Has your PSA 10 Gem rate for modern bulk submissions changed dramatically this year?

[MavsRChamps]

Goodness. Just had a TERRIBLE grading order pop for non-sports, practically all 2011 Topps American Pie Cards (besides 1 card). Mind you I separated these 2011 Topps American Pie cards into 2 batches basically.

My 1st batch - Roughly 66% GEM Rate from about 50 cards. Non Gems were ALL 9's ... After that order, I knew I was lucky having a good grader tbh but expected nothing like the below order.

I graded 29 cards. Mind you - I was expected about 50% Gem Rate. These cards aren't expensive. They're $1 cards raw (besides a few of them) - I collect the set but if I were to sell, I'd lose money on everything but PSA 10's.

Of the 29 cards - ZERO 10's, 13 9's, 16 8's ... Absolutely absurd. These were picked through - Since I had 4 complete sets, plus others I pulled from.

Again 1st order I was fortunate - I got a grader that overgraded the cards, and even gave me 9/10's on Super condition sensitive Spotlight cards which didn't really deserve them. But this order is so much in the other direction I literally laughed when I saw grades. How can a 29 card Modern order have no 10's? How is this not triggering a review by PSA? Not even considering I picked through these cards and sent Gem worthy ones, and my last very similar order from a month ago had mostly 10's?

[SLGSports]

Man, that's rough...

Solution is simple though -- stop paying PSA to devalue your cards by assigning lower grades than they deserve. Send them to BGS/SGC/CGC/TAG and your 10s and 9s will sell for more than the 9s and 8s PSA is giving you.

PSA is entirely broken. Your experience seems to be the norm, not a one-off experience.

[yoyosh]

Originally Posted by yoyosh

I graded about 120 cards w PSA in 2024, and it looks like I'll submit less than 50 this year. I know Collector's Universe doesn't care about small time collectors like me, but the inconsistencies have really impacted how I #hobby.

I went and looked through all of my 2025 grading submissions, here's my data.
In 2023 + 2024 I had 61% Gems with 200+ cards submitted.
I've used the same procedures for prepping and considering what to send each year.
In 2025 I Sub'd 53 cards

Gems - 14 (26%)
9 - 31
8 - 6
7 - 2

[Boostedwrx]

How many of your 9's could get resubbed for possible gems?

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by Boostedwrx

How many of your 9's could get resubbed for possible gems?

Wouldn't shock me if some of them came back 10 or 8 but that's exactly what PSA would love. Twice the money to pay for their incompetence.

[MavsRChamps]

Got the grading order back of 29 cards - 13 9's, 16 8's. At least PSA didn't damage the cards much besides 2 that had corner dings def not there when I sent them. The card backs of these 2011 Topps American Pie cards are dark border, I'm looking at the PSA 8's and just look so sharp everywhere like when I sent them. Have no idea what this grader was looking at. All 29 cards were Gem worthy because I wouldn't have sent them if they weren't. I looked at 300+ cards to narrow these down. I can laugh it off because they're cheaper cards, but PSA just flat out not caring about their consistency for their bulk grading submissions is just terrible.

Are there no policies / procedures in place to check graders? Does each grader not have an "average grade record"? Is there no internal notes for why graders grade cards? Do they not check every 5th or 10th grading order for accuracy for newer graders? It is not complex to get consistent grading - With the $$ PSA gets it's no excuse. In no other service area can you spend $500+ for under 30 minutes of work to grade 28 cards & not be able to ask questions, communicate your concerns on your order, be clear on proper procedures, etc. Heck Amazon gives you your $$ back within minutes for most concerns/complaints you have. When has PSA ever even heard customer's feedback in a positive way or even have had that chain of communication open?

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by MavsRChamps

Got the grading order back of 29 cards - 13 9's, 16 8's. At least PSA didn't damage the cards much besides 2 that had corner dings def not there when I sent them. The card backs of these 2011 Topps American Pie cards are dark border, I'm looking at the PSA 8's and just look so sharp everywhere like when I sent them. Have no idea what this grader was looking at. All 29 cards were Gem worthy because I wouldn't have sent them if they weren't. I looked at 300+ cards to narrow these down. I can laugh it off because they're cheaper cards, but PSA just flat out not caring about their consistency for their bulk grading submissions is just terrible.

