[jchcollins]

This is just part of the cyclical marketing plan of PSA and they've done it about since their inception.

The standards cannot change, (or at least not super often to maintain credibility) but PSA knows the perception of tough grading / easy grading / somewhere in-between is also a real thing, and that this perception varies over time. So what do they do to cash in on it? They redesign the holder, the flip or some other part of the physical product - betting correctly most of the time that a significant portion of their customers if not just certainly their most dyed-in-the-wool fanbois will want their cards only in the newest iteration of the slab.

The phenomenon leads to the newer slabs selling for more money, even if you aren't considering only the accuracy of the grade assigned to the card entombed (Who wants a dinged-up slab from 2005 over a million plus serial number from 2025)? on the secondary market - and just for PSA - if you can live with an old serial number, it also leads to quite an upturn in the reholder business for those who just want shiny new plastic for their cards.

To me the fact that "newer is always better" with the slabs is just more subtle proof that PSA can sit on their standards all day long; their customers know and have known all along that practices change eventually along with labels, it's just a fact of life.