What's going on with this BVG Mantle?
 

I just got this card and am surprised BVG graded it as NM 7. Look at the ding on the bottom right. I don't know if this would even get a 6 from PSA.

What do you guys think? Is Beckett this easy on their grading or is this an anomaly?

In short, yes - Beckett goes much easier on vintage then either PSA or SGC.

Is that maybe an older graded card? Compare some old SGC or PSA cards with newer ones and it's easy to see most, if not all, grading companies have tightened their standards.

Mantle
 

That shouldn't be a 7 but not surprised that it is. The centering helps it a lot. I would agree that it's probably an older grade and all the companies let more go back then. It is a nice looking card other than that corner but I would be a little disappointed with it.

Again - BVG goes easier on cards. There is a reason a BVG 7 will never sell for anywhere near what a PSA 7 would. I'm not necessarily sure the age of the slab matters.

Does BVG upgrades for centering? That could explain it. I am a bit disappointed with the corner, it looks worse in front of me than it does in the pictures.

Is it possible for a card to have been pressed to minimize the ding, and then over time pop back up in the holder?

Centering at most should get you a .5 bump IF other grading criteria are met. Nice centering on a card that doesn't have 7 corners should not lead to that card getting a 7.

This Mantle is beautiful. So what if Beckett is .5 Behind??

I would buy this card.

:cool::cool::cool:

Thanks for the comment, I am a sucker for centered Mantles and I bought the card knowing it had the ding. If it could regrade as PSA 6.5 I would be good with that. I am just not sure it would even be a PSA 6. So I am thinking BGS is a full grade behind PSA at least.

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Don't get me wrong. I'm not a huge Beckett fan, but they don't necessarily lag terribly behind in the higher grades. I think that could pull a PSA 6. It is a great looking card, I just think overgraded at a 7.

Agreed that it is overgraded, compared to PSA. Here is a PSA 6.5. Which one do you think is better? I think the PSA wins on this one.

Everything else being equal (meaning price), I prefer the BVG one. The angle cut on the PSA is really distracting to me. Personal choice (obviously).

PSA traditionally has placed corners above everything else. Everything is tightening up these days, but they are going to be more apt to say a 65/35 card with perfect corners is a PSA 7 than a 50/50 centered card with maybe borderline corner wear for the grade. SGC used to be more lenient as well - and a place where mildly O/C cards could go to get a fair shake, but not anymore. I've seen cards graded recently by SGC get 5's or 5.5's due to centering that would have been 7's with PSA. Some of this I think is attributable to new graders, or those who simply don't know how to measure centering properly. 70/30 shouldn't get the same penalty as 85/15. And some sets have to be measured out because of thickness differences in the borders when compared to other sets. '67 Topps is an example of that. Even a little bit o/c might be judged as really bad at first, because the borders were smaller than other Topps sets of the era.