Post-War PSA Grading

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by raulus

Found it here:

At the same time, I do think that his focus on the 9:10 ratio has the potential to be a little bit misleading. For example, if there was just one more piece graded a 10, then the ratio no longer seems so out of line. And if there were just 2 more, then it’s actually pretty close to landing where the rest of the cards land.

But...there's not 1 or 2 more examples. Maybe there will be someday, but his point in the video makes sense mathematically. In fact in looking at the pop since he made the video, I see where PSA has added two more 9 Ryan rookies to their "mint" totals. So his point is even further augmented.

I think the VCC videos are pretty convincing. Still I realize there are those who don't understand, and likely still more with big bucks tied up in PSA slabs that just don't care.

The '68 Ryan is a good example because it's not a rare or condition sensitive card. Noteworthy and valuable? Sure. But by the standards with which collectors have judged attainability on factors other than pure dollars for decades now - the Ryan RC is not remotely a tough card. Unlike even some of it's late 60's contemporaries (the '67 Denehy / Seaver, for example) there is a Ryan for every collector who wants one assuming they are willing to pay within a wide ballpark range of what different conditioned examples go for. So this is all just further evidence that there is no real reason in the population of the cards that this discrepancy between 9's and 10's is what it is.

PSA of course has the ultimate upper hand here. All of their grades issued are subjective judgment calls anyway, and the difference between a 9 and a 10 is even worse. Besides a notation on centering in their standard, it's pure subjectivity. When grading first got popular in the early 2000's, the difference was supposedly only the eye appeal that a 10 was a "mint plus" card. It was totally up to the whim of the grader - and clearly still is. (Maybe with some discreet corporate "guidance" now on certain cards?) "Gem" mint as a concept is virtually useless outside of the world of TPG's. And inside that world, there is nothing objective to bring back to PSA to hold them accountable, or to say that they are doing it wrong.

This is where you kind of have to digest your grading with a large grain of salt. People can believe whatever they want, but it's going to be a hell of a lot easier to get a PSA 10 on your 1980 Topps Rick Cerone than it is your Rickey Henderson.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

But...there's not 1 or 2 more examples. Maybe there will be someday, but his point in the video makes sense mathematically. In fact in looking at the pop since he made the video, I see where PSA has added two more 9 Ryan rookies to their "mint" totals. So his point is even further augmented.

I think the VCC videos are pretty convincing. Still I realize there are those who don't understand, and likely still more with big bucks tied up in PSA slabs that just don't care.

The '68 Ryan is a good example because it's not a rare or condition sensitive card. Noteworthy and valuable? Sure. But by the standards with which collectors have judged attainability on factors other than pure dollars for decades now - the Ryan RC is not remotely a tough card. Unlike even some of it's late 60's contemporaries (the '67 Dehney / Seaver, for example) there is a Ryan for every collector who wants one assuming they are willing to pay within a wide ballpark range of what different conditioned examples go for. So this is all just further evidence that there is no real reason in the population of the cards that this discrepancy between 9's and 10's is what it is.

PSA of course has the ultimate upper hand here. All of their grades issued are subjective judgment calls anyway, and the difference between a 9 and a 10 is even worse. Besides a notation on centering in their standard, it's pure subjectivity. When grading first got popular in the early 2000's, the difference was supposedly only the eye appeal that a 10 was a "mint plus" card. It was totally up to the whim of the grader - and clearly still is. (Maybe with some discreet corporate "guidance" now on certain cards?) "Gem" mint as a concept is virtually useless outside of the world of TPG's. And inside that world, there is nothing objective to bring back to PSA to hold them accountable, or to say that they are doing it wrong.

This is where you kind of have to digest your grading with a large grain of salt. People can believe whatever they want, but it's going to be a hell of a lot easier to get a PSA 10 on your 1980 Topps Rick Cerone than it is your Rickey Henderson.

I'm picking up what you're laying down. And I don't disagree.

My point is simply mathematical, that if there had happened to be 1 or 2 more of the PSA 9s that instead came out as 10s, then the results would be wildly different. Just because there's only 1 instead of 2 or 3 doesn't seem like a big difference in the pop counts. But perhaps it does to the person who has that 1 card, and paid a king's ransom for it.

In large part, the thrust of my argument is that statistics based on small sample sizes aren't particularly relevant. And 1 is a pretty small sample size.

