PSA qualifier & pricing

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Posted By: Bruce Moreland

Qualified cards are an interesting idea that should have stayed an idea rather than a grading policy.

It is nice to think that the grading system can be tweaked so that it tells you what is wrong with the card, but your post highlights the problem perfectly -- you can't properly price the card.

OC cards of the vintage I am familiar with, meaning 50's, tend to sell weakly as if they are a grade lower. If you have a PSA-8(OC), it will sell for somewhat less than what you'd get for a PSA-7.

I think that this is realistic if not completely reasonable, since it's hard to call a card centered (sometimes) 85/15 NM.

MC is much worse than OC. OC cards range from pretty nice (sometimes even meeting the standard for the next lower grade), to pretty terrible (I've seen 9(OC)'s that are like 85/15 or 90/10).

MC cards are always terrible. They are very OC and sometimes tilted. They have dramatically reduced eye appeal.

If I had a card that was EXMT was far as corners and other non-centering features went, and was OC 100/0, I wouldn't begin to think that the card deserved a downgrade of only one grade. So EX is nowhere close in this case.

Is VGEX right? That's a downgrade of two grades, which might make sense if we say that OC is worth a grade and a fraction, but I'd think that even more is justified.

So perhaps the answer is VG. The corners are no great shakes or it wouldn't have gotten a 6, and the 100/0 is an extreme detriment to eye appeal. A well centered card with significant corner wear (VGEX) looks better, as does a nice card with a wrinkle (VGEX).

bruce