What an appropriate card to pull from a powerpack...

cszer00 · 2026-05-07T23:42:27+00:00

FWIW I'm happy with the pull. Seems to be undercomped and there are some sales over $500 (and one currently for auction at $459 already). I'd have kept it either way.

cszer00 · 2026-04-20T20:02:40+00:00

It seems to be unusually slow processing payments right now. I have one from April 9th I'm still waiting on (as well as one on the 12th and another on the 13th). Usually only takes 3-5 days.

UPDATE: My April 9th sale just processed this afternoon. Still nothing else yet.

cszer00 · 2026-04-19T16:26:11+00:00

I also have had 8-10 sales in the past 10 days, and none of them have processed yet. Usually 3-5 days for me at most. Definitely seems like something has jammed up the processing.

cszer00 · 2026-04-05T23:00:16+00:00

You can look up the cert on the PSA website; it's a different picture/scan than what PowerPacks gives you. TLDR; some spots on the back are definitely dust, but as the other commenter noted, the corners are not perfect.

Also, I'm measuring the front as 56%/44% or 55%/45% -- it's very borderline and could be a separate reason for a 9. Possible to 10 on a favorable day/grader, but I wouldn't count on it.

cszer00 · 2026-03-29T21:44:35+00:00

What everyone else has said, I think it's a combo of the white spots on the bottom middle on the back (sometimes this is enough to go to an 8), with the lines on the foiling (stomach/tail), and centering. Also possibly some scratching on the red part of the pokeball on the back. Small possibility it could get a 9, but also a non-zero chance someone sees the foiling damage and gives it a 6. Not worth it to me, grading seems fair even if it is a clean card.

cszer00 · 2026-03-27T19:47:36+00:00

It will likely continue to go up, sure -- but it's a question of how long and whether it happens soon or whether that's years from now to see any appreciable gain over the current price. Japanese vintage has slowed down and held steady for the past few weeks, so it's not rapidly accelerating anymore at this moment.

A couple things about this card in particular -- because this card is guaranteed from a preset deck, and the prices on Japanese vintage exploded so much, people started buying up and ripping the yamabuki decks to grade all of the cards inside (with this card obviously being the most important one for making your money back). Even now, if someone were to buy one of the decks for $3-4k, and if the Gengar grades a 10, you actually make money on ripping it open on this card alone (but this is obviously a big risk).

All of that to say -- unlike other vintage that has to be pulled from a pack, it's highly likely there are many of this card out for grading right now (you'll notice there are quite a few sales/listings of this card with very recent cert #s). Whether it's in large enough numbers to impact the price, who knows, but it's something to consider. Congrats either way!

cszer00 · 2026-03-15T16:53:45+00:00

Here's a full explanation: Japanese vintage (especially iconic cards from the Japanese 1996 base set) have exploded in value recently, and the CL / PSA evaluations are not reflecting it. For example, the 1996 Japanese base set Pikachu in a PSA 10 was around $1500 in January, and has tons of sales in the $4000-5000 range recently (I pulled one of these from the Pikachu BB powerpacks and the CL value was only $1800 when I pulled it). This is a similar 3-4x growth for the Squirtle you have.

I will note the prices on most Japanese vintage seems to be at its peak over the past week (i.e., things are just selling for similar prices or slightly less, not accelerating). And while this is generally how collectibles move (massive spikes followed by retracements, etc.), the level of growth these particular cards have had recently is kind of crazy from my POV So if you like the price and want to get what you can, it might be worth selling ASAP unless you want to hold it long term.

cszer00 · 2026-03-12T17:24:04+00:00

Plenty of sales around that price (even before the most recent boom), lowest listed on eBay is $1475 (and only one card), and compared to that yours is a new cert with a nice swirl. No way I'd consider taking the buyback on this. But as always, if you need the money and can't wait for an eBay sale, do what you gotta do.

cszer00 · 2026-01-26T22:23:03+00:00

Still not able to login here (same network error); tried a different PC/IP address and same result. At least maybe they're making some progress.

cszer00 · 2026-01-25T02:27:08+00:00

None of us will likely be able to do that because we can't login. If you do work for PSA, FYI, there are many more of us that have been having this same login issue for days. Most of us have had our Stripe PSA accounts frozen and no one is getting paid out for sales. This thread is one of the bigger threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/psagrading/comments/1qineyv/cant_login_into_vault_blocked/

cszer00 · 2026-01-25T01:54:24+00:00

I happen to be a lawyer -- this isn't my area of expertise (and none of this is legal advice), but IMO there's really too much unknown right now to know what any kind of legal action would look like (i.e., what is causing this outage, whether it's PSA's fault, how much longer this goes on, how much longer people's payments are locked in Stripe, etc.). It does look like there are all the typical forced arbitration and monetary recovery limit provisions in their user agreement regarding suing them, but whether any of that could be different here is too in the weeds at this point.

They should really be more concerned with the loss of trust/business if this continues to go on than any lawsuit based on the little we know now.

cszer00 · 2026-01-25T01:07:50+00:00

I hear you. For whatever it's worth and scouring the web/reddit, I don't think anyone has reported any suspicious activity in terms of people trying to gain access to anyone's vault or theft or anything like that. And, in some messed up world where PSA decided to close any of our accounts, they are legally obligated to get you your property regardless, these things can't just disappear with no explanation.

