PSA No Grade Definitions Updated to Address Cleaning Products

In this video i’m discussing the recent changes to PSA’s N7 "No Grade" definition that now includes language referencing cleaning products made popular by Kurts Card Care and other cleaning services.
• Intro 00:00
• The new addition to the N7 "No Grade" definition 00:40
• The uptick in grading in recent years 4:15
• Outro 6:03
Articles & websites referenced:
• tiffany.cards?hl=en
• www.psacard.com/gradingstandards
• www.psacard.com/termsandconditions
• www.gemrate.com/
#cardcollecting #sportscards #cardcollecting #tradingcards #psagraded #collecting

[@ACollectorsDream]

I was a victim of card cleaning and did a video on my purchased cleaned card. The stains returned after years, now the card is a 2.

[@mindcycle_cards]

Yeah I watched you video after hearing about that initially from Dan the card man I think it was. Very informative and it got a discussion going which is a great thing. It shows that a lot of these "fixes" may only be temporary. This is where disclosure is needed if people want to get heavy handed "restoring" these cards. If you had known it was soaked to have stains removed i'm guessing your wouldn't have bought it. Or at the very least would have paid less. I'm going to go out on a limb (albeit a very sturdy one) and say that most of this cleaning work is done so the seller can maximize profit, and ultimately they don't really care about "preserving" these cards or whatever other nonsense words they come up with to justify what they are doing.

[@CDubRealTalk]

Obviously

[@denny_cards]

That’s messed up I’m sorry

[@Collector.Not.Hoarder]

Thanks for posting about this - I think this was a step in the right direction. I’m not a fan of waxes or chemicals being used on cards. Although I submit the majority of my cards to SGC and not PSA, I feel like SGC will eventually fall under similar guidelines as PSA. My concern revolves around card soaking, which seems to be a gray area here. A chunk of my collection is from the turn-of-the-century when it was standard practice to glue cards into albums. I’ve soaked many cards from scrapbook pages and trade card albums, but I strictly use distilled water. This type of soaking has been done for decades and works very well in most cases. Most cards from the 19th century would not exist if it wasn’t for soaking. My hope is that the grading companies don’t assume some type of “solution” was used on the card and not just distilled water since they potentially can’t detect what was actually used on the card. Otherwise, all of these cards turn into Authentic Altered, which should not be the case, in my opinion. Thanks again for sharing!

[@mindcycle_cards]

Thanks for your post. I collect vintage non-sports cards and a ton of that had to be soaked from albums so i'm definitely familiar with that process. I've never soaked anything myself, however, i'm sure i have plenty of cards that were. It's definitely a grey area. To me it feels like this latest addition to N7 is more speaking to products like Kurt's card care and other chemical based "cleaning" products, where it's not just distilled water and there are other chemicals being used. However, i'm sure they could find a case to reject even distilled water soaked cards. When grading it's ultimately up to the discretion of the grader or the companies themselves and we have very little say. The lack of any industry-wide regulation also means they can change their stance on something at any time. That's why i'm not a huge proponent of grading myself, but at the same time I do understand the need for it in certain scenarios.

[@90sbballcards]

Thank you for sharing these details!

[@mindcycle_cards]

Happy to. Thanks for the view!

[@livinwithlt]

Great informative video. Very well explained. Always nice to learn from a seasoned collector like yourself 🤙🏽

[@mindcycle_cards]

Appreciate it man 🙌

[@35auburn]

Obviously, it still falls back onto detection, but nice to see psa updating the language. Psa also updated their t&c's with language relating to the rumored grader notes. Psa doesn't want those notes made public.

[@mindcycle_cards]

Interesting, I bet they don’t lol. Thanks for the info I’ll have to check it out.

[@ACollectorsDream]

Thanks for sharing

[@sosbrigaders]

This is a good thing. But it makes me reluctant to ever grade raw cards i buy. If the do have a method to detect cleaning thats great but it makes me not want to sub cards i didnt pull myself. You would be suprised how common card polishing is in the hobby...

[@mindcycle_cards]

Agreed. Everyone wants a PSA 10 nowadays so they can flip it.

[@matthewtanfield9086]

Not a huge fan of grading in the first place. It's very interesting that some people use chemicals on their cards. The only time I ever submitted was to BGS and literally took the 5 unsleeved cards out of my box and the majority of them graded a 9.5 😂

[@jleezy259]

So if I buy a raw card and submit it (which I do a lot of) and it comes back cleaned will they suspend my account? Doesn’t seem fair

[@waxmuseumpodcast]

Thumbs up for the Nuggets jersey at the end

[@mindcycle_cards]

Haha, thanks man 😄

[@drewlog]

PSA is going to be overly aggressive with identify this and get it wrong a lot

[@denny_cards]

False positives better than false negatives?

[@denny_cards]

Good video 👏

[@drewlog]

@@denny_cardsfor who? That sounds aweful for the people spending money at psa to have cards graded.

[@tiffanycards960]

PSA also added the new policy language to the N5 Altered Card Stock.

[@mindcycle_cards]

Thanks for the heads up man.