Since I started collecting and following Rickey Henderson's rookie card, 1980 Topps #482, I have been reading and hearing a lot of talk about PSA controlling populations. I'm very skeptical. There are some surprising data and convincing reasons to believe PSA is engaging in a conspiracy to control populations of graded cards.

To be clear, I don't believe this is hiding a conspiracy. I think the most likely explanation is that PSA had poor quality control when they started. The specialized in grading lots of cards. When grading was cheaper, the quality control was poor. Now, PSA is the dominant company. They care about being consistent and reliable.

The rates of PSA 10s fluctuate. Some cards have lots of 10s and other cards in the same set have less. Even when accounting for the prices of cards and popularity of the players, there are some surprising differences in grades. This article highlights some of the examples. This is a primary source of evidence for the PSA population control conspiracy.

When looking closer at cards, ratios of grades can vary. Here is an interesting analysis of PSA 10 to 9 rations for RH RC. This is an even better source of evidence.

Then rumors from facebook groups and reddit, cite PSA intentionally grading cards lower to keep prices high. Then as a result of high prices, people grade more. PSA can charge more to grade. And there are more less coherent ideas.

I've looked for responses from PSA. Google's AI had cited PSA's responses but then I was never able to track down the actual source. Today, the newer version of GPT finally lead me to a response from PSA! I find the explanation a lot more likely than the population control conspiracy.

From a tweet by PSA:

The most common flaw that keeps this card from earning a PSA 10 grade? Print defects on the front surface. 

To offer some insight direct from the PSA Grading Room: One aspect that sets the 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson card apart from almost all other cards in the set is the large area of black surface on the front of the card, thanks to the shadow cast inside the dugout in the background of the image. 

As was the case with many vintage sets with darker areas on the surface, this created a higher likelihood for white, snowy-looking print dots or yellow "fish eye" defects to show up as heavily visible on this portion of the surface, affecting the overall eye appeal of the card. 

Finding copies with good centering, clean edges and sharp corners is not as difficult with this card as it is to find an example without noticeable print defects on the front.

We've also seen a noticeably larger volume of this card come to PSA since 2020 - especially as more collectors dug into their older collections - which further shrinks the overall Gem Rate.

PSA's response to Darren Rovell's article, by Ryan Greene, PSA's director of communications:

Just to be clear: "Pop Control," while widely talked about and rumored in the hobby, does not exist at PSA.

In talking with our senior graders today, oddly enough, the most common reason there are so few PSA 10 copies of the 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson is very similar to why so many cards made that list Ben Burrows of cllct recently compiled for the "No PSA-10 Club": Print Defects, or "PDs" as our team refers to them.

Finding centered copies of the Rickey 1980 Topps with clean edges and corners doesn't present as the most common challenge for submitters. It's the front surface.

One thing you'll notice about this card is it has a large swath of dark, black surface on the front of the card thanks to the shadowed dugout in the background. Very few other cards in 1980 Topps, if any, have this much black surface on the front of the card.

With that, due to low print-quality issues from many vintage sets, white print dots — or "snowing" — and yellowed "fish eye" print defects are incredibly common on nearly all copies of this card. With vintage cards, print quality and eye appeal factors heavily when a card is approaching the top end of our grading scale.

Also, in reference to the appearance that achieving a PSA 10 on this card grew exponentially harder after January 2020, there was no change whatsoever in the way this card was evaluated or the standards it was held to that changed in 2020.

We simply saw a heavier volume of these coming into PSA than ever before beginning in early 2020, when the entire card market boomed. Our grading standards on this set did not shift or tighten.

We just saw many, many more of them as we did with several popular cards from the '80s and '90s, especially as people dove back into their older collections while at home during the pandemic.