old PSA vs. new PSA ???

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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..