I Cracked 20 PSA 10s to Expose the CGC Pristine Myth

APSA 10, a card guaranteed to be in pristine condition. Or is it? Well, I wanted to put this to the test. With the help of my Discord community, I bought 20 random modern English PSA 10s to crack and send to CDC. Full disclaimer, I do not recommend doing this. You are guaranteed to lose money. This video was purely done for the love of experimentation because I thought it would have some interesting results. So, which is easier to get, a PSA 10 or a CGC Pristine? Take a guess. Out of the 20 cards I sent, how many will hit the pristine? Does any grade lower? Do any grade the same? Let's find out. Okay, the first card up in this submission is Shuckle Mega Evolution Illustration Rare. I actually really like this card. He's just laying back on a plant where he clearly just suckled too many of these plant sacks that had this fermented juice in it and he's really just taking a nice little snooze. This card was recommended by Mr. Bacon in the Discord. His name is Mr. bacon, but his picture is of a dog with a large tongue, but the tongue also kind of looks like a strip of bacon, so I'll give him that. A CDC gave this card a pristine 10. That's fantastic. So, first card right off the bat, we go from a PSA 10 to a CDC pristine. Okay, that's pretty cool. I love it. And I wanted to mention most of these cards I will end up just giving them away throughout the year. If you want to enter those free giveaways, feel free to join the Discord. The link is in the description below. All right, let's go on. Watch Roll Illustration Rare from Twilight Masquerade. He's like an electric bird that can also swim underwater. I don't understand it, but he's awesome. This card was recommended by Moyima from the Discord, so shout out to you when you're like vampiric biting of the neck profile picture. I'm not sure what's going on there, but it's pretty cool. When I cracked this one out, I actually noticed that the back had significant scratching on it. I was like, PSA, how did you give this a 10? This is terrible. And CGC gives it a nine. So, the first card went from a PSA 10 to a CGC Pristine. The second card goes from a PSA 10 to a CGC 9. And to me, that just speaks right there to the variance that a PSA 10 can be. Wonderful. I'm guessing the grader who graded it as a 10 did not spend enough time looking at the back cuz even to me, an idiot can clearly tell that this card was not deserving of a 10. Zera V-Max Crown Zenith Galleran Gallery. Fantastic card. And Zeraora is a really cool Pokémon. This one was recommended by Flappy Bird, who is apparently still living in the past because Flappy Bird doesn't even exist. So CGC gave this one a 10. First three cards, we have Pristine, a nine, and a regular 10. Okay, well that's fine. I'm losing money even on the pristines. So yeah, this is not great, but that's okay. It's all for fun. It's all for science, right? This is perfectly fine. Up next, we have Zeraora V Star from Crown Zenith as well. Zera in this card almost looks like he's on stage about to give the greatest rock concert of his life. >> Are you ready to rock? >> This card was recommended by Ludy. Don't know why you have Sablai just hiding in the bushes about to pounce on an unsuspecting visitor. But hey, Sly is cool. I like Sab. And CGC gives this card a pristine 10. What a beautiful card in a pristine 10. Losing some money on it cuz I guess the pristine tens are just like not as much. I don't know. I don't get it. All right. Not great. Oh, well, let's just move on. The Goth Queen, Gothel. Is that how you say her name? Gothel. Gothelli. Gothelli. Uh, but this one was recommended by Kingdom. All >> hot take. Not every fictional story needs to be an allegory for real life. >> Thank you, O wise cat with beady little eyes. I think that is a very wise statement. And CGC gives this one a pristine 10 as well. That is really cool. So that's already three pristines out of five cards so far. Okay, that's a pretty good ratio. Let's see if we can keep that up. Okay, Rayquaza V-Max from Silver Tempest. This card was recommended by Elgato 444. I guess he likes cats cuz Elgato means cat in Spanish, right? I took Spanish in high school. I took like two courses and I forgot almost everything, but Elgato has stuck with me all these years. And I'll tell you what, this card looks even more fantastic and a CDC pristine, which is what the card got, which is amazing. And actually, Algata reached out to me saying that they wanted the card. So, I ended up selling the card to him so he can enjoy that and add that to his collection. Glad that I could help out there. All right, next up we have Mega Absol, Mega Evolution Holo. Thank you for recommending this Savior. I think it's S VV io from my community. I appreciate that. I do appreciate the Tinder profile pick with the toilet in the background. CDC gives this card a 10. So, just a regular 10 on this one. Definitely losing some money. Uh, but again, like I said, I'm probably going to give away most of these throughout the year anyway. So, I'm losing the money either way, but that's all right. Let's go on to the next one. Up next is Lily's Clefairy. Oh, what