Guess the grade 1961 Carl Yastrzemski...

4

Vintage 9s r almost impossible these days…so taking that into account; I will lower my assessment to a PSA-8.

PSA 8

That’s a min 8 all day long

PSA 7.5

7

Yikes

RonSportscards wins…

The bottom red is very light and looks faded, plus the black rim around the red full of dots and the right corner. Centering should have made it a 5.5 but its Yaz 2nd card and PSA is really tough on vintage. Would have been a 6.5
last year or so.

Gorgeous 5. On the back by the border below the .377 BA shield box, not sure what that line is, but if on the card, that mat have hurt the grade.

Crack it out and give it to a trusted hobby friend to resubmit

I don't see a reason why that isn't a minimum 7, I would say 8 but not sure how much the slight fade on the red box matters

I'll buy it for the last sold price of a PSA 5 on ebay

I would love to see if TAG would grade this just for kicks if we paid them an extra $5. I want to see what the software would produce...but they likely don't have a database of data for performing the comparison.

All the more reason I am holding off on submissions.

If you look at the front and then look at the gaps of the card edge and holder then you can notice the left side appears to be cut at an angle slightly when compared to the right side. Can it affect the grading?

If there was a surface wrinkle, it would automatically reduce it to a 5.

@handyman said:
On the back middle under the comic. “League in 1959” under it I can see an indent like a finger nail?

This card getting a PSA 5 grade is really disturbing. Maybe PSA needs to take a closer look at how tightly they have been grading the last 2 years.

Just a couple of thoughts...

Is there any chance that this could be a "mechanical error"?

The is term used on rare occasion when the intended grade is is somehow transposed and/or recorded incorrectly leading to a mistake. It really is "a thing" with coin grading//slabs- it does happen on rare occasions. Not sure if this has ever been an issue with cards but considering the volume graded, one simply cannot dismiss the possibility.

As for the grade- 5 seems as if my prior comment just might have some validity.

But lets just say it is not a mechanical error. We are seeing an excellent image and grading the image- not the card. So we are at a disadvantage. We cannot see if there is a level of surface wear that may have impacted the surfaces and color. While that is plausible, one would expect to see greater evidence of wear at the corners and elsewhere on the card. The centering is excellent for the issue- I doubt that point can even be in controversy. So how can we legitimately start a grading scale with a high of 10 and see a card like this end with a grade of 5?

It seems this card was penalized more due to production issues such as the color that gives the impression that it is washed out. We have not had the opportunity to tilt and rotate the card under light to look for impaired gloss/wear or imperfections. But even if there is an slight indentation barely noticeable, would a card with these positive attributes warrant a punishing grade such as the one assigned?

This simply is not right... a vintage card is clearly being held to an unjust and even impossible standard.