The long awaited PSA half grade!

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

Some of this may have already been raised...

Grading is subjective just as identifying a card with an alteration is subjective. Certainly there are instances were condition and originality of the card is more absolute. Therefore a grading company is nothing more than an opinion that the masses (in PSA’s case) have bought into. PSA stating the card will not come back in anything less than the grade originally assigned assumes they originally graded and encapsulated said card because it was not altered after said card underwent the thorough and competent grading process. Relying on that argument means they then only have to apply the appropriate criteria to determine if the card is high end or not.

If PSA was ever required to answer in court or to a regulatory agency, seems to me they would only have to show how many cards are submitted to them and how many they have encapsulated. Whether or not you support PSA, you have to admit that if they have graded 11 million cards, far more than 11 million and one cards have been submitted.

Additionally, if under this review process they are not required to break the card out of the holder they can more easily rest on their assumption the card was determined to be free of alterations when originally graded, as it is that much tougher to assess a card in that area inside of the holder making it much easier to them to justify turning a blind eye. To PSA this process is merely to fine tune the accuracy of the original grade assigned by now offering to identify high end examples-a service which was not available until now.

By the way, no grading company wants to buy back cards. Certainly not in the volume that many feel PSA should be doing. Not because of the cost of the specific card, though in some instances cost might be a factor, but what it does to public perception. It would be an invitation to the public to lose faith in their opinion. With that said I have had PSA buy back cards with my consent and without. I have also had them remove cards from holders upon review and return the card to me ungraded with no compensation while removing the cert numbers from the database. I am not the only person to experience this with them and some of these others have had it done with multi thousand dollar cards. Generally, my experience has been that PSA prefers to not admit to having graded an altered card and the card will be returned unchanged.

Greg