Why is this a PSA 9 (oc) ??
 

Seems pretty harsh. It’s really not bad at all. Seems like this could have gotten a straight 8 at the very least. I’d resubmit this if it was my card.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/363131972378

I would say the back is off center hence the qualifier. I would pay for that qualifier as who cares about the back? A nice discount for such little imperfection.

Yeah. I mean, I've looked at a ton of these the past month or so, and the back is very often off centered. But I guess your right, most of the 9's on ebay have better centering on the back.

According to PSA, for a "9":
60/40 to 65/35 or better on the front
90/10 or better on the back.


I am guessing it is top/bottom on the front. i have that at 71/29.
the back is 69/31 left to right, so that definitely passes.

Centering is pretty scientific. its easy to measure with precision with the tools PSA has... if you look at other 1976 cards, you will notice the football on the Payton is tad too close to the bottom border.

I still don't get it. If it doesn't meet the requirements for a 9, that doesn't mean it should automatically get an OC qualifier. I wouldn't be surprised if it was an Auth or in the 7-9 range, but I've never seen a card that looks like that with an OC qualifier before. Unusual, but probably technically correct given the back.

Does PSA even care about the back? I once had a 1960 Jim Brown PSA 7 that was like 99/1 on the back. I bought it not seeing a back scan (probably from 4Sharp), and it annoyed me so much I ended up trading it in for a PSA 5 a little while later, that was much more aesthetically pleasing to me.

Yeah, I didnt really examine the centering of the back vs the published PSA standards, etc, but after looking at many of these this card just seemed odd. I mean it is ever-so-slightly off center top to bottom on the front, but it's really at least a 9/10 for front centering.

It is not the back, its the front. If you elect for a qualifier, they are going to give it you.

I love how everyone just passes over my comment on measured centering and simply goes by the eye-test.
Did you measure the front? Zoom in and do it. I did. it is outside the range of a 9.

Real question is: could it get a straight 8? It is right on the borderline if the 71/29 is accurate. At the time, the grader should have awarded an 8 if the centering met the requirements. Doesn't mean it couldn't get the bump on a review or crack/resubmit.

No the grader shouldn't have given it an 8 if qualifiers weren't rejected. You always have the opportunity to ask for no qualifiers. If you fail to do so they are going to give the card the highest grade possible regardless of qualifier, and it's always been that way. Pretty simple to check "no qualifiers" in the old days you had to hand write it on your sheet next to every card!

Scott, can you please clarify? Are you saying that it could have gotten an 8 if the submitter checked no qualifiers? A 9 OC is equivalent to a 7 in the registry, so with a checkmark, I would think the best non qualifier grade would be a 7 just to make the math work.

If the OC designation was used every time a card had 71/29 centering, I think we'd observe a lot more cards on the market where eyeballing them they looked fine, but were graded with an OC qualifier. I look at new cards almost every day from my eBay search results and that's not what I observe. My guess would be the grader was a stickler on the back top/bottom centering which again, I don't see happen much but would be technically correct.

John, there is no hard and fast rule. Yes typically an O/C card will drop two grades but not always. I have had some luck in getting 9OCs into 8 holders without cracking them. You have to be very picky about which ones you take obviously but the one in this thread would certainly stand a chance.

Thanks Scott. This is an interesting thread. If I had a grading company, I wouldn't use qualifiers. I'd have sub grades and use a weighted average of them to determine the final grade. I'd probably weight front centering the highest and back centering the lowest. Corners, etc. would be in between.

Absolutely agree, John! Qualifiers are .... stupid. Give it a grade including all of its characteristics and move on.

Or, lets just make ever card a "10" and create qualifiers like: Rounded Corners (RC), Creases (CR), etc. LOL.

jeff