Pinholes vs. indentations

[Throttlesteer]

Rather than call out the specific card for sale, I will say there's a PSA 4 VgEx that I'm interested in, but appears to have a pinhole on the top right corner. From the front, it looks 100% like a pinhole, but the back shows more of an indentation that may not go all the way through the card.

Outside of the advice of buying the card, not the holder.....is there really THAT much of a difference in grade simply because it pierced the last layer of cardboard to go through altogether? It could be argued that it's similar to paper loss, albeit pin point sized.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by Throttlesteer

Rather than call out the specific card for sale, I will say there's a PSA 4 VgEx that I'm interested in, but appears to have a pinhole on the top right corner. From the front, it looks 100% like a pinhole, but the back shows more of an indentation that may not go all the way through the card.

Outside of the advice of buying the card, not the holder.....is there really THAT much of a difference in grade simply because it pierced the last layer of cardboard to go through altogether? It could be argued that it's similar to paper loss, albeit pin point sized.

To give a better understanding, I would look at the established hobby definitions of "wear" vs "abuse". A heavy indentation would probably fall in the former, while shoving a needle clear through, the latter. I agree, in the case you are describing, it sounds like a thin line, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. It's also possible that it WAS a pinhole and someone used a drop of water on the back to re-soften and swell the paper fibers to close the hole.

[Leon]

A pinhole is worse than an indention to me. It sounds plausible one could be closed back up too though I have never tried it. I generally steer clear of pinholes but don't mind an indention AS LONG as I know about it up front. I hate surprise condition issues.

Originally Posted by conor912

To give a better understanding, I would look at the established hobby definitions of "wear" vs "abuse". A heavy indentation would probably fall in the former, while shoving a needle clear through, the latter. I agree, in the case you are describing, it sounds like a thin line, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. It's also possible that it WAS a pinhole and someone used a drop of water on the back to re-soften and swell the paper fibers to close the hole.

[conor912]

If PSA gave it a 4 then they clearly don't think it's a pinhole, which gets a card an automatic 1 in their system.

That's if they got it right. Big if.

[pete zouras]

Which I later found out had 2 pinholes, one obvious and one on the border. I can live with pinholes with cards as clean as this.

[Jobu]

My Johnson has a small hole in it.