Are there no policies / procedures in place to check graders? Does each grader not have an "average grade record"? Is there no internal notes for why graders grade cards? Do they not check every 5th or 10th grading order for accuracy for newer graders? It is not complex to get consistent grading - With the $$ PSA gets it's no excuse. In no other service area can you spend $500+ for under 30 minutes of work to grade 28 cards & not be able to ask questions, communicate your concerns on your order, be clear on proper procedures, etc. Heck Amazon gives you your $$ back within minutes for most concerns/complaints you have. When has PSA ever even heard customer's feedback in a positive way or even have had that chain of communication open?

Two years ago, I complained to Nat Turner about a PSA order that went completely south. I had Nat Turner's private email, which I will keep private, and contacted him after contacting PSA did nothing. The order was abysmal to say the least and warranted a complaint. CEO Ryan Hoge contacted me the same day, I am assuming because Nat forwarded him the message. Ryan offered to have their senior grader re-grade the cards. I told Ryan, I would only take him up on this offer if the senior grader did so blind, without seeing the previous grades. Ryan agreed to this. Mind you, they did this free of charge, beyond the initial grading fees associated with the order.

The grades that came back were far, far better than the initial grades, with over half of the order getting a full grade bump and zero cards graded down. While that did keep me grading with PSA for another year, it also showed me just how much the Wizard behind the curtain was a fraud. I used to think PSA was the absolute best of the best and that their graders were true experts. This showed me that PSA is nothing but a crapshoot and that PSA cannot offer the services they boast. They are no experts at all, and the sheer number of complaints PSA receives every single day from people in my Facebook groups, Discord groups, Blowout, YouTube, shows me that my experience with getting ridiculously undergraded cards was not in isolation. This is a huge problem with PSA and speaks largely to how incompetent they are to provide a very expensive service that is only getting more expensive and seemingly more incompetent.

PSA got one more year of my money and for the first half of that year, things were going fairly well again, but the second half of that year highlighted the same issues that reared up again, with cards getting damaged by them after receiving them, cards looking severely undergraded in some cases, and no recourse from PSA whatsoever. I tried to file a complaint with them again about an order I received, attempting to contact Juan Salinas, who is a customer relations specialist at PSA. No response. I can't say I am surprised, either. When I had filed a complaint about that aforementioned order that was re-graded by the senior grader, Juan Salinas was assigned my case as my point of contact after Ryan Hoge had contacted me. When the grades came back better than the initial order, I had asked Juan if he could tell me what went wrong with the original order and what was being done to correct this so this wouldn't happen again. I received no response from Juan whatsoever. Nothing.

PSA knows they can't say anything because doing so would only further highlight their incompetence.

[MavsRChamps]

^^^ Thanks for sharing. Yeah I'd be very curious to know PSA's financials and where the money is going exactly. Maybe it's public idk. Why can't they ensure better accuracy? Just very odd. The company doesn't seem to be prioritize bulk level service - paying graders more, better training, etc. That is going to catch up to them at sometime most likely. The model is so cost effective - $$$ from minute of time - that PSA will still profit big regardless if they're incompetent or not, at least in the short term. So they'll continue to point to "hey record numbers!" when that is purely a sign of the times of increased print runs, more people trying to grade/flip to have side hustles, pokemon market going up, etc. and tells you nothing about PSA's quality of service.

[Scottish Punk]

The cynic is me says they never did the blind regrade for you. They picked a few of the cards and gave them a bump to appease you. Then onto business as usual.
Us collectors need to keep reminding ourselves that the bulk of PSA graders aren't certified high value graders. Just everyday people doing a quick look at cards and giving an opinion.

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by Scottish Punk

The cynic is me says they never did the blind regrade for you. They picked a few of the cards and gave them a bump to appease you. Then onto business as usual.
Us collectors need to keep reminding ourselves that the bulk of PSA graders aren't certified high value graders. Just everyday people doing a quick look at cards and giving an opinion.