Is it possible that PSA is manipulating pop counts? Absolutely. And with any luck, tomorrow some former PSA employee will come out and confirm as much.

Do the provided statistics alone prove it? I suspect that it probably depends on your viewpoint.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by raulus

My point is simply mathematical, that if there had happened to be 1 or 2 more of the PSA 9s that instead came out as 10s, then the results would be wildly different.

Your point on the small sample size with the Ryan is valid. I'm just saying, you have to know when a really nice card like that walks in - and some grader or team of graders is saying this is a 9, is it possibly higher? Like how many people get called in on that decision do you think? I would love to be a fly on the wall.

In this regard, the '80 Henderson is a better example of them pop controlling. There are currently 25 PSA 10's, and 2,115 PSA 9's. So about 1.18% of all "mint" Rickey rookies get 10's. VCC Keith's point is simply that that is waaaay out of whack compared to everything else in the 1980 Topps set. Much the same with the '68 Ryan, the '71 Topps Ryan...and lots of other vintage cards here and there if you are paying attention.

This is all kind of tongue-in-cheek amusing to me. I usually consider a PSA 6 a "really nice" vintage card. Most of those are going to have sharp corners, a nice surface with no creases, and maybe a mild (to me, anyway) centering problem. My own Ryan RC is a nicely centered raw example in the EX range, and I'm guessing my '80 Rickey Henderson might be a PSA 7 on a good day. Cards are my hobby and diversion. I will never pay on the level of what my house is currently worth just to say I own a PSA 10 of something.

[steve B]

What you're all forgetting in all this math is that the cards production was largely manual, and almost entirely manual at a few points during production.

Having a card set up slightly crooked, or slightly off center on the sheet, or even one color being slightly off making most of the print run be poorly registered for one card but not others is common.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by steve B

What you're all forgetting in all this math is that the cards production was largely manual, and almost entirely manual at a few points during production.

Having a card set up slightly crooked, or slightly off center on the sheet, or even one color being slightly off making most of the print run be poorly registered for one card but not others is common.

Not sure how that plays into the discussion about the 9/10 ratio in the VCC video. Cards that were diamond cut, or printed with slight tilt or registration problems aren't going to be eligible for PSA 9 or higher anyway. Those all get weeded out at nice midgrade - maybe PSA 6/7 at best. The cards that they most notoriously control like the '80 Henderson and the '68 Ryan don't have sheet positioning or registration problems; I'm not sure about others.

[GasHouseGang]

I don't have access to all the PSA population numbers, but a good basketball card example that I feel is being manipulated is the Skybox E-X2000 #30 of Kobe from 1996-1997. When I was trying to buy one, there were 23 PSA10's and 682 PSA 9's. This card should not be that rare in high grade. And the difference in price between a 10 and a 9 is now astronomical. VCP lists the PSA 9 current average sales price as $1134 while the PSA 10 is $22,625. This is due primarily to the low population and desirability of that card in a 10.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by GasHouseGang

I don't have access to all the PSA population numbers, but a good basketball card example that I feel is being manipulated is the Skybox E-X2000 #30 of Kobe from 1996-1997. When I was trying to buy one, there were 23 PSA10's and 682 PSA 9's. This card should not be that rare in high grade. And the difference in price between a 10 and a 9 is now astronomical. VCP lists the PSA 9 current average sales price as $1134 while the PSA 10 is $22,625. This is due primarily to the low population and desirability of that card in a 10.

Exactly. Even with modern, above a 9 for sure and there is a strong argument you are more about the flip than you are the card. The desire for the pop and slab you want are equal if nothing else with the desire of the eye appeal of the card.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Not sure how that plays into the discussion about the 9/10 ratio in the VCC video. Cards that were diamond cut, or printed with slight tilt or registration problems aren't going to be eligible for PSA 9 or higher anyway. Those all get weeded out at nice midgrade - maybe PSA 6/7 at best. The cards that they most notoriously control like the '80 Henderson and the '68 Ryan don't have sheet positioning or registration problems; I'm not sure about others.

That's exactly the point. A card prone to some small defect won't grade 9 or 10.
And with the production process there are at least two places where a card can get slightly messed up for all or most of the run.

It's not just sheet position, it's how the card is positioned on the sheet, or on the camera ready art. Topps wouldn't notice a small difference in spacing between cards, like if it was half a mm off to one side or another. But once cut, that small difference will make centering less than perfect on every example of that card unless it's miscut just right.

