very minor damage as you would probably expect it. Whereas receiving a “weak 10” would be extremely disappointing (to me at least).
Agreed! 10’s will always fetch the high money, and investing in them certainly isnt a bad thing if u can spare the money. But for a smaller budget… as we both said, 20 years from now most 10’s wil probably be for the high rollers and 9’s will be more sought after and available. if the demand increases, so does the price.
So I think investing in 9’s for the long run ist a very bad idea IMO.
hopefully ill be able to get a mishapen one in the future
