SGC Grading Challenge Video - can you guess the grade?

[parkplace33]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p46DRDlXHro

This is collaboration video with SGC on a challenge to guess the SGC grade. 6 cards, including vintage.

I found this video enjoyable. Interesting to hear from SGC why the card receives the grade.

[bobbyw8469]

Thanks for sharing.

[philliesfan]

Interesting watch. I did well with grading them. In fact, I was only 4 points apart from each contestant. I would have won the 5K. Oh well, they did not pick me to be part of it.
thanks for sharing.
Bob

[ClementeFanOh]

Thank you for sharing, I did watch the video. First thought is that the
participants seemed to have a really good time (which is part of the goal,
right?) I did not attempt to "grade" the cards myself, as trying to grade
based on video of a card was a non starter for me.

It has been noted (accurately) on these boards, that SGC is particularly
harsh on vintage cards in recent memory. These 2 participants were also
harsh on the older cards, and, based on their ages, got me thinking that the
graders are getting younger at TPGs, not older. So many collectors are used
to seeing cards that come out of packs minimally at 8.5, that I'm wondering
if those same folks now employed as graders, are subconsciously hard on
cards that were created in more primitive times. If a new grader at company
"x" is 27 years old, he probably started collecting around 17 years ago,
2005-06. He hasn't bought packs with cards that have rough cut borders or
gum/wax stains, and might have no context in how to approach evaluating
them. We (older collectors of older cards) have to hope they learn, I guess

Fun thing to watch, thanks again parkplace! Trent King

[hcv123]

Noticed Geoff and his associate as if didn't know how to grade vintage cards.

[perezfan]

Seriously.... both of the guest graders don't understand the concept of an original rough cut? And how long has this Geoff person (who calls it "fraying") been in the hobby?

Frustrating to watch but thanks for posting.

[Fred]

Right off the bat I see a flaw in the game rules. If the person guessing the grade is off by one point (and they give an example of someone assigning a 10 and the SGC grader determines 9), then that point counts against the overall total. Whoa - wait a minute... what if the difference in value between a 9 and 10 for that card is $thousands$ while the difference in the grade between a different card in the contest (for example price differential between 5 and 6) is $hundred$, then the misgrade between the 9 and 10 would have a much higher weighted value in difference. Hmmm... seems odd to me from an analytical point of view.

I get it, it's just a stupid game/challenge. Could be fun but really didn't make much sense to me when you consider the $$$ values in actual card values.

By the way, why does that Jeff guy look familiar? It's like I've seen him in other videos that have been linked to in this forum.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by Fred

Right off the bat I see a flaw in the game rules. If the person guessing the grade is off by one point (and they give an example of someone assigning a 10 and the SGC grader determines 9), then that point counts against the overall total. Whoa - wait a minute... what if the difference in value between a 9 and 10 for that card is $thousands$ while the difference in the grade between a different card in the contest (for example price differential between 5 and 6) is $hundred$, then the misgrade between the 9 and 10 would have a much higher weighted value in difference. Hmmm... seems odd to me from an analytical point of view.

I get it, it's just a stupid game/challenge. Could be fun but really didn't make much sense to me when you consider the $$$ values in actual card values.

By the way, why does that Jeff guy look familiar? It's like I've seen him in other videos that have been linked to in this forum.

Geoff Wilson is an internet star.

[Fred]

When you guys see that the contestants didn't grade the same cards, you'll probably do the same thing - cringe. Why weren't they doing an apples/apples comparison? Then they had two different graders doing the analysis for each batch of cards. WTF? Subjectivity and more subjectivity. I'd give the idea of the contest a 10. Actual contest relevance, after watching an apples to oranges comparison of cards, grade = 4. Actual contest relevance, after watching an apples/orange comparison between different grader = 4. Overall score is about 3 because, in my subjectivity, the entertainment value was on a somewhat interesting level, but the waste of time grade drops this to a 3.

The contestants seem to think that there should be different grading scales for different eras for the cards. Uh, that is just crap, all grading should apply to ANY frigging card regardless of era. It looked like the Jeff guy had a very high tendency to put more weight on centering.