So, I was digging into this thing called the PSA Population Report, and let me tell you, it’s been quite a journey. I needed to get some trading cards graded, and I remembered someone mentioning this report thingy from PSA.
First off, I had to figure out what this report actually is. Turns out, it’s basically a big list of all the trading cards, tickets, and even packs that PSA has ever graded. You know, PSA is that company that gives your cards a rating from 1 to 10, so you know how good they are. Anyway, this Population Report tells you how many of each card they’ve graded and what grades they got.
I started by going to their website, and yeah, there it was, all the cards listed out. It was kind of overwhelming at first. They have so many cards in there! But then I realized I could search for specific cards, which made things a whole lot easier. I typed in the names of the cards I was interested in, and bam, there they were. It showed me how many of each card they’d graded and how many got each grade. For example, if I searched for a specific baseball card, it might show that they graded 100 of them, and 10 got a perfect 10, 30 got a 9, and so on.
Here’s what I did step-by-step:
- Searched: I typed in the name of each card I was curious about into the search bar on the PSA website.
- Looked at the numbers: I saw how many of each card had been graded. This is what they call the “Population”.
- Checked the grades: I looked at how many cards got each grade. Like, how many got a 10, how many got a 9, and so on. This is the “Population Higher” part of the report.
- Noted the details: PSA doesn’t use half-grades for cards that get a 9 or 10, which is something I learned along the way.
Now, why did I even bother with this? Well, I wanted to see how rare my cards were. If a card has been graded a bunch of times, and a lot of them got high grades, then it’s probably not that rare. But if a card hasn’t been graded many times, and only a few got high grades, then it’s probably a pretty special card.
I found out that this report is actually free online now. Used to be you had to pay for it. It gets updated every day, which is pretty cool. I also read somewhere that they’re going to start showing this population data right on some auction sites, which will be super helpful. It used to be a paid thing, and that costed $39.95 a year, I think.
So, after spending hours on this thing, I’ve got a much better idea of which of my cards are worth grading and which ones I should just keep for fun. This PSA Population Report is a goldmine for anyone who’s serious about collecting trading cards. It took me some time to get the hang of it, but now I feel like a pro!
This whole process was a bit of a learning curve, but it was totally worth it. Now, I feel way more confident about grading my cards and understanding their value. This PSA Population Report is definitely a handy tool for any collector!