old PSA vs. new PSA ???

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Posted By: steve

A T206 Cy Young, glove PSA 7 is on the market. A recent selling price for this card was through Memory Lane auction -it brought $4157. incl buyers premium. I offered $4100. for his Young PSA 7.

Seller declined offer, and quoted, "The card you are referring to was an old PSA grade which in my opinion would not have graded a NM 7 today."

OK, fine with me, but what confuses me is his referrence to "old PSA". The seller also claims the Memory Lane Cy Young card would grade a 6.1 to 6.3, and his offering is a 7.6 to 7.9 grade - also, for his, he has been offered $5000. twice already.

Question: Is there anything to this old vs. new PSA ? If so, how can you tell the cutoff from the PSA serial #'s ? Or how else can you tell the difference between old vs. new.

Observation: Since he claims to have been offered $5k. twice, other collectors must have a handle on this old vs. new thing, yes?

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

There was a thread on this which hashed out the debate within the last month. ADDED: I think it was on one of the Memory Lane threads.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Steve, sellers will say anything to try to get you to pay more for a card. I would believe nothing that he says and simply look at the card: some 'older' graded PSA 7s look crappy and some don't.

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Posted By: calleocho

If the seller happpened to be the buyer he would be saying that the old label was better...marketing.

There are however high end cards and low end cards ( maxed out beyond doubt ...will never leave the plastic)

the seller might indeed have a nice card and a 20% premium might be fair.

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Posted By: andy becker

i have had a couple bad experiences with old psa graded cards. i run away from cards with the "long" bar code.....those are, in my book "old psa". imo, the is a far great probabilty that old psa graded cards have issues.
new psa has a smaller, more compact, bar code. i don't have an example to scan, but the difference is obvious.

btw, new psa has been around for years.....and the great majority of psa graded cards are "new psa".

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Posted By: Dylan

buyers have less confidence in old psa and sgc slabs. On the other hand buyers have more confidence in GAI cards graded early in their history.

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Posted By: JimB

I think it is bull#@%*. I have plenty of cards that were accurately graded by PSA ten years ago. I often think they were more rigorous then than they are now. If the seller does not want full auction value for the card without having to pay an auctions house to handle it for him, he is an idiot.
JimB

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Posted By: Jason L

no one has addressed the fact that the seller is trying to add a decimal point's worth of accuracy to the PSA grade...what the heck is that?! I'll tell you what that is, that is seller's hype.

I am absolutely stumped as to how vintage cards seem to be appreciating 10-30% per month!!! every auction price closes significantly higher than the previous one....I should dump my clients' stocks and throw it all into vintage cards these days!

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Posted By: barrysloate

Buying baseball cards has become the thing to do, and everyone wants to get in on it. That is why prices appreciate so rapidly. How long it will last is anybody's guess, but it kind of looks like there is no end in sight.

Maybe Bruce's prediction will be correct- given enough time only hedge fund managers will be able to afford them.

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Posted By: Bruce Perry

it is my understanding, and has been my observation that the very early bar codes and first graded psa cards were overgraded in many instances...Mike Baker came to PSA about this time and this overgrading practice stopped...and he led the turnaround....and brought psa to the lofty level it has attained, before he and several other psa pioneers left in 2001 (when psa went public and severely changed some inner policies)to start GAI....Mike and company has continued to improve upon what they were able to accomplish at psa 1991-2001 and have worked hard at growing GAI today(does take time....IMO psa has not improved much at all, if any since that group left in 2001)....as far as psa, all I hear are complaints about PSA both from dealers and collectors...it is a prevalent opinion in the industry that psa gives crazy grades and will not encapsulate a high (unrealistic) % of cards sent in because they want the collector/dealer to continue to send in cards several times over until they are finally in the right holder or finally graded at all..after all they are a publicly held company and the bottom line is very high on their priority list....now GAI has tightened their grading over the past 14 months (they started off very tight, then relaxed the grades for a time)and intend to stay that way...also I understand GAI is working hard in getting their price guide professionally published (which will incorporate the half grades...it is already online)..also they hope to have their population figures available online soon, as SGC has offered for some time.....back to psa, I have no problem with psa graded cards 1991-2001...the very early grades/long bar codes you have to be careful about...the post 2001 cards are all over the place...bottom line is probably wisest, buy the card and not the holder...whether it is psa, gai or sgc..

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Posted By: Joe Tocco

I heard GAI's set registry will be online Monday!

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Posted By: Bruce Babcock

Buy the card, not the barcode. (Insert smiley face here)

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Posted By: Jason L

Here's a fine example of the topic from my collection...I can't pinpoint what it is, but something tells me this wouldn't grade an 8 today...just doesn't present that well, and the corners are a little soft, IMO...thoughts? (Note the long bar code)

[IMG][/IMG]

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jason- the Musial is a weak 8, but it is well centered and has no real problems. Probably a strong 7, so-so 8 scenario.