10s, 9s, 8s.... Opinions requested.
billwaltonsbeard
Posts: 3,748 ✭✭✭✭
Here are my thoughts on 10s, 9s and 8s.....
A perfectly flawless card will either get a 9 or 10, depending on (?????). ANY sign of edge/corner wear knocks it down to an 8. Am I wrong?
Seriously, what is the worst flaw you guys have ever seen in a 9 slab?
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A perfectly flawless card will get a 10 every single time. I doubt I've seen more than a handful of cards that were "perfectly flawless" out of however many 10s of thousands of cards that have passed through my hands over the decades. Given enough time, a very minor flaw can be found on nearly every 10.
I'll ignore centering and focus on corners for this portion, though the same applies to edges ...
A slight touch of one corner of a colored border gets a 9, like the Scott pictured here: https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/12638951/#Comment_12638951
A slight touch of two corners or a bit more severe on one gets an 8.
More slides by on the slight touches of white bordered cards since the contrast doesn't jump out as obviously. So a 9 on a black bordered card, could get a 10 with the same slight touch on a white bordered. If it's severe enough to be noticeable on a whiter bordered card, you're probably in the 8 territory.
For surface, I haven't seen much grey area, scratches or gloss blemishes such as refractor lines pretty much drop a card that is a 10 otherwise to an 8 or lower.
The biggest difference I've seen in 9 vs 10 comes down to centering, this is the only absolutely objective quality that could be measured consistently (the other three have some subjectivity in degree of wear), but sliders near the borderline can fall either way.
I guess what is considered a 'slight touch of one corner' is subjective. Thanks for your input.
I’m going through 2 cases of 1986 Topps Traded and noticed about half of the Canseco’s have this fish eye on them. Looks like this can still get you a 9.
Also note the larger "fishy" on the "S".
My ugliest 9.
No example pics but I've seen some 9's with horrifically bad focus / registration.
Lately PSA has not been a fan of putting 10 labels on my submissions. I thought this Barry was a nicer example that the self subbed 10 I received back in 2017.
Just goes to say as long as the human element exists there will not be a clear standard for card grading that will always be consistent.