BVG accuracy on lower-mid vintage...?

[jchcollins]

Warning, this will be a grading nuance post...if you aren't into that kind of minutiae:

To generalize at a high level, when I was a kid first getting into old cards in the late 1980's, my initial understanding of grading the all important flaw of "the crease" went something like this:

*EX - can have no creases.

*VG-EX - can have crease(s?) / surface wear of the "wrinkle" variety that does not detract from eye appeal. You can find the defect, but may have to twist the card around in the light first, that kind of thing.

*VG - card may have a more serious crease that breaks the surface in a place - but still does not seriously damage eye appeal.

*G and below - this is where the more serious and multiple creases come in and eye appeal impact starts to be obvious.

If they don't seriously impact eye appeal, do number of wrinkles / creases count in determining where on the scale the grade lands?

Since the advent of professional grading and my awareness of it maybe some 20 years ago, I think that on the whole PSA (and I'll use them as an example just because they are the largest grader) has made the scrutiny on creases more obvious and strict in that time frame. For example a card that has a light crease which might be noticeable at an arm's length, but which does not seriously detract from the card's eye appeal (i.e. not thru the player's face or anything..) I would normally call VG. Today PSA might not give a card like that higher than a 1.5 or a 2. SGC, I'm not really sure as I don't have any recently graded cards from them which fall into this category.

I wanted to ask specifically about BVG, as a recent addition to my collection this week was graded a BVG 4. It is a well known card of a very popular HOF'er, so I took a gamble and admittedly, went with BVG because I could get the card for somewhat significantly cheaper than a garden variety PSA 4. Color and image were good, centering was good, corners were at least roughly EX - so I went with it. When the card arrived, I was not displeased with it, certainly not on eye appeal - but one of my first thoughts was wow, I seriously doubt that PSA would have given this a 4. Though the flaws are all of the "difficult to spot immediately" variety - they include:

*surface scratch which does not break the paper, but is there and obvious in the light.
* "bend" area that never quite became a crease on the upper portion of the card.
* True wrinkling - which while very difficult to see, and very minor in terms of affect on eye appeal - on the bottom right portion of the card.

Question is - and again I'm sorry for the detail - do you all think BVG is either easier or takes more "eye appeal" consideration on the grade to assign when it's lower already if there are MULTIPLES of these defects? For example just thinking out loud - I can see PSA today taking any one of these issues alone, and saying ok it's a 4. But multiple anymore, I don't know. I think they would tend to be harsher where maybe earlier PSA graders would not. Is Beckett more lenient in terms of "how many" types of these common, lower mid-grade defects can be present on one card? What do you all think the practice "should" be?

This particular card raw in 1990 when I was 13 years old, I would probably have no problem calling VG-EX. But with the continuation of time on the spectrum of the respective TPG scales, I don't know anymore. I'm not posting a picture of it - because from a scan alone you cannot tell about any of these issues, it would look like at least an EX or better example in a photo.

Should grades below EX be judged with a component more of "eye appeal" and how that affects the final outcome? Or should we be more strict on the number of flaws such as creases, wrinkles, and bends based on the fact that they are there even if not easily seen?

Bear in mind if you are still with me, that all grading is subjective. Isn't my OCD grand?

[steve B]

That's what makes lower and to some extent even mid grade stuff challenging.

When I started, a crease or more serious wrinkle was almost an automatic G. Mostly because there were usually other problems. Centering didn't count for as much with most people.

When I asked about a couple of my cards that didn't grade as well as I'd expected, the guy from SGC explained that it was both cumulative and somewhat subjective. And with that, some of the grades made a bit more sense.
A few examples.
This one has a tiny wrinkle halfway up the left side. It barely reaches into the image. The corners are nice, and I'd thought that the tiny flake of paper loss on one was the reason for the grade even though I've seen 60s with more wear than the chip that came off. Nope, it's the wrinkle, the off register green, and a couple other trivial things that push it down to a 50


On the other hand, this one has a fairly big wrinkle/crease down the center. About halfway down starting at the top. Probably from being removed from a page. Apparently that's it's only real problem. I didn't expect it to do this well.


This one has a thick but small paper inclusion. It's right where the white spot in the background is. No paper loss, but the ink has worn off. The card is also nearly AB narrow. I'm not sure what else is wrong, but maybe the inclusion was enough to rate only a VG?


Last, this one has some obvious corner wear, 3 just barely better than what I think of as VG, one worse. Plus the obvious corner crease, and some other general wear you'd expect.
I thought the VG was generous, but maybe...
It's also possible they went easy because the other ones I had done at the show were basically no effort to grade, a few blank backs which were obvious As, and a Cobb that got a 10, but could have been A just as easily.

[jchcollins]

Thanks for the examples. It does show how subjective things can be, I think - I bet if you had the same cards graded by PSA and were able to get an explanation, it would likely be totally different.

For what it’s worth, this is the card in question. I’m not going to try to get weird angle pictures of the specific defects in the light - but the red is a light bend, the yellow is a surface scratch, and the blue at the bottom is some light wrinkling. Decent looking card, right? It was a BVG 4. (Busted out of an extremely scratched and ugly slab). But I am guessing PSA would give it a 3 at most. Unlike in some of your prewar examples, the corners on this one aren’t really a problem for a 4 or 5, and the centering isn’t an issue at all - so again it’s a case there is Beckett a little lenient since the other typical areas for a downgrade are nicer?

I’m happy with it, and suppose at the end of the day that’s all that matters...




