1934 Goudey Lou Gehrig SGC 98 on Sports Cards Plus
 

Has anyone else seen this card on their current auction? Absolutely incredible.....

It does appear to be a beauty, but that said, grading a card a 10 rather than a 9 always strikes me as arbitrary and creating artificial value.

This is where I can’t follow the TPG craze of grades. No doubt the SGC card is most likely better in some way compared to my 7.5 but is it hundreds of thousands of dollars better? I just could never bring myself to pay that much more for a card.

I can understand why some folks do I guess, and no shot against any of them. However for me it just seems hard to justify.

http://photos.imageevent.com/piojohn.../huge/lou2.jpg

Agreed! Except for some minor print schmack by his hat, yours is equally as nice. And your centering is better!

No, I'd happily take yours and pay off my house with the money I saved. No question about it.

I agree! I wouldn't think twice about taking the 7.5 instead of the 10 and putting the extra money I saved into other parts of my collection. The centering on the 7.5 is much more appealing too. Who cares if under magnification the corners are "sharp" instead of "razor sharp"...unless you're buying a number.

At first glance, there is little difference between the two cards. You have to really look to find the justification for the lower technical grade.

John's card has a very small wrinkle in the lower right corner (where the white border meets the blue, just above the ellipses. Then there is a slight blue smudge to the left of Lou's hat, and some very light white on the catcher silhouette. And we don't see the backs, there could be a minor imperfection that could contribute to the lower grade.

But there's no way, at least to my untrained eye, that there's two and a half grades worth of difference between these two cards. I would fall out of my chair if I had even a chance to own a card as nice as the one John is showing us. And the price difference between the two is obscene.

And quite honestly, I like John's better. I think the color saturation on Gehrig's face on the 10 is a little too strong. I also think John's card has better centering.

That 86 is an amazing card.

I'm not sure the lower right is a wrinkle. Maybe just a bit of a print flaw where something dragged across the sheet while wet? Wrinkles get hit a lot harder than 86, One of my cards with a bend, not even a wrinkle, and only visible at just the right angle got knocked down to 50. (despite the published standard allowing wrinkles all the way up to 70:confused: )

There's also a slight difference in registration and a fisheye on the cheek. Hard to notice since it's in a complex area and not a dark color.

I'd still take the 86 over the 10, assuming I could ever afford either.
It's just that nice looking overall. I think it's one of the nicest Goudeys I've seen.

Steve B

That is an amazing 7.5 John. I'm jealous :)

Bill- I slightly disagree with you on the coloration of Gehrig's face on the 10. I honestly think that is one of the reasons the card got the grade. It almost looks too good (deep color saturation) if you know what I mean....Corner wise, there is not 2 and a half grade difference between the two, but I do see some other areas that account for the grade difference.

Also, keep in mind that we are not looking at back scans of both cards....

maybe the over saturition is a bad thing and they have it backwards. maybe the one that appears under saturated is really the proper amounts of ink.

what would anyone use to really guage what mixture of ink saturations were intended?

kevin

Steve, good catch on the lower right "wrinkle". I'm looking at the cards on my laptop, not the usual flat screen I have for my desktop. After looking at it a second time, I think you're absolutely right.

Kevin, your eye is certainly better than mine. I can see what you're referring to with the corners. I also missed a slight blue "smudge" in the white border on the right side. As to the coloring, I might just look at some other examples of the card.

They're both incredible though.

Well, so much for that hypothesis. The back is beautiful, too. I don't know what allowance they make for centering top to bottom on vintage cards. That would be the only thing I can see that could possibly lower the grade, and even that would be a reach.

I think this card is slightly undergraded.

Kevin, that was my thinking originally. After dinner I'm going to look at some more examples on Card Target.

Here's an interesting tidbit. When Lou Gehrig won the Triple Crown in 1934, he didn't win the American League MVP. He finished fifth!

Gehrig
 

John,

I'd take your 7.5 over the 10 any day. Save the extra $$ for other card purchases. Your color and registration is equal to the 10, plus your centering is nicer.

Great card!

