Lowering Expectations – Submitting Cards to PSA

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Kzoo

I posted a similar message on a thread last year about PSA and these were my thoughts at the time... and I still feel the same way now.

"...it looks like they're pretty accurate on the modern 'shiny' stuff and I believe they get the Poor to Good (1-2 range) stuff graded correctly, but the 4-8 range stuff is really off.

I have an order of 1950's to 70's mid to higher grade cards on their way back to me right now from PSA and every single card is at least 1 grade lower (a couple are 2+ grades lower) than I've been accustomed to over the past 22 years. It seems to me that they take an even harsher grading approach to a card that is even slightly off-center. These new graders are so used to seeing perfectly centered new cards, that 40/60 off center vintage cards are getting hammered.....and it seems that they don't realize vintage cards were manufactured with rougher non-perfect cuts, as compared to modern. It would be great to see different graders for only modern OR only vintage."

I generally agree with these sentiments.

Some opportunistic collectors are targeting recently graded cards as an opportunity to pick them up for cheap since they are undergraded.