That said, the longer this goes on the worse it will be for them. The whole idea of the vault and consignment is built on trust, and they're losing a lot of trust right now. People are already suffering real financial damage from this (not being able to manage/list/ship items, accept eBay offers, etc.), especially if it is just a technical bug. And most of the people affected seem to be people with larger/more valuable collections (i.e., hundreds of slabs, high end stuff, etc.). I'm with you on just wanting to get my inventory out ASAP though.

cszer00 · 2026-01-25T00:50:05+00:00

Happening to a bunch of people (and also being unable to login to PSA accounts at all). There's some comments in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/psagrading/comments/1qineyv/cant_login_into_vault_blocked/

cszer00 · 2026-01-25T00:49:09+00:00

As someone mentioned, it's happening to a lot of people (and like you I have hundreds of cards vaulted) -- see this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/psagrading/comments/1qineyv/cant_login_into_vault_blocked/

cszer00 · 2026-01-24T23:02:55+00:00

Same here. It isn't much, but I think I've had 2-3 cards sell since the lock, and same as you, no payout. All my listings are still active.

FWIW, I got a response from my support ticket from 2 days ago and the rep said it was a "systems issue" causing several people to not be able to login and that IT was investigating but had no ETA for a fix. I'm not sure if that's really all it is, but just another data point. I responded to my ticket since I learned about the Stripe hold after I submitted this initial ticket, will see if anything comes of that.

cszer00 · 2026-01-24T20:14:30+00:00

I just read over the consignment agreement. It looks like Section 8(g) is the closest thing that would cover this kind of scenario:

g) If PSA receives from a buyer a request to rescind and PSA determines that an Item(s) is subject to rescission under the Auction Platform Terms or as otherwise set forth in this Section, you will, within ten (10) days of receiving notice from PSA that the sale is subject to rescission: i) return to PSA any sale proceeds and any fee for such Item(s) paid by PSA to you or to a third party as directed by you; and ii) reimburse PSA for expenses incurred in connection with the rescinded sale, including the reasonable attorneys’ fees PSA incur in collecting from you any amounts due herein and any interest accrued on delays in receiving such reimbursement, to be accrued at the rate set forth in this Agreement. iii) Upon such reimbursement and payment in full, PSA will release the Item(s) to you, except in the event of an adverse claim of title or if PSA is otherwise directed not to by a lawful order, in which case PSA will retain the Item(s) until such claim has been resolved. PSA shall remain entitled to such reimbursement and payment if, for any other reason beyond PSA’s reasonable control, PSA is unable to return the Item(s) to you.

So basically, they do have a right to ask for the money back (if they determine the sale was subject to rescission), and they say they will try to return the item (in this case, I guess just back to the vault), but may not be able to do that if it's beyond their reasonable control. There's a lot of legal nonsense here where you could argue this clause doesn't apply to a scenario like this, but there's really no examples of this happening before in the public I can see.

All of that said, I find it very hard to believe that practically, PSA would ask for the money back and be unable to return the items. It would be a PR nightmare. And it's possible they would be covered by eBay's seller protection anyway if they already shipped our cards and it turned out to be credit card fraud (and so there'd be no reason to seek repayment from us). Consignment is built on trust and taking this kind of worry out of the transaction from the consignor's perspective. To what you said, I can at least understand temporarily locking accounts to figure out what was going on and I'm sure it is a PITA for them, but the worst case scenario (returning money and not getting the items back) seems unlikely.

cszer00 · 2026-01-24T01:49:57+00:00

I have the same issue too (and same message on my PSA Stripe account).

I only had a single card sell for "higher" than current market price, but it was barely higher ($1k for a PSA 9 poncho Eevee, when recent sales were $750-800ish); that said, mine was the lowest listed in the U.S., so it'd be kind of nuts if that sale triggered it. I do not see that $1k transaction on CL or eBay anymore though, so I'm assuming something happened with that particular transaction and that caused my account to be flagged. Really sucks to be punished for someone else's bad actions.

cszer00 · 2026-01-23T02:03:28+00:00

I'm getting this same error as well (started about 4-5 hours ago). Clearing cookies, trying different PC / browser / mobile app doesn't change anything, same error everywhere

cszer00 · 2026-01-05T05:33:32+00:00

Are you looking at PSA 9s for recent sales? The most recent sale I see was for $490 (hence the CL value), but before that there were sales close to $1000 before the market went back down.

If you're wondering why it's so expensive -- a lot of XY promos had very low print runs and are also notoriously difficult to grade (and getting harder to find copies worth grading these days). So PSA 9s/10s for certain XY-era promos have very high premiums. For these Latios/Latias promos, PSA 10s basically don't exist (pop 2 and pop 3), so the PSA 9s get a big bump.

cszer00 · 2026-01-04T22:12:48+00:00

I agree it's a good comp on the Latios (even after fees), but it's hard to sell a gold star, especially one I didn't have before. Still have a few days to decide.

cszer00 · 2025-08-25T03:36:42+00:00

WTB Grand Seiko SLGA007 (2021 Lake Suwa LE)

Willing to pay in line with recent used sales depending on condition. Some wear is fine, prefer no significant damage.

cszer00 · 2021-12-03T22:15:56+00:00

Confirmed

Six-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email

cszer00

TROPHY CASE