PSA 5 with surface wrinkle

mrangrydonut

Can a card grade PSA 5 with a very light surface wrinkle?

NickM

Yes.

Nick

mrangrydonut

Thanks Nick.

Anybody have some examples they can show? I assume centering, corners, edges, etc all would need to be in top condition.

jswieton

I used to have a PSA 6 1981 Traded Ripken rc. That card was a PSA 9 all day if it didn't have the surface wrinkle.

ymarea

Here is a 5 with a wrinkle: '57 Thompson #109

Enlarge the Hank Thompson card and you will clearly see a wrinkle running horizontally inward from the middle of the right edge. I've had a few others that got 5's and even one that got a 6.

Edited to add: Oops, Thompson is a 5.5...I forgot about that. I'll show you the 6 in just a few.

ymarea

Here is a 6 with a surface wrinkle. Although the wrinkle is clearly visible with the card in-hand, it doesn't show up well on the scan. It is on the back of the card and runs horizontally inward from the middle of the right edge. It's almost directly in line with the red period that follows "AVG" which heads the batting average column. I had to blow up the scan and angle my screen to get a good look at it.

mrangrydonut

Ymarea...thank you very much for the examples! I was always under the impression a card with a wrinkle or crease would get a PSA 4 or lower. I picked up a 1956 Topps Mays that graded a 5. It has a small wrinkle on the front. I was just curious if this was common. Sounds like it is.

Regardless, I'm more interested in eye appeal than the grade PSA assigns. I'm thrilled with how the Mays card looks.

ShootyBabitt

This has a surface wrinkle and came back a 5:

frankhardy

Believe it or not, I have gotten a PSA 7 on a card with a wrinkle on the back. It was an otherwise GEM MINT 1985 Donruss Clemens.

Also, I have gotten 2 PSA 6's on 2 other 85 Donruss Clemens with wrinkles on the back.

I think the key is that the card otherwise needs to be MINT and the wrinkle needs to be on the back.

slaphappy

Surface wrinkles are usually the cause of getting a 5 or a 6 on a card that is otherwise a 10. Look at past sub results you always see runs of 9s and 10s then suddenly a 5 or 6 in there. 9 times out of 10 that is a due to a small surface wrinkle

ajw

Pigs

The smallest of wrinkles knocks a card down quickly to a 5. A very slight crease on the bridge of Stewarts nose (not seen on scan) took this card out of a 7 or 8 possibility.

Estil

Actually, doesn't PSA have an unwritten rule where even the tiniest little wrinkle/crease drops it down to a PSA 5 at most?

mrangrydonut

Wrinkles or not most of the cards graded 5's posted here look awesome. However, I suppose most were disappointed with that grade when their submission popped.

As a collector I for one would love to have cards that look so nice for the price of an EX card. Somehow it seems like added value if I get "9" & "10" qualities on a card along with one flaw such as a wrinkle I can barely see all for the price of a high end 5 or low end 6.

Makes me wonder if the traditional rules of grading reflect what collectors really want. Although I don't post here often, I often read where people compare cards where the better looking card has the lower grade. Isn't that a result of a failure of the current grading system?

Albertdidit

<< <i>I used to have a PSA 6 1981 Traded Ripken rc. That card was a PSA 9 all day if it didn't have the surface wrinkle. >>



Wow a 1981 Ripken Traded...the rarest card ever made lol

Pigs

<< <i>Wrinkles or not most of the cards graded 5's posted here look awesome. However, I suppose most were disappointed with that grade when their submission popped.

As a collector I for one would love to have cards that look so nice for the price of an EX card. Somehow it seems like added value if I get "9" & "10" qualities on a card along with one flaw such as a wrinkle I can barely see all for the price of a high end 5 or low end 6.

Makes me wonder if the traditional rules of grading reflect what collectors really want. Although I don't post here often, I often read where people compare cards where the better looking card has the lower grade. Isn't that a result of a failure of the current grading system? >>




I agree with you. I believe a PSA 5 has the widest disparity when it comes to eye appeal compared to any other grade. These two '52's have 7 or 8 qualities while the Williams has zero going for it to grade any higher. PSA and many collectors probably think a wrinkle is a wrinkle no matter the size and should knock it down to a 5 at best. As far as these two '52 cards go in my set I would upgrade many other cards before I would touch these because of how they look. JMO

divecchia

I would have to agree that most cards with surface wrinkles will end up in a PSA 5 holder if the rest of the card is nice.

Donato

mrangrydonut

Here is a proposal on how the grading scale and standard could be changed to better reflect the appearance of a card. It's going to have a bit of a hybrid PSA, SGC, BGS & BCCG feel to it, so please don't take offense...I know this is a PSA board


1) Categorize cards by production year and break them into groups. For example, New Era 1987 to present, Modern may be 1973 to 1986, Vintage from 1942 - 1972, and Classic is anything pre-1942.

2) Continue to use a whole and half-point grading system just like we have today for the top end of the grading scale.

New Era - only grade cards GEM 10 to NM-MT 8
Modern - only grade cards GEM 10 to NM 7
Vintage - only grade cards GEM 10 to EX-MT 6
Classic - only grade cards GEM 10 to EX 5

3) Depending upon the production date of the card, if the grade falls below the 'minimum grade', start applying an "EYE APPEAL" score. I see this working like the subgrades on BGS cards, but with a slightly modified formula to better convey the appearance of the card.

For example, let's consider a card with some high end features but with a small pencil mark on the back. Today such a card would likely get a "Good 2" grade from PSA, BGS, or SGC.

I see this working on a 100 point scale...maybe just a 10x multiplier of the subgrade.

Our example card has the following subgrades for eye appeal on centering, corners, and edges:

Centering: 90
Corners: 80
Edges: 80

Now for the surface category...

Writing on a card definitely would decrease the surface score of an otherwise nice surface. But, since the writing is on the back instead of the front, the hit on surface "eye appeal" shouldn't be nearly as significant. Let's say this particular card gets a "50" on surface - one small, light mark on the back. If the mark was on the front it may be a "20".

Now, apply a formula to determine the eye appeal. One potential option could be to apply a weighting factor to the lowest subgrade. Perhaps a 3x factor would work, so the lowest subgrade has equal weight to all of the other 3 subgrades combined. Then do a product sum of the subgrades and divide by 6 for the EYE APPEAL score (rounding up to the next nearest whole number).

Centering = 90
Corners = 80
Edges = 80
Surface = 50

Eye Appeal = (90 + 80 + 80 + 50 + 50 + 50) = (330/6) = 67

So now the flip for the card would have EA66 on the label.


If the card had the mark on the front it would score like this...

Eye Appeal = (90 + 80 + 80 + 20 + 20 + 20) = 52


A real dog of a card, with outstanding centering, may get an eye appeal grade like this...

Centering = 90
Corners = 20
Edges = 30
Surface = 10

Eye Appeal = (90 + 20 + 30 + 10 + 10 + 10) = 28

Any thoughts on something like this or another way that might work better?

Estil

But this would completely throw out the window a few decades of precedent saying that NO allowance is made for age when grading cards.