Over 50 of the 106 cards received a bump. While my cynical side suspects that they did exactly what you mentioned, it’s hard to know for sure. At this stage, nothing would surprise me. Either way, I pay for a more qualified opinion than what they are now offering.

[inaka]

Internally, PSA probably has a grading "4SC" code to flag orders that they automatically bump up the majority of grades in the Q/A stage, most commonly referred to as the "Four Sharp Corners Treatment."

So for you review, Nat probably just emailed a PSA customer rep and said, "Hey Ryan, give this guy the 'Four Sharp Corners Treatment' for order Number #128872."

Ryan then replied, "I'm on it, chief." knowing exactly what that meant.
At least, that's what the true cynic in me thinks of when I read how your order and subsequent "review" went down.

[yoyosh]

Originally Posted by 88horsepower

Wouldn't shock me if some of them came back 10 or 8 but that's exactly what PSA would love. Twice the money to pay for their incompetence.

Yup, that seems to be their business model of late.
For me, I paid to go on the ride once. It made me sick, so not going to pay twice for that experience

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by MavsRChamps

^^^ Thanks for sharing. Yeah I'd be very curious to know PSA's financials and where the money is going exactly. Maybe it's public idk. Why can't they ensure better accuracy? Just very odd. The company doesn't seem to be prioritize bulk level service - paying graders more, better training, etc. That is going to catch up to them at sometime most likely. The model is so cost effective - $$$ from minute of time - that PSA will still profit big regardless if they're incompetent or not, at least in the short term. So they'll continue to point to "hey record numbers!" when that is purely a sign of the times of increased print runs, more people trying to grade/flip to have side hustles, pokemon market going up, etc. and tells you nothing about PSA's quality of service.

At this point it’s all capitalism at its worst. Raise prices, lower quality, still make out like bandits because there’s nobody to stop them. But I’ll say this, hubris has taken out a lot of companies in my lifetime. Only time will tell if theirs eventually catches up with them.

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by inaka

Internally, PSA probably has a grading "4SC" code to flag orders that they automatically bump up the majority of grades in the Q/A stage, most commonly referred to as the "Four Sharp Corners Treatment."

So for you review, Nat probably just emailed a PSA customer rep and said, "Hey Ryan, give this guy the 'Four Sharp Corners Treatment' for order Number #128872."

Ryan then replied, "I'm on it, chief." knowing exactly what that meant.
At least, that's what the true cynic in me thinks of when I read how your order and subsequent "review" went down.

Yep, wouldn’t shock me in the least if that’s what happened.

And as for 4SC, nobody will be able to convince me that they don’t get preferential treatment. Ever. They absolutely get some of the worst looking “10s” I’ve seen, especially recently.

[RKH916]

Just scrolling through ebay and apparently this qualifies as a PSA 1 nowadays

[SLGSports]

Wow... examples like this make me think there's a data entry problem. Maybe the grader meant to type in a 10?? Unless there's a pinhole or something that automatically moves the grade to a 1.

[anusinha]

Originally Posted by SLGSports

Wow... examples like this make me think there's a data entry problem. Maybe the grader meant to type in a 10?? Unless there's a pinhole or something that automatically moves the grade to a 1.

wHy doEs tHiS cArd HavE so Many HoLeS iN iT?


They probably didnt know the die cuts were supposed to be there

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by anusinha

wHy doEs tHiS cArd HavE so Many HoLeS iN iT?


They probably didnt know the die cuts were supposed to be there

Wouldn't shock me in the least if that was exactly what happened.

[Blazed]

Originally Posted by Blazed

I get that

But the point is, if someone crying on here about not getting 10's gets a 10 that clearly isn't a 10 are they going to complain or send back for a regrade? Hell no

People don't want accurate grades they want 10's

Originally Posted by MavsRChamps

Goodness. Just had a TERRIBLE grading order pop for non-sports, practically all 2011 Topps American Pie Cards (besides 1 card). Mind you I separated these 2011 Topps American Pie cards into 2 batches basically.

