Is PSA Grading Harder? A Hopefully Fresh Perspective

KD35Russ0 · 08-25-2021, 03:00 PM

I read a lot of these boards and obviously a consistent theme lately has been around the topic of if PSA is grading more strictly than before. There are a lot of anecdotes about getting gem rates at about half the historic rate for members on these boards. Obviously there are dozens of variables that go into a statement like that. What I haven't seen to date is anyone do a true apples to apples analysis on gem rates over time that attempts to reduce as many of those variables as possible. So a little insomnia last night + some free time today has lead me to the following output:

Card Pop Analysis by JB123 Cards, on Flickr

I won't reveal everything that went into this, but I'm using publicly available data to look at large samples of grades for cards over time. I used the Zion Mosaic as the example here because to me this screams "high volume card that in the pre-covid card boom world would probably not have been graded."

The cool thing is I've set the data up in such a way I can create this output for just about any specific card or set. Obviously this one card does not make a trend, but I think it's very interesting to take a look at a specific card over time, like this Zion, and see that recently the gem rate is about the same as it always has been for this sample of data over the past 12-15 months.

Interested in hearing others opinions on this result and methodology.

08-25-2021, 03:00 PM	#1
KD35Russ0 Member Join Date: Oct 2014 Location: North Jersey Posts: 2,576 jpbogardus22 KD35Russ0	Is PSA Grading Harder? A Hopefully Fresh Perspective I read a lot of these boards and obviously a consistent theme lately has been around the topic of if PSA is grading more strictly than before. There are a lot of anecdotes about getting gem rates at about half the historic rate for members on these boards. Obviously there are dozens of variables that go into a statement like that. What I haven't seen to date is anyone do a true apples to apples analysis on gem rates over time that attempts to reduce as many of those variables as possible. So a little insomnia last night + some free time today has lead me to the following output: Card Pop Analysis by JB123 Cards, on Flickr I won't reveal everything that went into this, but I'm using publicly available data to look at large samples of grades for cards over time. I used the Zion Mosaic as the example here because to me this screams "high volume card that in the pre-covid card boom world would probably not have been graded." The cool thing is I've set the data up in such a way I can create this output for just about any specific card or set. Obviously this one card does not make a trend, but I think it's very interesting to take a look at a specific card over time, like this Zion, and see that recently the gem rate is about the same as it always has been for this sample of data over the past 12-15 months. Interested in hearing others opinions on this result and methodology. __________________ Always looking for vintage baseball HOF. Last edited by KD35Russ0; 08-25-2021 at 03:10 PM.