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[swarmee]

When I was at Cooperstown last year, they had some vintage cards that had large obvious heavy creases that were graded PSA 4 for sale. So if PSA was consistent, you might have a point. I would guess that card would easily grade a 4, and might get the half point bump.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by swarmee

When I was at Cooperstown last year, they had some vintage cards that had large obvious heavy creases that were graded PSA 4 for sale. So if PSA was consistent, you might have a point. I would guess that card would easily grade a 4, and might get the half point bump.

Interesting, thanks. And...after all that - I did find where Beckett as recently as 2012 had listed the "official" grading criteria on their site (via Wayback Machine) and for a 4; it states thusly:

Very Good/Excellent - 4
Centering: 80/20 both ways or better on front. 100/0 or better on back. Moderate diamond cutting is allowed.
Corners: Slight notching or layering, or moderate dings are allowed.
Edges: Readily chipped or notched and/or slightly layered.
Surface: Heavy print spots. Hairline creases. Moderate color or focus imperfections. Moderate border discoloration. Moderate wax stains. Very light ink mark or tape stain. A good deal of gloss lost from surface. Very minor scuffing or an extremely subtle tear in the form of a touch of broken surface paper.

I would say my Mantle falls easily within this category, with many attributes better, and actually - given the way I learned to grade in the 80's and early 90's - I think the Beckett standard is more precise and accurate than PSA's current description - which mentions nothing even about wrinkles or creases at all (kind of important for the grade??), but simply says "Surface wear is noticeable but modest." I think that is their way of being intentionally vague to be able to defend a range of opinions on that grade.

Beckett above says hairline "creaseS" -implying there can be more than one. I think I'm good to go...this card may not be a 4 by PSA standards, but at least for Beckett it seems they graded the card accurately by theirs.

[mintacular]

I think Beckett grading vintage has NO CLUE what they are doing, they are VERY inconsistent. They will take a well centered sharp card with a mega crease for example and they add all the numbers and crunch them and come up with a "4" whereas PSA would take said crease and the max is 2.5+ or 3 no matter what the other qualities are, as it should be. As a result Beckett vintage grades are a total hodgepodge blender method of grading whereas PSA/SGC has baselines like "if this issue exists you won't go higher than X" and from there you can judge eye appeal issues accordingly.....

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by mintacular

I think Beckett grading vintage has NO CLUE what they are doing, they are VERY inconsistent. They will take a well centered sharp card with a mega crease for example and they add all the numbers and crunch them and come up with a "4" whereas PSA would take said crease and the max is 2.5+ or 3 no matter what the other qualities are, as it should be. As a result Beckett vintage grades are a total hodgepodge blender method of grading whereas PSA/SGC has baselines like "if this issue exists you won't go higher than X" and from there you can judge eye appeal issues accordingly.....

You have a point to a degree, but in Beckett's "number crunching" of subgrades, the biggest negative factor usually weighs very heavily. I've also seen PSA grade a card that was otherwise NM a 3 because of a wrinkle that was like a quarter of a centimeter long which you might be able to see after a minute of twisting in bright light. That isn't right either. As far as inconsistency goes, I think PSA could see and raise BVG. Look at a vintage 5 that was graded 15 or 20 years ago vs. one graded last week in a lighthouse holder. Their consistency is all over the place as well. Honestly I don't have enough Beckett graded cards to judge, but my belief is that neither PSA or Beckett has been as consistent since the 1990's as SGC.

Oh, and have we mentioned...PSA has recently encapsulated a blue ton of altered cards in numbered slabs.

[toledo_mudhen]

Originally Posted by mintacular

I think Beckett grading vintage has NO CLUE what they are doing, they are VERY inconsistent. They will take a well centered sharp card with a mega crease for example and they add all the numbers and crunch them and come up with a "4" whereas PSA would take said crease and the max is 2.5+ or 3 no matter what the other qualities are, as it should be. As a result Beckett vintage grades are a total hodgepodge blender method of grading whereas PSA/SGC has baselines like "if this issue exists you won't go higher than X" and from there you can judge eye appeal issues accordingly.....

I stopped buying Beckett Graded Cards (Vintage) long ago as my personal crossover rate on them has been miserable (maybe 20%)

[Rascal1010]

My personal experience with BVG on vintage cards is they are generally a grade higher than PSA on Mid-grade cards. Not on all cards, but as a rule of thumb that is about where they land, and that is roughly what they are going to sell for. The best example of this would be a BVG 1971 Rod Carew graded a 9 by BVG that I took as part of a trade about a year ago. I roughly figured it at PSA 8 price in the trade, it sold for roughly PSA 8.5 price at auction. I considered myself very lucky, I did not however feel lucky enough to submit the card to PSA for regrading, as I do not think it would have come back in a 9 holder from PSA.

On Pre-war cards I have had in BVG holders, they are all over the place on grading. I think a lot of this has to do with when they were graded. You will run into this issue of when they were graded with all of the big 3, reinforces the adage "buy the card not the holder"! At the end of the dat I probably have the least confidence buying/trading BVG cards than I do SGC or PSA slabbed cards. Even GAI "1st Graded" examples seem to be more accurately graded than most BVG cards that I have owned, and I have definitely had a much better success rate crossing these to PSA holders to market than I have had with BVG cards.

Just my 2 cents, but your Mantle is a beautiful VG-EX card.

[Leon]

Personally, except for a bit of overgrading on a few cards, I think BVG is the best grading company in vintage today. But then again, I only collect vintage. There is no doubt in my mind they can spot alterations better than the others as well as fakes, at least with what I have seen recently. The biggest issue with them is they don't market their vintage grading. But that isn't the graders fault. My grader of choice is still SGC for a variety of reasons. Probably the best is to hold value.