PSA's New Sports Card Grades
Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) New Half Point System
PSA believes that its more precise sports card grading system will even out discrepancies in values between grades and guarantee growth in a maturing market.
New PSA Card Grading System Offers More Precise Grading
Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), the industry’s top grading authority, rolled out its new grading system from one to ten that will now include half steps. PSA believes that this step will not only have a positive impact on the sports card collectible market, the half steps will more accurately reflect condition, and thus value of a card. This will be especially helpful in the upper grades, 7, 8, and 9 where the price gaps between grades show the most disparity.
PSA Grading Standards
The present grading system, which is fairly consistent within the industry, uses a 10 point scale with 10 being Gem-Mint, down to 1, which is Poor-Fair. Grades are assessed based on rigid, quantifiable standards, for example, with all else being equal, a card with four sharp corners will grade higher than one with two sharp and two soft corners. A properly centered card will grade higher than a badly centered one. Although most of the physical aspects are quantifiable, the final determination of grade is affected by its eye appeal, which tends to be more subjective. This is in part, where the new half point grading system will make a difference.
Half Point Helps Both Top and Bottom
While the half point system will without a doubt, affect the price disparity between the highly graded cards, it will have just as much affect on the lower grades, as the difference between poor and fair can be extensive. And while it won’t mean that much in terms of values of the common cards, the half step difference between 1 and 2 can mean hundreds if not thousands if you’re talking about a Mickey Mantle Rookie card that sold last year for almost $165 thousand, or the Honus Wagner T206 that fetched $2.35 million
In the March issue of PSA’s Sports Market Report that introduces the new grading system, examples are given that clearly demonstrate the discrepancies in values from grade to grade, and it is easy to see how a new half point grading scale can make the difference in hundreds of dollars of card value:
- 1938 Goudey #274 Joe Dimaggio-- PSA 3: $ 800 PSA 4:$1,350 PSA 5:$2,500
- 1933 Goudey #53 Babe Ruth-- PSA 3: $ 1,750 PSA 4:$3,000 PSA 5: $5,750
- 1971 Topps #600 Willie Mays-- PSA 3: $ 100 $ PSA 4: $310 PSA 5: $3,000
- 1933 Goudey #53 Babe Ruth -- PSA 7: $ 15,000 PSA 8: $ 40,000 PSA 9: $125,000
- 1954 Topps #128 Hank Aaron -- PSA 7: $1,500 PSA 8: $3,750 PSA 9: $19,500
Source: Sports Market Report March 2008 published by A Collectors Universe Co.
