General Card Grading Question

[CowboysGuide]

Sorry if this isn't the best place to pose this question.

How are professional card grading companies supposed to handle print marks if they exist on all 'known' examples of the card? Is it assumed by them that a perfectly clean card does exist?

I've been reading this forum for a while and really enjoy all the expert opinions and seeing some extremely rare stuff. Even though I am a football card/memorabilia collector, I've learned a lot here that can be applied to my collecting habits.

Thanks in advance...
Steve

[Matt]

Originally Posted by CowboysGuide

How are professional card grading companies supposed to handle print marks if they exist on all 'known' examples of the card? Is it assumed by them that a perfectly clean card does exist?

If all known copies of a card have a certain mark, then shouldn't we presume that is how it was printed and therefore it should not be downgraded for said mark.

[ethicsprof]

except for the unique card---e.g. 1921 E120type Herpolsheimer of Geo. J.
Burns.
otherwise, excellent logic.

best,
barry

[steve B]

I think it depends on wether the mark is a misprinted mark like a fisheye or ink smear or something like that, or if it's something that's on the plate like a scratch or a section that wasn't made quite right.

The misprints should be treated like any other misprinting mark.

The plate problems should be treated as just the way all cards like that wee made.

Other stuff that goes wrong with the printing is a bit more of a gray area. One T206 I sent in got a 40 probably because of a paper inclusion. A bit of foreign matter, in this case a small hard object of some sort that is actually inside the cardboard. You can see it as a white dot on the left just below the underarm area.


So, it's as manufactured except for a tiny spot where the ink over the paper inclusion area wore off. Technically a scuff, and they could have treated it more harshly. Or they could have treated it as a natural effect of the printing process and given it a higher grade. Even under a magnifier the corners are as nice as they look.

Steve B

[CowboysGuide]

Thanks for the help on this topic.

I suppose it's a guess by the card owner if the print defect is on all cards. Just because I've seen 12 cards of a specific player, all with the same line or mark, does that mean they all have it? Do the card grading companies have Gem Mint examples of each type of card to use as a benchmark? I would find this hard to believe for some of the stuff you guys show on this forum, but maybe more of a possibility for newer cards (1950-80).

[steve B]

They don't need gem copies of any card on hand. Once a person has seen and felt a large number of a particular sort of card and understands the printing process it's just a matter of deciding if it's genuine and figuring out how it grades with the centering and defects.

A scan of the card in question would help, most print defects look different from plate damage or stuff that was part of the image.

Just seeing a bunch of cards with the same defect doesn't mean it's on every example of that card, although it could be. Modern examples are easier, so I'll use a couple of those.

I've got a few 75 minis of Kingman on the desk right now, all with an identical fisheye in the G of Giants. Because of how those happen it's probably on hundreds of them if not thousands. If it's on all of them, it's still a print defect. Granted, it would be one that means there could never be one graded 10 but still a defect.

The opposite end of things is on many 81 fleer the people making the masks for the plates let the tape overlap the picture. So every one of them has printed in cellotape in the picture. Not a printing defect, just a design defect that was on the plates.

Steve B

[CowboysGuide]

Originally Posted by steve B

A scan of the card in question would help, most print defects look different from plate damage or stuff that was part of the image.

Steve B

My question concerning grading and print defects was general, not card specific, but I can come up with a couple examples to show here if you guys promise not to chastise me for posting post-war football card scans in this section of this forum .

A couple cards come to mind that I will scan and post here a bit later. Thanks for all the input!

[CowboysGuide]

Here is an example of the type of print defect I'm talking about. Again, sorry this is an 'out of catagory' post, but I felt I'd get the best results for my question based on the expertise of the contributors of this section of the forum.

1964 Philadelphia Bob Lilly: Note the dark horizontal line just below the white top border. I've seen this line on every example of this card I've seen. Similar lines can be found throughout cards in this set, but I can only speak for this one in terms of 'every' card.

[steve B]

That would be a part of the original image. I can't tell for sure from the scan, but it looks like either a piece of tape printed in like the 81 fleer, or more likely a cropping line that got into the picture. The original photo would have had cropping lines drawn on it as guides for the camera operator. looks like he included the cropping lines so the stripping dept could properly crop the picture and they did it a bit differently. So the line got printed.

The line at the bottom of the picture is probably tape.

The left edge looks a bit odd too despite the registration being good. Probably one color masked off a bit too much.

More questionable are the blue specks in the sky at the top right. They could be ink spatters, or they could be Bits of dust or debris on the glass of the camera. Spatters will be solidly colored and pretty random. Dust on the camera glass will have a dot pattern and be the same from card to card.
(or nearly the same, there could be differences in the screening that would change the dot pattern) Some of those things could have been fixed on later printings, but more likely were just left as they were.

So anywhere from 2-4 production errors, the last one maybe a print defect.

The grading companies shouldn't downgrade for any of those, except the spots if they're spattered ink . They may view it diferently, but that's how I see it.

Steve B

[CowboysGuide]

Thanks Steve.

I do have another card that led me to this question in the first place. I got a really nice Bob Hayes RC (1966) recently, and as I was considering it for grading, I noticed a few tiny dark dots. What might be ink splatters that you refer to. So I grabbed two others I have, and all three have the same exact dots. That's when I wondered about how they are treated at PSA/SGC.

I'm a long-time collector, but still fairly new at card grading, and with the cost per card what it is, I want to make sure I'm sending in the best possible cards.

[steve B]

I'm doing the same thing. It's been interesting sending in the first few, nearly all T206s. I've been trying to pick good ones to send in, and I've missed a few things that they found. Then I have to figure out what caused the low grade.

I've also been working off and on at writing a guide to printing errors. I've got nice examples of most of them to use for illustrations.

Steve B

[CowboysGuide]

Originally Posted by steve B

I'm doing the same thing. It's been interesting sending in the first few, nearly all T206s. I've been trying to pick good ones to send in, and I've missed a few things that they found. Then I have to figure out what caused the low grade.

I've also been working off and on at writing a guide to printing errors. I've got nice examples of most of them to use for illustrations.

Steve B

That's a REALLY good idea! I've been thinking of doing the same thing on my website. I have an online Card Gallery where I can point out the various printing issues that certain cards consistantly have. By showing examples of these problems, it could help some folks that may be new to the hobby.