Do PSA qualifiers reduce the card value?
 

I'd love your perspective on this.

I just bought a T205 PSA 5(MK) card on ebay for $21. The SMR for a PSA 5 of this card is $150, and for a PSA 4 is $75. I noticed that many of the PSA 4's went for about $40 on the same evening, sold by the same seller.

So what gives? Do collectors think that the PSA 5(MK) is worth less than even a PSA 4? Or is it considered to be worth between a PSA 4 and 5 (like a 4.5)?

I'd love to hear what you think. Thanks.

First off, SMR is wildly inaccurate for many pre-war issues. I believe the rule of thumb for PSA qualifiers is to value them 2 grades below what was assigned - e.g. a PSA 5(MK) would be valued as a PSA 3.

Yes, qualifiers, especially MK reduce the value of the card significantly. It also depends where the mark is, how large, etc. For PSA Set Registery, PSA deducts 2 grades for qualifiers, so PSA4ST = PSA2. When you submit cards to PSA, you can also request the card be given no qualifiers, and if possible, they will try to do accomodate your requests. MK (mark) and MC (miscut) cannot be removed even with this request. When I did this once, an 8OC became a 6, so it's fairly common that you can expect a 2 grade deduction for qualifiers.

Everyone is correct. The PSA 4 with no qualifier should be worth more than the PSA 5 with a qualifier.....

I believe the rule of thumb is a qualifier drops it 2 grades if there was none. So your PSA 5mk should be in line with a PSA 3.

Good question. I've also gone along with the presumption that a qualifier brings a card down about 2 grades. Dunno if that's because I found out that the PSA Registry uses that as their calculation, or because of how I've seen things valued at on EBay. But either way, that seems to be how the pricing works out to be.

Having said that, it really depends on which qualifier and for what purpose you bought the card. For me, a miscut that's missing a portion of the image, or puts the players name on the top (rather than the bottom, eg in the case of T206s), is something that I'm not interested in. Conversely, I've seen cards with a MK qualifier where I've not been able to locate the mark at all -- and thus can afford a PSA 6 quality card at a PSA 4 price. So if you're talking strictly on valuation for $$ or Registry, it's the 2-grade rule of thumb. But if you're talking about the appeal, that's more in the eye of the beholder.

--S