Define poor-fair condition

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Posted By: Jim Clarke

Got in a group of OJ's today from an auction house. Advertised as poor-fair condition. It looks like some of them have been trimmed. When I call the company they said that is why they are in that grade. I thought they were in that grade because of having creases in them and scap book paper on the back. Should they have mentional that they have been altered or trimmed or by stating the grade no mention was neccessary? JC

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Posted By: Steve M.

that the best grade for a trimmed card would be "A" or "Authentic". Any card grade, even as low as poor, should not be trimmed. I think they misled you in not properly describing the condition of the cards.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Trimmed cards don't grade above Poor. Poor/fair usually means the cards are well worn, but with no trimming. If it was a group lot, the grades may have varied-- fair to poor, thus fair/poor on average. In general, it's good to mention trimming. However, if you buy a 'Grade Poor' lot of 300 1955 Topps, it shouldn't a shocker if that means some are taped or trimmed, even if the seller doesn't mention it. But, as mentioned at the start, a poor/fair single card shouldn't be trimmed.

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Posted By: joe

Absolutely should have been described as trimmed. There are many collectors, especially on this board that collect poor-fair cards, but do not want trimmed.

Joe

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

JC,

The auction house should state if cards are trimmed. If the cards don't match a description I usually inquire as to why the card(s) was/were graded so low. To me any type of alteration should be disclosed and not hidden in a lower subjective grade.

Hopefully the item description will be concise rather than vague. I recently ran into this with an auction house and we came to a mutual and acceptable agreement on the matter. Similar to your situation, mine was for OJs. If the auction house is worth their reputation then they will hopefully make amends.

In the case where the auction house has indicated NO RETURNS on a particular lot then I definitely bid carefully and I know the risk assumed will probably be reflected in a low winning bid.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

with everyone above--especially if you subscribe to the graded card theory.......the grading companies will not assign a poor/fair grade to a trimmed card. Trimmed cards should be noted as such. Not sure what the auction house is but that should be grounds for a return. They have just about eliminated all the language on returns unless something is incorrectly described. I think you'd find enough concensus on this board to argue that point. If you want to keep the cards, try to get some compensation for the differential between P/F and trimmed cards. If you don't want them, try to get your money back. I won a lot of all 4 Ty Cobb T206's a long time ago from Mastro (and Steinbach at the time) and the bat off shoulder was trimmed. I contacted them and got a 15% refund on the lot and kept all 4 cards.

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Posted By: Brian Goldner

If there are trimmed or otherwise altered cards, it should have been mentioned as such.

Listing them with a Poor-Fair designation (without disclosure), hardly qualifies as an accurate description, for yourself, as well as the other bidders.

IMO, you're issues with this transaction, are very legitimate.

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Posted By: Jim Clarke

Here is the lot description:

"Lower grade group of 9 different Old Judge Cards in Poor-Fair condition. Included are: Frank Dwyer, Chicagoes; Jim Fogerty, Philadelphias; Kid Gleason, Philadelphias; Bill Hallman, Philadelphias; Gil Hatfield, New Yorks; Jim Mutrie, New Yorks; Jimmy Ryan, Chicago; Dan Sterns, Kansas Citys; Mike Tiernan, New Yorks. Of the lot, the card of prominent New York Giant manager Jim Mutrie card probably has the most eye appeal. Mutrie led the Giants to World Championships in 1888 & 1889."

I have a call into them right now and just wanted to know what is acceptable for the grading. Many times there are certain dealers that you need to clarify what they consider poor-fair but I did not think a major auction house you would have to do that with. In all fairness though, with all the lots they do, they might have just forgot to mention it in error.

JC

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

Oh yeah, P-F...with respect to OJs...

In OJs I'm sure you know that you're going to get creamed by SGC for back damage or writing on the back. PSA will at least provide a higher grade and the MK qualifier (for writing, not glue residue) if you're concerned with the numeric label on the front.

