Posted By:
Gilbert MainesAll of this "Collect What You Wanna Collect" talk makes me sick.
Because that is what I wanna do.
Without value judgements, snobbery, or any other crap.
And I certainly don't want any independent grader telling me that a pinhole is more or less severe than a William Orsatti autograph on the card front, paperloss is better or worse than clipped corners, etc. Keep your opinions to yourself and don't poison everyone's minds with your sensless criteria.
When I first tried to understand grading, it took me a long time to be able to notice differences in centering (which now are obvious). This tells me that the importance of many factors in the grading schemes employed are learned, not readilly apparent.
I have a bunch of OJs grouped together in a multi-pocket binder page. One has pinholes in each rounded corner, and the top and bottom center. Another is trimmed, skinned and nearly torn in half - but has a tremendous image. Others have minor front paperloss, creasing, etc. One is a very light image card which would likely grade a PSA4.
When my daughter who had no experience with these cards first viewed the page, the card which she felt was worst was the faded PSA4 candidate. I told her:"But Cheryl, look at the corners". She was not impressed.
To my taste, people with this level of experience are the best graders, because their views have not become jaded by the experts in this field.
We spoke for a while about grading, She was very tolerant of wear issues, even paperloss. She finds staining somewhat repulsive, but still a natural damage. Unacceptable to her preferences are deliberate defacing of the card by trimming, writing, gluing, etc. Image fading was thought of much like staining.