How to tell age of PSA graded cards, numbering system
 

Was wondering if there is a way to tell the year or date of when a PSA baseball card was graded with the "cert" numbers on each card? Has there been a consistant numbering system used that could place a card in an age range?
.....Reason I ask is, I am a huge collector of the 1962 Topps Baseball "green tint/Variation" cards, and I have about 200 or more that are the "green tint" but are not properly labeled that way.
.....I wanted to enter my sets in the PSA set registry under the 1962 Super set catagory which contains the green tints but can't because they are not labeled correctly.
....Finnally after months of back and forth with PSA, I was told that prior to June of 2012 they did recognize the green tints and then after that they did.
.....anyway if they were graded prior to that date then I pay for new label, if after June of 2012 they will pay.
.....Only thing is, they won't tell me how I can tell by the 'cert" number weather it was before or after that date.....
....Thanks,
Joe

Yes, cards that were graded as cert #20,000,000 were done in approximately mid-2012. Here's a 2012 Bryce Harper with a 20,700,000 Cert.
https://img.comc.com/i/Baseball/2012...&size=original
2012 Topps Pro Debut - [Base] #145 - Bryce Harper [PSA*9*MINT]
Courtesy of COMC.com

Around 23,000,000 they started adding the hologram to the front of flips. Around 28,000,000 they started adding the PSA Lighthouse label.
Higher than 30,000,000, they would need to have the PSA Lighthouse label. Many of PSA's VERY OLD grades had Cert numbers from 30Million, 40M, 90M, so they had to skip those numbers when their numbering system finally caught up to those certs. So if you see any cards between 30M and 43M, they need to have the most current lighthouse label to be graded between 2012 and now. It's still slightly possible they were graded 20 years ago and were sent in for reholdering recently, but if they're from your personal collection, that doesn't really apply because you would know which cards those are.

Yes. If you see a vintage card in a slab graded PSA 5, and that card appears to you to actually be in EX or so condition, the card was graded between 2000 and 2012. If you see a card in a slab graded PSA 5 that appears to be at least a PSA 7 NM, well then that card was probably graded in 2017 or 2018...:mad:

I'm kidding. Somewhere here on this forum there is a thread with a guide to the flips which tells you based on flip format and subtle changes (the hologram and barber pole stickers for example are recent additions...) roughly what year ranges those flips were used for in grading. The oldest are the flips that look like they have almost dot matrix style font on them, with slashes in the zeros and that kind of thing. Most of those are from the 1990's.

they actually started the lighthouse labels around cert 274XXXXX in June 2017.

This one goes back about 20 years:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...971%20Ryan.jpg

I'm wondering how old this one is. Any ideas?

There are some cards graded a few hundred after this from 1997. So I would say around there.

Thank you.

The case was already scratched when I got it, 10 or so years ago. Otherwise, I'd have been able to get a better look at the card.

I'm wondering if a reholder with review and possible grade bump is possible. The difference between 8 and 8.5 is much more substantial than it used to be.

PSA removed the option for Grade Reviews during the pandemic phase when they were raising their prices, and may not ever bring it back. Nat and Kevin have both discussed it saying that they are discouraging reviews of all cards that have already been graded, because they trust the accuracy of them already.
I think you'll have to break it out to have it given a higher grade.

This one was graded in 1877 during the height of reconstruction.

Is there a mark other that the autograph and number?

If not, that's sort of funny.

Nope. The MK is the autograph and the number. :rolleyes:

I would bet if you email them and ask them to review it as a mechanical error, they would fix it for free.

Mighty generous grade on that Ryan card. How is that a 7? Guessing a high roller submitted that one initially.

I'm sure you're right, but I sort of like it the way it is (that's how I roll).

In the same vein, I backed into a pole the first week I had my new van (2018) and scrunched up my right rear quarter panel. I never got it fixed because I like it when people say "Oooo, what happened to your van?" :rolleyes:

I'm thinking the grading standards wre much more relaxed back then, While
PSA pretty much got it right 20 years ago, there are a lot of overgraded cards
I see on ebay from that range of cert numbers.

Nope, I did. Back in the day a near mint card was visibly not pack fresh.

This should help:

https://allvintagecards.com/history-of-psa-flips/