a cute and adorable card from Journey Together. This is the ultra rare holo. I love the colors in the card. It really suits Clefairy well. This one was recommended by Andreas from the Discord community, which I thought he was going to recommend the Charizard card cuz clearly he's a huge Charizard fan. He has his picture dedicated to Charizard. I can't blame him. Charizard's pretty cool. But, you know, he picked Clefairy instead, which is like the opposite end of the intimidating spectrum cuz Charizard's kind of a big dude. And Clefair's like, >> I love you and I love everyone who. >> But anyway, CDC gave this card a 10. So, another PSA 10 to CDC 10. Okay, that's fine. But let's go on to the next one. This is the last card in the submission that was recommended to me by a Discord member. This is Deli Bird Mega Evolution illustration rare. Look at him just like holding his sack of presents. Ooh, you want to see what's inside MY SACK? This one was recommended by Minty with like blushy cheeks, but there's a cat in the picture of the cat. I don't really know what's going on here, but it's a cool picture. I like it either way. CDC gave this card a 10. It's been a little bit since we had a pristine. Again, losing money on pretty much every single card, but don't worry about that. It's not about the money, okay? I did this knowing full well it would be painful. All right, next card. Okay, so from here on out are just cards that I randomly picked for myself. I didn't necessarily try to choose any ones that I thought would grade higher or lower. I just kind of picked them at random. This is Zech EX from Blackbolt. This card looks pretty cool, but you know what? It looks even cooler in a CDC pristine, which is what it got. Look at the gold label with like the gold background on the cart. It suits it very well. I actually like did it really lose money on this one. I guess like kind of broke even which is cool. But again, I'll be giving this one away at some point throughout the year in my Discord. So stay tuned for that. Pops Wulu. They're sitting on a hill overlooking the village. CDC gave this card a 10. So another regular 10, but that's 10 out of the 11 cards so far from PSA that have at least gotten a 10. This is a very, very cheap card in a CDC 10. pretty much just like grading cost. Honestly, like undervalued a little bit. I think it probably should be a little bit higher for an illustration rare, but CGC10s on modern cards are just completely not respected. People just think that CGC10s are too easy to get. I disagree. I think they actually grade very fairly, but the market dictates the price. That's fine. Whatever. Maybe it'll change, maybe it won't. But let's go on to the next one. Iono's Bellybolt EX Premium Collection. I actually really love Belly Bolt. I don't really have a particular reason why I do. I just see him and I get happy. I mean, look at him. He's adorable. TGC gave this card a 10. Okay, again, you know, pretty much all value has been eviscerated from this card. Oh well. Okay, another Ino card. I actually really enjoy the artwork on this card. I think it's undervalued, but what do I know? Now, I didn't look too hard, but I did notice this got a PSA 10 with this left to right centering. All right, so when people like say, "Oh, no, this won't PSA 10 because the centering is not good." But you know, I know and Killawattro on this card are having a nice picnic in the park. >> Ah, Killerro, this sandwich is so yummy. >> Well, what is it made of? >> Uh, it's a meat sandwich. >> Okay. Io, what meat is it? >> Uh, it's it's watch meat. >> My own kind. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, they just taste so delicious. >> Speaking of watchs, have you seen my three children this morning? >> Uh, well, funny enough, Killawattrol, um, they were kind of sourced for this sub sandwich. >> You ate my younglings? CGC gave this card a 10. If they gave this one a pristine, I would have been very, very surprised because of that centering, which they didn't. So again, PSA 10, CGC10, I think have very similar standards at the end of the day. But again, that's just my personal opinion. If you disagree with me, feel free to disagree with me. That's perfectly fine. I can accept that. Eevee Vmax, just a huge Eevee with a sinister smile. His little fluffy fur almost looks like a giant scarf. I like this one. I'm a fan of this one. CDC gave this a regular 10. The value there is absolutely like nothing. Again, the absolute disrespect for CGC10s on the market. It's less than a PSA grading fee, which is just wild to me, but it is what it is. Again, giving them away. So, we haven't had a pristine in a while, but maybe one will come up again. We've just had a lot of 10 to 10 here. Let's go on. Execute illustration rare from Surging Sparks. I'm not really quite sure what they're attempting to do in this one. It looks like a plethora of random outdoor activities like basketball, skateboarding, tennis, roller skating. I don't know why they even attempted to do this. Clearly, they don't have any limbs. CGC gave this one a 10. Okay, again, almost no more value to this card. That's always fun, right? I'll