PSA Grading Deep Dive: Learning From Our Recent 27 Card Submission
Let's see what we can learn from what did (and didn't) gem.
We recently had a 27 card submission come back from PSA, and overall, the results were a bit worse than usual. Let’s see what we can learn from it.
Before proceeding, I highly recommend you check out our Complete Guide to PSA Grading, which you can find here.
In total, we got 12 PSA 10s out of 27 cards, good for a 44.4% Gem Rate. Over our last 15 or so submissions, we’ve been above a 65% Gem Rate, so this is a bit of a decline from our recent results. Note that overall, these are still solid results, and this will be a profitable submission, although a bit less profitable than our other recent ones.
We also got 4 PSA 8s, which again is a bit unusual. With that said, we generally are willing to submit imperfect cards, particularly when the Expected Value calculations suggest that it is smart to do so.
Anyway, below we’ll go through 6 cards that I thought represented this submission well. We’ll go through our grading notes and the actual results and see what we can do to improve going forward.
Note: Gem Probability is the percentage chance we give a card of grading as a Gem Mint PSA 10.
2020 Rayquaza VMAX #TG20 – PSA 10
Projected Gem Probability: 85%
Grading notes: None
This is a good card to start with. Generally, we submit cards that aren’t perfect, but this is an exception. We saw no flaws on this card and expected it to gem... and it did.
2021 Mew VMAX #269 – PSA 10
Projected Gem Probability: 60%
Grading notes: Fringe Left/Right centering on front. Measured at 55/45.
I thought this was an interesting card because looking at this submission as a whole, I thought PSA was actually pretty strict on centering. We measured the front centering of this card as 55/45, right at the borderline of what’s acceptable for PSA. We didn’t see any other flaws on the card, and apparently that was good enough to grade as a PSA 10.
2019 Garchomp & Giratina GX #SM191 PSA 10
Projected Gem Probability: 55%
Grading notes: Left/Right centering 54/46, handful of tiny white dots on back borders (zoom in to see these better).
I’d like to point out that while this card wasn’t perfect, we still expected it to gem.
While Left/Right centering was a bit off, it fell comfortably within PSA’s accepted range. As for the dots on the back, we’ve found that minor scratches or marks on the surface are generally acceptable, although we try to avoid submitting any cards that have indentations or more serious surface issues.
2017 M Lucario EX #55a – PSA 9
Projected Gem Probability: 10%
Grading notes: Main issue is front edge whitening. Back top edge has a bit of whitening as well.
I think this is a good example to show how different defects can have different results. We have generally found that PSA is hard on edge issues, and I think that the front edge issue on this card pretty much took away any shot it had at gemming. I wouldn’t have been shocked if we got an 8 on this one.
With all that said, I think this could have gemmed even with the back issues, if the front was in better condition.
2025 Reshiram EX #173 – PSA 9
Projected Gem Probability: 60%
Grading notes: Top/Bottom centering super fringe but barely within 55/45, eye appeal not great, perfect otherwise.
I think it’s hard to see the Top/Bottom centering in the picture, so I went ahead and marked the beginning and end of the borders. Overall, the centering on this card is not bad. We measured the card with a ruler and determined that it was within 55/45.
BUT this is something specific that we have been debating lately. Even though the card was technically within PSA’s guidelines for centering, it is visually very obvious when you have this card in hand that the centering is off. I think that’s at least part of the reason PSA gave this card a 9.
Overall, I felt like PSA was pretty strict on centering in this submission. Many cards that had borderline centering received 9s or worse. This is something we’ve had mixed experiences on, and I think to some extent it depends on the grader.
2018 Rayquaza GX #177a – PSA 8
Projected Gem Probability: 35%
Grading notes: Top/Bottom centering is just outside of 55/45. Back top edge has a tiny white spot, and there are other very minor marks on the back.
Reading these notes now, I think 35% Gem Probability was too high. At the same time, I think a PSA 8 was pretty harsh for this card.
So first of all, Top/Bottom centering is clearly a bit off, and as a result, I’m not surprised that this didn’t gem. But minor centering issues usually don’t lead to PSA 8s. I think most likely, the top edge issue on the back is what caused this to drop to from a 9 to an 8. As I’ve documented in other articles, we find that PSA can be quite strict on edge defects.
Summary
Overall, I thought PSA was a bit harsh on this submission. We had 8 cards that we gave a 30% Gem Probability or less and only one of them gemmed. We found that most of the cards we submitted that were just a bit off center ended up grading as PSA 9s.
The PSA 8s were a bit unusual as well, as it’s pretty rare for us to get more than 1 or 2 8s in any given submission.
With all of that said, this was still a strong submission, and a 44.4% Gem Rate is more than sufficient for profitability if you submit cards with strong Expected Value calculations (i.e. the Expected Value is greater than your purchase price).
I think there’s three important takeaways readers should take from these results:
Cards do not need to be perfect to be PSA 10s.
Carefully measure front centering on any card you submit. Proceed with caution when submitting cards outside of 55/45.
Beware of edge whitening. A perfect card with just a bit of edge whitening can easily fall to a PSA 9 or PSA 8.