I turned 50 a few days ago, and to "celebrate" my wife invited a bunch of friends over to have a funeral for "the death of Doug's youth".

Doug, It was a legit question. Written to cut to the crux of what this thread is about. (Too bad there is not an emoticon to express that). And although I don’t believe your response was fully directed at me, there has been an influx of new collectors on the board, some older and some younger. A few may not have even been born before the advent of the scanner. What they have heard since is buy the card, not the holder. And maybe they have not had the chance to see and feel a raw Cobb or a Clemente rookie.

Congratulations on your 50th birthday. I’ll be a decade older than you in a few months. Bought my first three Cobbs from Goldfadden in person @ $5 a pop, and other pre- and -post war vintage via snail mail: for instance, Gar Miller. Even in the late sixties as a teen, $30 + or so, was, unfortunately, beyond my allowance for a ‘52T Mantle. What a dope I I was then. But at least I knew what it looked and felt like.

Respect for collectors, newbies and oldbies.

Thus Sprach Paul S

emoticon here

Thank you Paul, and happy birthday in advance to you.

I completely understand that it was a legit question, and meant no disrespect to any collectors, oldies and newbies alike, what I meant is that scan "exaggerations" are in the year 2013 the equivalent of what description "exaggerations" were in 1976.

Back then some people had descriptions that were closer to reality than others, and today some people post scans that are closer to reality than others.

The only way to find out is often to make a purchase (or two, or three), and that's one of the costs of collecting.

It's all part of the chase, and the chase is most of the fun,
Doug

Just looking at the common issue of scans that don't accurately represent what a card looks like in hand....

one way we have to gauge what a card may actually look like, at least when it comes to graded cards, is by looking at the flip. We all know what a PSA or SGC flip looks like in hand. If you see scan where the SGC green is to dark, or the PSA red is too orange, etc., you can get an idea how badly the scan might be off, and adjust accordingly with your mind's eye, so to speak.

I think another part of the problem comes with the default settings these scanners provide. With my Canon CanoScan 5600F, the defaults setting has an "auto tone" feature which makes the colors deeper and the whites much brighter.

If I turn the auto tone setting off, the cards scan appears much drabber than it looks in real life, almost washed out. I had to find a middle ground, a tone setting that shows what the card accurately looks like in hand. It took some trial and error. I'm not sure some sellers are knowledgeable enough to tweak the settings properly. The contrast and brightness settings on each person's monitor can also have an effect.

Agreed. The technology is generic. It's a competion between manufacturers to get people who want their home photos to pop for family, not for card collectors. Not to say they shouldn't. For me to think that the more modern scanners are made just for me/us to show off our cards in their true nature is a pipedream, but please, Canon, "Pass the dutchie to the left hand side".

my bad