My 1st batch - Roughly 66% GEM Rate from about 50 cards. Non Gems were ALL 9's ... After that order, I knew I was lucky having a good grader tbh but expected nothing like the below order.

I graded 29 cards. Mind you - I was expected about 50% Gem Rate. These cards aren't expensive. They're $1 cards raw (besides a few of them) - I collect the set but if I were to sell, I'd lose money on everything but PSA 10's.

Of the 29 cards - ZERO 10's, 13 9's, 16 8's ... Absolutely absurd. These were picked through - Since I had 4 complete sets, plus others I pulled from.

Again 1st order I was fortunate - I got a grader that overgraded the cards, and even gave me 9/10's on Super condition sensitive Spotlight cards which didn't really deserve them. But this order is so much in the other direction I literally laughed when I saw grades. How can a 29 card Modern order have no 10's? How is this not triggering a review by PSA? Not even considering I picked through these cards and sent Gem worthy ones, and my last very similar order from a month ago had mostly 10's?

Last order had mostly 10's that "didn't really deserve them"

Was happy and thrilled with overgraded cards but wants reviews on non 10 modern

People don't want accurate grades, they want 10's

[Bosoxfan5990]

Originally Posted by Blazed

Last order had mostly 10's that "didn't really deserve them"

Was happy and thrilled with overgraded cards but wants reviews on non 10 modern

People don't want accurate grades, they want 10's

1000%

[inaka]

"People don't want accurate grades, they want 10's"

With the current state of PSA, you get neither. LOL

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by Blazed

People don't want accurate grades, they want 10's

I do want 10s on cards I think have a strong chance at that grade. In all fairness to PSA, many of the cards that I have got lower grades on lately did have minor defects I didn't notice on the front end. I do suspect some of those would have been 10 pre-covid. Maybe they would have been 10 for 4SC. But, they did have something I noticed where the grade made made sense even if it was a strict application. I'll just keep being strict on my evaluation of raw cards. At $22/card minimum, it's no longer worth sending cheap raw that I'm only 50/50 on a potential gem grade.

[larry25]

Originally Posted by f2tornado

I do want 10s on cards I think have a strong chance at that grade. In all fairness to PSA, many of the cards that I have got lower grades on lately did have minor defects I didn't notice on the front end. I do suspect some of those would have been 10 pre-covid. Maybe they would have been 10 for 4SC. But, they did have something I noticed where the grade made made sense even if it was a strict application. I'll just keep being strict on my evaluation of raw cards. At $22/card minimum, it's no longer worth sending cheap raw that I'm only 50/50 on a potential gem grade.

Good chance those defects were not there when they arrived into PSA's little shop of horrors.

[swerve]

Originally Posted by Blazed

Last order had mostly 10's that "didn't really deserve them"

Was happy and thrilled with overgraded cards but wants reviews on non 10 modern

People don't want accurate grades, they want 10's

Actually some do want accuracy and consistency. I am meticulous in my selection of what I send to PSA. When the cards start coming back in lower grades than ever before, yeah I've got issues with that.

[88horsepower]

Originally Posted by swerve

Actually some do want accuracy and consistency. I am meticulous in my selection of what I send to PSA. When the cards start coming back in lower grades than ever before, yeah I've got issues with that.

Same. I would much rather get accurate and consistent grades across the board. While 10s are the goal in most cases for the cards I send in, I want accuracy. There have been too many unpleasant surprises in my orders in the last couple of years.

Originally Posted by f2tornado

I do want 10s on cards I think have a strong chance at that grade. In all fairness to PSA, many of the cards that I have got lower grades on lately did have minor defects I didn't notice on the front end. I do suspect some of those would have been 10 pre-covid. Maybe they would have been 10 for 4SC. But, they did have something I noticed where the grade made made sense even if it was a strict application. I'll just keep being strict on my evaluation of raw cards. At $22/card minimum, it's no longer worth sending cheap raw that I'm only 50/50 on a potential gem grade.

The $22 price point is where the true collectors get screwed the most. You can't collect 80s and 90s cards at $22 per card, especially with the crap grades they are giving out these days. They just killed their own registry.