A P-F OJ would be one with rounded corners, crease(s), holes, broken off corners, light contrast (and this is without reference to the back of the card). Does anyone want to post a few really bad looking OJs that are P-F. And maybe even post a few nice looking OJs that have been deemed P-F.

Here's a batch of P-F OJs:



The Radbourn was rated a P-F card by a grading company because it has scrap book residue on the back. I'll buy all the SGC10 or 20 OJs that have beautiful fronts (great image quality) but have back damage. Oh yeah, they need to be priced reasonably.

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

JC, can you copy and paste the scan that was provided for the item description?

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Until recently the term "authentic" was not frequently encountered in card grade terminology. Certainly "trimmed" and "poor/fair" were often seen. A lot of "poor/fair" cards in my estimation could include some trimmed ones (depending on the quality of the others), since the term could be intended to present an average grade for the lot. Individual trimmed cards however, should be accurately described as such.

You do not state the range of grades in the lot which you won, so I can not assess whether the term poor/fair was accurately used (according to my understanding).

Edited to add: Now that I see your scans, since the Radbourne is favorable, Id be happy with a p/f designation for the lot.

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Posted By: Josh K.

Gil, I dont believe that the cards posted above are the cards from the auction.

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Posted By: Jim Clarke

I tried to copy the photo from the website but it would not let me do so. I could provide a link, but that would give away the company. From the same company I recieved some graded cards as well. I'll start a new thred on it and let you pick the grade..

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Like porn, I know it when I see it.

We recently had a thread I started on the difference between the PSA 1 (p-f) and the SGC 10-20. I think that PSA's convention reflects an older way of thinking about low end cards. In the past, before slabbing, I think poor condition could encompass a trimmed card because we collectors back when generally treated poor as garbage-worthy (major damage/alterations), fair as basically intact but beaten. You took a poor or fair card only as a filler. Then we got slabbers who sold their services on the grounds that people were being fooled by trimmed high grade cards (I know, the irony is boundless). So, for about 10 years a trimmed card was persona non grata regardless of how it looked and an encapsulated p-f card was worth much more because it ostensibly was not trimmed or altered. I think that is one reason SGC split poor and fair into separate levels, realizing that people were paying more for fair than poor and that a catch-all would be less desirable. Then the services realized that there were quite a few cards that were worth extracting a grading fee from collectors simply to authenticate and encapsulate. Now we have trimmed cards slabbed as authentic, but never as poor (at least not on purpose). This is my roundabout explanation of how grading perceptions as to the low end have shifted over the last 10-15 years. Today, I do not think that a trimmed card should ever be described with any grade of any kind and also that anyone selling a trimmed card should state it even if a picture is furnished. I think that is where tne market is. So, to answer the question, if the cards were trimmed, I do not think poor-fair is an accurate description of them.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Way back when there were no grading companies, a trimmed card was could not technically be graded better than Poor. In old-scholl terms, there was nothing wrong with the lot description, but in todays enviroment and the changing standards for grading set forth by the slabbers, any trimming should be noted since these cards will not recieve a technical grade from the slabbers. The world of slabbing, there is a huge difference between Poor and Auth.

Jay

Growing old is not optional, growing up is.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Yes Josh, I read too fast, and spoke too soon. You are right, those scans were not the lot in question.

And Warshawlaw & Jay: if we didn't live through it, that would be very confusing to follow. Heck, having lived thru it, it is still confusing. Complicated further by the inability to consistently identify a (too) high percentage of trimmed cards. Which results in the less than worst, most obvious examples of trimmed cards being resubmitted until the trim job is overlooked.

So what do you wind up with?

Ive had SandiegoWill and other experienced trustworthy people tell me he honestly didn't know whether a vintage card was trimmed. How many cards do you have to inspect until your experience exceeds theirs?

I accept that some trimmed cards are not easily IDed. And I contend that if you can not prove a fault, none exists.