tell you, you know, I know going into this, I I said to myself I was going to lose money, but it is a little painful. I won't I won't lie, it's a little painful. OKAY, I'M OKAY. I'M FINE. Lucario Vstar. This is a promo from a Crown Zenith ETB. I believe this card isn't that unique, but I do like the sinister stare that he's giving you. It's very intimidating. So, if I saw him looking at me like this, I something might slip out. Okay, it's a perfectly natural response. I swear. Okay, so you see gave this one a pristine 10 finally. Okay, it's been quite a bit since we got a pristine 10 back. Actually gaining a tiny bit of profit here, which is cool. I think long-term this card in a pristine 10 is actually like probably going to do really well. That's just my personal opinion. I don't know anything. Probably my favorite card of the submission so far between this one and the shuckle. They're kind of like even in terms of my favorite one so far. Flying Pikachu V-Max from Celebrations. This card is criminally undervalued in my opinion. It's Pikachu. I don't really know how Pikachu got to this state. Has he been inflated? Is he a functioning Pokemon right now or is this just an inanimate balloon? CDC gave this one a pristine 10. That's two pristine tens in a row. That is awesome. I think again this card actually gaining a little bit of value again and I think long-term hold for this is probably pretty good. I think it'll go up a little bit. I mean it's Pikachu. Everyone loves Pikachu, right? Charizard V Blackstar promo from the Champions Path Elite Trainer Box. There are tons of these cards in a PSA 10. I don't know the exact population. Wait, let me consult that PSA Almanac to see what the population is for this card. This one has 49,000 cards in a PSA 10. Can you believe that? That's probably why the price of this one is pretty low. It's a pretty cheap Charizard. There's also not really much going on with this card. So, I can understand why people don't really like want this one that much. And I'll tell you what, something weird happened here. CGC gives it a nine. I have no idea why it got a nine. Like, it looked pretty clean to me, but CGC is like, I'll slap a nine on it. Okay. When this happens, it's usually some kind of surface issue. They're actually pretty strict on surface issues that are hard to see with the naked eye. Anyway, pretty much all value gone again. Oh well. Novern V from Evolving Skies. No, I don't know. He grew on me a bit. I at first I didn't like his huge ears, but for some reason, he's grown on me over the years. I'm like a weird fan of No. I'm also a big fan of the colors of the background of this card. TDC gave this one a pristine 10. And again, in my opinion, I think every card just looks better in a pristine 10 slabs. It just looks so nice. In terms of determining the value of this one, there haven't really been like any sales at all in a pristine 10. It's a pop six, so there's not many of them out there, but yeah, stay tuned. This one will definitely be going into a giveaway at some point uh later on. All right, let's go on to the last card. All right, the last card in the submission. Terrapagos EX Stella Crown Hyper Rare Hollow. I think the gold cards are okay. Terrapagos, I don't really understand this Pokemon. Like, what's going on here? Is the Is the bottom part the crown or is is it like the fish? Is there like a turtle on top? It's very weird. This one CGC gave a pristine 10. And right away, this card looks so much better. The gold background with the gold pristine label. Incredible. I kind of want to keep this, but nope. It's going to go in a giveaway again at some point. Okay, so let's talk about the final grades. Overalls, out of the 20 PSA 10s that we sent, we had nine CDC pristines. We had two CDC 9ines, and then we had nine CGC 10s. So, what does this really mean? Well, I I think it means that CGC deserves respect, honestly, with their grading scale. Not every PSA 10 is pristine. according to CGC standards. And I truly think at this point if you want a more accurate assessment for your card, I think CGC does a better job. Again, that's just my personal opinion. Feel free to disagree. Let's go over the final value for this submission just in case you like seeing me lose some money. So, my total cost for this submission was around $1,600. My total value was around a,000, losing about $600 in profit. Oh, yikes. So, if I had to give myself a grade, I'd give myself a fat F. but it's kind of like with an asterisk cuz I wasn't really trying to gain any money on this one. If you have any more ideas for experiments I can do, let me know in the comments. All right, see you in the next one. Bye.

I cracked 20 modern PSA 10 Pokémon cards to test how they grade with CGC. Do PSA 10s automatically become CGC Pristine, or does CGC expose hidden flaws? In this video, I walk through every card, reveal the results, and break down what this means for collectors, graders, and anyone sending modern Pokémon cards to CGC. - Make sure to join the community discord for occasional giveaways, fun discussions, and be in the know when my next videos will come out! [https://discord.gg/DEMEthmrtj]l!