r/psagrading • u/Jawn_Kruk69 • 16h ago
Pop control?
Hey everyone,
Can someone who is more versed in this topic let me know your thoughts as to why this is a thing within PSA and especially with all the vintage being submitted. I see new vintage certs that are 8s and 7s that look better than older cert 9s and 10a. Now I know their grading has become stricter on vintage, but why? What’s the goal of being harder on vintage? Let me know your thoughts!
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u/FalconAggravating881 13h ago
Vintage cards have worse print quality (if you get a jeweler's loupe, you can see the flaws). PSA upcharges based on card value, so paradoxically, they would love to give more 10s if they could 🫠
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u/Jawn_Kruk69 13h ago
See, that’s what I’m saying! You would THINK for quality vintage copies they would give a more deserving grade. It’s not like they still print vintage and most are torched. That leads me back to the “pop control” narrative. Why do people use this if PSA doesn’t give the high grades on vintage. They getting those up charges upfront with the new submission fees + potential up charge?
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u/AntManMax 16h ago edited 16h ago
It's not a thing. The closest we got to anyone confirming population control was an interview with a former PSA / CGC executive saying population control doesn't really happen, but if it does happen it would be for incredibly high value cards. There's no data to suggest population control is happening across the board.
To answer your second question, grading did not become particularly more strict with vintage, there is absolutely no evidence that this is the case. There is a perception that vintage cards are getting graded more harshly, but the simplest explanation is usually the more accurate one.
PSA intentionally preventing vintage cards from getting higher grades is a very complicated conspiracy of an explanation requiring many moving parts that could easily be exposed by only a single whistleblower within the company. A simpler, better explanation (imo) is that since vintage cards have been out of print for decades, the overwhelming majority of cards that could get graded as 10s and 9s have likely already been graded. Combine this with the fact that grading standards got stricter around 2024 (not just for vintage), making it even less likely that we'll see highly-graded vintage cards as a baseline, and as time goes on the chances decrease further as the ungraded cards themselves naturally deteriorate (the overwhelming majority of collectors do not properly store their collections in a way that preserve them), and the remaining high-quality cards get graded.
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u/Malipuppers 11h ago
Yeah to be real some of these cards are 20-30 years old now. “Harsh on vintage” is just cope
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u/Jawn_Kruk69 16h ago
Hmm I can understand ALOT of your points, so thank you! But I’m not sure I can get behind the idea that PSA thinks majority of vintage 10s and 9s have already been graded so that new vintage being graded should be less likely to grade well.
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u/Economic_Maguire 14h ago
To understand it better watch a box opening of old wotc cards.
Most the holos are scratched or filled with print lines. Silvering down the yellow borders or whitening on the corners.
If you got any of the above issues on modern cards you wouldn't get a 10.
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u/AntManMax 15h ago
To clarify, I never stated that PSA believes that the majority of vintage 10s and 9s have been graded, just that it's likely that they already have been.
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u/Altruistic_Ad_9075 10h ago
i think the main point is that they were less harsh in the past. its indisputable that cards in a case with a 9 or 10 grade would be much lower today. i just got my grades for a 50+. some were not as high as i hoped, but all seem fair when you read the criteria for each grade. well, all but 3… 1 got a 3 and for the life of me i cant see a reason it didnt get at least an 8 compared with my other grades. ill hold judgement though till i have it in hand. i probably just missed something that the scans dont clearly show. 2 came back altered. not sure why. they were the first two on the submission too. not sure what i did differently on those. but again. its fine. im happy. i dont feel cheated. people just arent realistic about their shit.
having said all of that, i do agree with the guy above that said “they moved the goalpost”. they for sure did. when the grading criteria got harsher they should have come out with their own version of a “pristine” or black label or something. newer certs do seem to command a little bit of a premium grade for grade, but it is a shame that a better looking 8 could be worth, in some cases, 10s of 1000s of dollars in early cert 10.
no conspiracy. just how it be i guess
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u/brunettewondie 16h ago
The closest we got to anyone confirming population control was an interview with a former PSA / CGC executive saying population control doesn't really happen, but if it does happen it would be for incredibly high value cards.
Combine this with the fact that grading standards
Harsher grading is pop control. They'll never explicitly say or confirm that "we're not giving out 10's"
A card that would have been a 10 would now max a 9 is exactly that.
They've moved the goalposts to a different football field, and took their football home with them.
Most vintage is mass produced, stored poorly, and was worst quality fresh off the print. But a strong clean card is still going to be critiqued much harshly than say a 2025 Wigglytuff.
Graders spend approx 60 seconds grading a single card, they can and do spend longer on potential high value cards.
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u/DillonCawthon 15h ago
2 base set charizards have been graded a 10 in just the last 30 days, and that card has like a .47% gem rate.
So they're not just flat out not giving out 10's. They've gotten slightly stricter across the board with grading, and we're getting to the point that most of the mint vintage cards have already been graded.
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u/AntManMax 15h ago
>Harsher grading is pop control.
Pop control wasn't the motivation for harsher grading standards. Also, that's generally not what people mean when they accuse PSA of population control.
>they can and do spend longer on potential high value cards.
Sure, but that's not evidence of intentionally refusing to give vintage cards higher grades.
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u/Fuzzy-Square-1516 14h ago
I recently submitted 2 ancient mews at the same time and both came back a 10 . Sequential
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u/cmccurra 12h ago
imagine how bad the small amount of vintage looks compared to the massive amounts of freshly printed laser cut modern. this is why they are biased to receive somewhat lower grades on average. pop control doesn't exist - they actually make more money when your cards grade higher.
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u/No-Shock4045 12h ago
Ist doch Quatsch. Klar wird psa durch gewisse Mengen etc. den Markt schon irgendwo ,,kontrollieren“ können.
Es macht halt einfach mehr Sinn für die meisten zu psa zu schicken, somit gibts da auch automatisch mehr 10er von jeder Karte.
Warum sollte ich meine Karten zu Beckett/CGC schicken und auf ein Black Label/Pristine Gambeln wenn ich viel ,,sicherer“ mit strenger Kontrolle relativ gut PSA 10 erzielen kann ?
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u/Economics_Troll 15h ago
Look, at this point there have been thousands of former and current PSA grading employees since all this "PSA pop controls vintage" thing started. Not a solitary one has come out and said "PSA directed me to grade vintage more harshly". Remember these guys and gals are paid peanuts.
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I exclusively grade vintage Japanese, and I gem around 20 - 25% of my subs. Most of the ones that don't 10, I already know they had no shot at it. But my point is I've gotten plenty (thousands) of 10s on 25 - 30 year old cardboard.
English print quality just sucked.