Fading and condition
 

Came to mind again when I saw this sun faded PSA 7 Koufax sell for $410 on eBay, but it is a cross-era problem most affecting N cards. Personally, I have a hard time seeing this heavily damaged Koufax, and damaged in a way greatly affecting the image, is even a 3. The grading standards seem to be that fading may as well not exist and is irrelevant. They appear to ignore it as far as I can tell, I don't think I'm cherrypicking a few bad grades by just scrolling through N172's and seeing that the graders ignores how badly the card has faded.

Is there anybody who truly doesn't think fading is damage, just like other environmental damage? It seems like the accepted general standards people use for condition are way out of alignment with the grading firms.

I have noticed that fading rarely makes a difference in the grade from PSA or SGC. I have also noticed one hobby icon usually has several faded cards for sale as rare error cards.:eek:

Greg--Old Judges have two different issues. One is certainly fading. The other relates to the fact that in 1889 Goodwin experimented with adding pink and purple tints to the images. The last card you show isn't faded, it is a pink image. These images tend to be unattractive but occasionally you can find a sharp one. Grading companies don't take either into account which is one reason why I don't grade Old Judges. There are two Harry Wrights that I have seen, one and 8 and one a 7, both with horrible images. I would always rather have a card with a sharp image with rounded corners and back issues than a card with a bad image and sharp corners and a clean back. An Old Judge is a fragile albumen photograph glued to a blank piece of cardboard for protection. I'd suggest that people worry more about the photo than the cardboard.

To be clear, I am not calling pink tints faded cards. The one I pulled appears to be significantly faded, and a dubious 3 before that. Many of the tinted cards appear to be faded too. Fading most affects the albumen photo cards, CDV’s, old judges, etc., but it seems to be ignored across the board. Old Judge grading has never made any sense to me, most of the high grade examples are significantly deteriorated. Albumen cards are things of beauty when one finds one that has not suffered the fading and looks close to how they did originally.

Absolutely right Jay. I'd said basically the same thing in a different thread about OJs being the poster children for the concept of buying the card, and not the holder. I actually love to find OJs with things like back damage, or that were skinned and maybe reglued onto newer cardboard. The lower technical grade makes them much, much more affordable, while the photo image can still be clear and fantastic.

Also, the pink/purple tinted ones are definitely not very common. I rarely see them for sale anywhere. Surprised they don't seem to carry a premium. Of course, maybe they do to some extent, but then it's being offset by them typically having a more unattractive image, as you noted.

I happen to rather like the look of "The Old Fox" in pink:

Pink is definitely more common than purple. A true purple card is a rarity.

I don't think I've ever seen one. Are there any purple OJ images in your book? I seem to remember some pink, but no purple.

I wonder if it isn't a case of a nice, bright card receiving a high grade, like that Koufax 7, and then the owner displays it where sunlight fades it over the years. In other words, the grading companies might not be giving heavily faded cards those high grades in the first place.

I suspect this is not the case, because of the massive quantity of such cards. N172's are the easiest example, but it appears that the graders truly don't consider fading to be damage for some reason, though I have never found a hobbyist who doesn't consider it to be damage.

I am sure it does happen, but it does not seem to be that all these cards were unfaded before grading.

Sadly no. There have been a few people that have been fading cards for years and selling them as rare errors. Hell many of the faded/altered 1958 Blue Hank Aaron cards can be traced to one seller. He usually has at least one listed on eBay all the time at beyond silly prices. Along with many other very obviously faded/altered cards listed at silly prices while being called rare errors.

Dealing with a collection that had a number of sun faded raw cards in high grade I can assure you that fading IS taken into account. They're not super consistent with their standards on fading, but it definitely has some impact.

If this is the case and the hundreds or thousands of clearly faded cards in PSA and SGC slabs are supposed to see a grade decrease for it, then wow. They are even more incompetent than even I thought.