The cutting and packing processes have a lot of their own hazards. Henderson can be on top of a cello, and there's one spot it can get tweaked just enough to put it out of being a 10.

I'm not seeing any real benefit to PSA to control grades. And even with some benefit, like more being sent in, there are still a lot of reason to think they don't do that.
Like... every grader would have to know not to grade certain cards higher than an 8 or 9. If that was really the case..
The graders who can't spot alterations would have to have a list of don't grade high cards memorized -Not likely.
In close to 30 years, none of those graders, even disgruntled fired ones have ever said anything, not even by accident. Nobody has that level of silence anymore. Not without serious legal backup or the threat of violence. And even then... People talk.

Conspiracy theories are fun, but most are about as legit as bat boy hanging out on the UFO with Elvis.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's exactly the point. A card prone to some small defect won't grade 9 or 10.
And with the production process there are at least two places where a card can get slightly messed up for all or most of the run.

The argument on pop control and reference to Keith's video is only about 9's and 10's, and the fact that with certain cards (like the '80 Henderson) - there are a disproportionate amount of 9's among the total population of mint cards. Nobody is arguing that they are pop controlling by not properly grading non-mint cards.

[Kutcher55]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's exactly the point. A card prone to some small defect won't grade 9 or 10.
And with the production process there are at least two places where a card can get slightly messed up for all or most of the run.

It's not just sheet position, it's how the card is positioned on the sheet, or on the camera ready art. Topps wouldn't notice a small difference in spacing between cards, like if it was half a mm off to one side or another. But once cut, that small difference will make centering less than perfect on every example of that card unless it's miscut just right.

The cutting and packing processes have a lot of their own hazards. Henderson can be on top of a cello, and there's one spot it can get tweaked just enough to put it out of being a 10.

I'm not seeing any real benefit to PSA to control grades. And even with some benefit, like more being sent in, there are still a lot of reason to think they don't do that.
Like... every grader would have to know not to grade certain cards higher than an 8 or 9. If that was really the case..
The graders who can't spot alterations would have to have a list of don't grade high cards memorized -Not likely.
In close to 30 years, none of those graders, even disgruntled fired ones have ever said anything, not even by accident. Nobody has that level of silence anymore. Not without serious legal backup or the threat of violence. And even then... People talk.

Conspiracy theories are fun, but most are about as legit as bat boy hanging out on the UFO with Elvis.

It’s becomes more than just a conspiracy theory when backed by mathematical fact. Anyone who understands math and probability would understand that it’s hard to argue otherwise. VCC has presented overwhelming evidence. And this comes from somebody (me) who generally abhors conspiracy theory and is quite convinced that Oswald acted alone.

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's exactly the point. A card prone to some small defect won't grade 9 or 10.
And with the production process there are at least two places where a card can get slightly messed up for all or most of the run.

It's not just sheet position, it's how the card is positioned on the sheet, or on the camera ready art. Topps wouldn't notice a small difference in spacing between cards, like if it was half a mm off to one side or another. But once cut, that small difference will make centering less than perfect on every example of that card unless it's miscut just right.

The cutting and packing processes have a lot of their own hazards. Henderson can be on top of a cello, and there's one spot it can get tweaked just enough to put it out of being a 10.

I'm not seeing any real benefit to PSA to control grades. And even with some benefit, like more being sent in, there are still a lot of reason to think they don't do that.
Like... every grader would have to know not to grade certain cards higher than an 8 or 9. If that was really the case..
The graders who can't spot alterations would have to have a list of don't grade high cards memorized -Not likely.
In close to 30 years, none of those graders, even disgruntled fired ones have ever said anything, not even by accident. Nobody has that level of silence anymore. Not without serious legal backup or the threat of violence. And even then... People talk.

Conspiracy theories are fun, but most are about as legit as bat boy hanging out on the UFO with Elvis.

I feel like you might be under-appreciating PSA's interest in keeping low population counts in popular cards. And also over-appreciating what is necessary to keep those pops low. It's not something extremely nefarious they need to put in place. Just have management tell graders to scrutinize big vintage cards because 10s should be very rare, and/or require them to get approval by senior graders/managers before handing out 10s to major cards. I'm sure some type of oversight like that exists.