Old Judge Question

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Posted By: Mike M

I'm considering picking up my first Old Judge (N172) card, and have looked at quite a few on this forum and the bay of evil. Some have nice clear images and others you can hardly see, even within the same grade. My question is are Old Judges more susceptible to fading than other issues, or is what I'm seeing a function of how they were produced?

Thanks

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Posted By: Colt McClelland

I think you've noticed right off the bat one of the major issues with OJ's. I have a handful of OJ's and just started collecting them in the last year or so. In my opinion, image quality is everything with an OJ. I will take a nice bold image with good contrast but weak corners or back damage over a technically higher grade OJ with a faded image all day long.

To answer your question, my best guess is that if you buy a card with a nice image and keep stored well without much exposure to direct light it will hold its image fine. That's just my guess though, as I have only started collecting OJ's in the last year. I would really be interested to hear what the old school OJ collectors think about this issue.

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Posted By: barrysloate

While exposure to light is bad for any photograph, I think that many of the lighter Old Judges are a result of problems when they were developed, such as a negative that was overused. Likewise, the pink Old Judges came out of the factory pink, they did not deteriorate over time. And I agree with Colt that photo quality is the most important aspect of the card. There have been previous posts on this subject and the general consensus is collectors would like to see the grading companies make some policy changes regarding how they are evaluated. I think in time these changes will come.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I keep all of my cards in complete darkness just in case the light would damage any of them in any way.

No sense taking any chances.

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Posted By: jay behrens

How do you look at your cards if you keep them in the dark all the time?

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Scan them and post them on the web.

I haven't had any of them "fade out" due to the light from the scanner yet!

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Posted By: jay behrens

How do you know if they are in the dark?

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Bryan

Sounds like someone is trying too hard to be funny.

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Posted By: Brett

i don't have any Old Judge cards, but i've also noticed that some are graded like 7's, yet they're so faded... then i see some really bold looking ones that are graded lower, but have sharper corners and are very clean.

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Posted By: jay behrens

It doesn't take much in the way of back damage or writing on the back for an beautiful OJ to really hammered on the technical grade. This is a set where the grade given by the slabbers is pretty meaningless. About the only good thing about slabbing an OJ is that you know it is authentic.

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Colt McClelland

Here is a case in point (I've posted this before, but I feel so strongly about this issue of how these are misgraded by the professional grading companies that I want show this example again):



This card is in an SGC 10 holder. It has some fairly significant back damage, but I'll take this SGC 10 over most of the SGC 40/50/60 OJ examples I have seen.

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Posted By: Colt McClelland

This is the first OJ I ever bought. It is in an SGC 50 holder (it was in the holder when I bought it):



I thought it was a great deal when I bought it based on the grade listed on the holder. I paid about the same price for this one as I did for the Kemler above (Kemler was purchased raw). In hindsight, I view the Kemler as a great purchase and this Nicholl as bad purchase. The Nicholl image looks even worse in real life.

I would be very happy with the entire Brown's Champs set in SGC 10 holders if the images all looked like my Kemler. Conversely, I would not like to have a set of all SGC 50's that had images like this Nicholl.

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Posted By: Richard Masson

The easiest fix for the grading companies would be to add a grade 1-10 or 10-100 for photo clarity for OJs.

Didn't we beat this to death a couple of weeks ago?

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Posted By: Mike M

Thanks for all the good info. I think that answers my question.

Colt - I'd take take the 10 too.

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Posted By: Joe_G.

Barry brought up some good points, many times a light photo can't be blamed on the collectors that have cared for the cards over the last century. I believe Goodwin & Company had varying degrees of success in producing nice dark & crisp images. The smokers/collectors were treated to cards of various eye appeal.

The following card of Bishop (currently on eBay) is one such example where the players photo is much lighter than the Old Judge advertising affixed to it during the cards production. The original cabinet sized photo must have been much lighter than the advertising.



Regards,
Joe Gonsowski