[jchcollins]

And herein lies one of the major problems with all professional grading. Standards are not supposed to change, um…but they do. PSA and SGC won’t necessarily update their language for each grade description when they change a standard, but make no mistake it happens. The subjectivity of the language has always allowed for this. What is / are “moderate” corner rounding or “slight” focus problems? Obviously these things can mean vastly different things in terms of eye appeal to different collectors. It is a reminder of the days before grading and Beckett’s condition guide with their “minor” and “micro” defects. Does this card have 2 minor defects or 1 minor defect and 1 micro defect? Silliness, really.

I digress. To answer the question from a collector perspective, ignoring price - I don’t care if the card in question is an old 8 or a new 7, as long as it’s in a nice slab that is not scratched up too badly. Really even if the standards are consistent, the notion that a card is an 8 one day and maybe a 7 the next is something that most reasonably knowledgeable collectors have accepted at this point. Card grading is subjective, not rocket science - and there will be variations in strictness even on the best of days. Personally I don’t care. No matter what the grade or the age of the slab, the card was at one point deemed deserving of the grade that is represented on the flip - even if it might not grade that high (or conversely that low…) again. That’s good enough for me. At the end of the day, I alone am the final boss / grader in terms of what cards that I own are or are not, lol.

I do think just me that it’s not a hard rule. Older grades on the whole might be more apt to be “lenient” by today’s standards or practice, but you can still find plenty of older PSA slabs from the early 2000’s or even the 90’s which appear to have properly graded cards in them. I often will look for deals like this on older slabs when buying online if I’m looking for something graded. But to me, affordability and just the eye appeal of the card I’m looking at - whether a PSA 8, 6, or 3 - is going to matter more than anything in terms of the slab and it’s history when I’m looking to buy.


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