PSA Flip Label History Guide

NGS428

I have spent enough time staring at PSA labels... That got me thinking about what changes have been made over time and how they have looked from the beginning in 1991 to today. There were a couple good forum threads on this topic already, so I used those as referenced sources and made up the difference myself.

The purpose of this guide is to show the historic changes of the labels, identify what an authentic label looks like and to help identify the approximate date of when a card was graded.

This could not have been created without a couple threads:
For Reference: The History of the PSA Flip Label (twiley's archived thread)
Thanks @jeffcbay for re-posting this 6 years ago!

PSA Flips/Holders - Tracking Changes Over Time
Thanks Bosox Blair on Net54baseball!

EDIT: 06-23-18 Changed the link to my Google Drive account

My compiled guide is linked below. If you have any comments, deletions, additions, etc. please let me know.
PSA Label History Guide

HighGradeLegends

very helpful, thank you!

sinoth23

Great way to kick off the year. Awesome reference. Thank you.

SpinFadeSplash23

Thanks for your great work!

PaulMaul

Nice! As has been pointed out a couple of times though, there is not a direct correspondence between the introduction of the half point grade and the numerical grade being on the next line.

There are a few flips out there that look like:

NM-MT + 8.5

although it seems pretty uncommon.

NGS428

@PaulMaul said:
Nice! As has been pointed out a couple of times though, there is not a direct correspondence between the introduction of the half point grade and the numerical grade being on the next line.

There are a few flips out there that look like:

NM-MT + 8.5

although it seems pretty uncommon.

Yes, I meant to add the info from your post in the referenced thread. I missed it the first time. It has now been added. Thanks for the reminder!

dennis07

Nice. This is so well done it wouldn't surprise me if PSA asks to borrow this.

PADIdiver

Thanks for this thread... can anyone comment on why a certification has an asterisk beside the label type? I couldn't find the corresponding footnote anywhere so I don't know if it's something that was resubmitted with a grade change or if it means there are previous recorded sales of that item.

I was looking at one in particular that shows a sale May 30 2017 and then another sale June 26 2017 for the same PSA card certification and now it's on eBay again so wondering if that's something I should stay away from?

NGS428

@PADIdiver said:
Thanks for this thread... can anyone comment on why a certification has an asterisk beside the label type? I couldn't find the corresponding footnote anywhere so I don't know if it's something that was resubmitted with a grade change or if it means there are previous recorded sales of that item.

I was looking at one in particular that shows a sale May 30 2017 and then another sale June 26 2017 for the same PSA card certification and now it's on eBay again so wondering if that's something I should stay away from?

Do you have an image of the label?

PADIdiver

I should've been more specific as the asterisk is on the PSA website.. not on the actual holder. Here it is... it's not a super expensive card but was curious about it.

NGS428

The asterisk is just there to reference you to the note at the bottom of the webpage l. The note tells you that the label should have the embedded hologram on it. You are fine. Buy away.

Footnote is as below at the asterisk:

Stone193

Thanx Nic - I saved it for future reference.

Well done buddy!

dictoresno

Awesome write up. I’ve been looking for something like this for awhile and the previous older links were not as complete as this. Hopefully PSA will chime in and help fill the date/year gaps we still aren’t sure of.

mexpo75

Very cool! Thanks for sharing

grote15

@PaulMaul said:
Nice! As has been pointed out a couple of times though, there is not a direct correspondence between the introduction of the half point grade and the numerical grade being on the next line.

There are a few flips out there that look like:

NM-MT + 8.5

although it seems pretty uncommon.

It is very uncommon as I do recall the line change for the grade below the alpha grade was implemented as part of the advent of half point grading. I suspect that the cards in queue at that time would be the exceptions before they had an opportunity to change the format.

divecchia

Great info, thanks for putting it all together.

Donato

CW

Another great reference. Thanks!

gemint

@grote15 said:

@PaulMaul said:
Nice! As has been pointed out a couple of times though, there is not a direct correspondence between the introduction of the half point grade and the numerical grade being on the next line.

There are a few flips out there that look like:

NM-MT + 8.5

although it seems pretty uncommon.

It is very uncommon as I do recall the line change for the grade below the alpha grade was implemented as part of the advent of half point grading. I suspect that the cards in queue at that time would be the exceptions before they had an opportunity to change the format.

There were cards already hitting the market after the half grade implementation which had the numerical on the same line as the grade. I was probably one of many that called during that short time to lobby for dropping the numerical below the grade so that people could distinguish cards graded before the half point system vs those graded after. My fear was sellers would exploit this to claim cards were graded before the half point implementation when they had been graded after.

NGS428

@gemint said:

There are a few flips out there that look like:

NM-MT + 8.5

although it seems pretty uncommon.

It is very uncommon as I do recall the line change for the grade below the alpha grade was implemented as part of the advent of half point grading. I suspect that the cards in queue at that time would be the exceptions before they had an opportunity to change the format.

There were cards already hitting the market after the half grade implementation which had the numerical on the same line as the grade. I was probably one of many that called during that short time to lobby for dropping the numerical below the grade so that people could distinguish cards graded before the half point system vs those graded after. My fear was sellers would exploit this to claim cards were graded before the half point implementation when they had been graded after.

Good point. I do have an example of the early half point label in section 2.7, page 10 of the guide.

I linked the couple guides I wrote in my signature.

PaulMaul

I just saw this card on eBay and thought it looked odd. I realized it’s the hyphen between GEM and MT. I have found numerous examples of earlier flips that are not like this. Was it done only for a short time?

PaulMaul

PaulMaul

LarkinCollector

As I was scrolling through this thread, that flip jumped out as odd too (as someone who has seen in the 10s of thousands of PSA flips). Looks like a similar spacing with this 8 from a fair bit earlier ...

I don't have any 10s from that grading era to compare, but it seems a similar enough style it's most likely legit. Interested to see if anyone else has 10s within a range of those serials to narrow it down.

NGS428

Has anyone seen bidding higher than expected on a card card because of a rarer style PSA label?

PaulMaul

@NGS428 said:
Has anyone seen bidding higher than expected on a card card because of a rarer style PSA label?

While anything’s possible, I’ve never seen that. The only premium I can see being placed on a card due to its flip is for the lighthouse flip.