My Babe Ruth Card Graded a 1.5?! #complaint 🤬
A card collector expresses frustration after a 1933 Worldwide Gum Babe Ruth card he acquired was graded PSA 1.5 despite appearing to be in much better condition. He meticulously examined the card for authenticity and condition, finding only minor wear, and argues the grade is unjustifiably low compared to PSA grading standards.
Summary
The speaker purchased a collection that included an ungraded 1933 Worldwide Gum Babe Ruth card, a valuable five-figure card that required professional grading due to prevalence of fakes and reprints in the market. Before submission, the speaker conducted an extremely thorough inspection of the card, measuring it in both directions to verify authenticity and carefully examining it for alterations or damage. Upon detailed examination, the speaker found only minor cosmetic wear: slight corner tips on the upper left and right corners that are not heavy, and a very minor red dot near the right border. Based on this assessment and the card's overall appearance and high eye appeal, the speaker anticipated a grade between 3 and 4. However, the card received a PSA 1.5 grade, which the speaker views as completely unjustifiable. The speaker then systematically refutes each criterion of the PSA 1.5 standard—which calls for extreme corner wear, advanced surface wear including scuffing and scratching, possible creasing, browns and dirty borders, and poor centering. The speaker argues his card does not meet any of these criteria and provides visual comparisons with actual PSA 1.5, PSA 2, and PSA 3 graded cards to demonstrate that his card is clearly in significantly better condition than the official 1.5 and 2 examples.
Key Insights
- The speaker measured the card in both directions and found no alterations, demonstrating the level of scrutiny applied before submission to verify it was an original 1933 Worldwide Gum card rather than a counterfeit or reprint.
- The speaker expected the card to grade between a PSA 3 and 4 based on its condition, with even a grade of 3 considered to have very high eye appeal, indicating a significant gap between expectation and the received 1.5 grade.
- According to PSA 1.5 standards, cards must show extreme corner wear, advanced surface wear with scuffing and scratching, possible heavy creases, and poor 90-10 centering—none of which the speaker's card exhibits.
- The speaker's card has centering that is significantly better than the 90-10 standard required for PSA 1.5 in all directions, directly contradicting a key grading criterion.
- Through visual comparison of actual graded cards, the speaker demonstrates that his card appears objectively superior to official PSA 1.5 and PSA 2 examples, with the difference described as 'no contest.'
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] people complaining about the grades they get from PSA is a little overblown, but I'm going to submit my uh my example here. So, I recently bought a collection and included in it was this 1933 Worldwide Gum Babe Ruth. And uh the card was ungraded. Now, in order to sell this card, you need to get it graded because there's a lot of fakes of this card. There's a lot of reprints. Now, I looked over this card very, very closely. It's a it's expensive card. It's a 5 figure card even in low grade. I measured it in both directions. It measured perfectly. I was very very confident and it was an original 1933 Worldwide Gum. I…
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