Tony

i think my entire point was missed. my point is that there is no way to know.

the only way to know for sure is to have some sort of documentation about exactly how the card is supposed to look from a non issued card...right?

you can take all of the cards and compare all of them to all others of them and you still won't know what the whole mass of cards were supposed to look like in a perfect state.

kevin

Keep in mind, though, that the mystique of winning the Triple Crown was no doubt diminished by both leagues having a Triple Crown winner in 1933 -- Jimmie Foxx in the American League and Chuck Klein in the National League. The Triple Crown wasn't nearly the rarity in that time as it is now.

Looks like a wrinkle to me as well....Surprised they would still give it a grade of 86...

Color saturation can also look very different depending on scan settings.

There is no wrinkle on the card; there are no hidden flaws. The card is accurately graded and could go either way half a grade. The point of showing the card was not to have the card “re-graded” from cyberspace or to beat up on SGC.

The whole point was to say that for me as a collector the price difference between strong NM card and Gem cards is a tough pill to swallow. Even if one had unlimited funds I think the value proposition short of bragging rights is very slim between many cards.I also think the grading science becomes even less of a science and more personal preference, timing and dash of religion between many of these higher grades.

Please John, no religion. Your Gehrig is a stunning "pack fresh", (as they say) example. :) Dave.

This is true, but still--fifth? The Yankees weren't horrible in '34. They finished second to Detroit. And Lou had a much better season than the guy that won it, Mickey Cochrane. If they were going to pick a Tiger to win it, as they were the pennant winners, Charlie Gehringer or Hank Greenberg would have been better choices, imho.

Ok, I understand now. I'd thought if after comparing several there was a pattern, I could determine if the saturated card was the norm or not. But you're right, the flaw could have been present in the actual printing process, and without seeing the proof, there'd be no way to know that.

Really?
 

What the difference between these two cards really boils down to is one factor...

Beer!

When grader A evaluated the gem card, he had just returned from a long lunch that included a couple of beers. It is truly a gorgeous card that is almost flawless (centering). It was clearly a gem card (to him at that moment).

Grader B was at that same lunch drinking beer with grader A. He went home & continued drinking long into the night. His wife got pissed at him. He woke the next morning with a raging headache and his wife still nagging. He retuned to work with a raging hangover and the first card on his docket was Wonka's... Another truly flawless card but his head is pounding and he is a little agitated so 8.5 sounds about right...

What does subjectivity mean? If these graders can remember every card they've ever seen and compare and contrast them with every card that every other grader has ever seen, then we can truly rely on these grades. But just like that hot girl I saw in the supermarket last saturday kinda looks like the girl I remember who used to look kinda hot in college 10 years ago...Well...

What does subjectivity mean again?

Ok. I was in college 20 years ago...

the person who said they are buying a number is right.

No doubt. It's pretty much inconceivable to believe there's enough margin between the two cards, aesthetically speaking, to explain a 2.5 difference in technical grade and the cash that may/should or may/should not go along with it. To a lesser extent it reminds me of my 1951 Bowman Willie Mays in PSA 6 that is currently being offered for sale :p

If indeed there is a wrinkle which i can not see, then i think based on their standard the card was over graded (ONLY if there is a wrinkle). The only way i can see the 7.5 is that they felt the card was a 9.5 and the wrinkle brought it down to a 7.5.
I do like the color on the 10 assuming it is not over saturated by the scan.
I would love to buy 7.5 cards that look like that any day of the week. Saves me $$$$ & the card looks just as good.
Buy the card and not the grade. That is my rule when purchasing cards.
Again, i am jealous and if you ever grow tired of the card drop me a line :D

Ruben, will do. :)

Once again for all reading I can 100% assure everyone there is no wrinkle. Starting to feel like Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop..."It's not a tumor!"

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John,
I don't know how you can stand looking at that card or your face in the mirror knowing what shwag copy of the '34 Gerhig you have. :p
JimB

Looks more like a crease.

Maybe it was torn there slightly and has been expertly repaired.:)

Perhaps that "minor print schmack" was where John had originally written his name, then changed his mind and erased it?:D

I wasn't regrading, sorry if it seemed that way.

Your point is a good one. There are differences, but are those differences a nice cars worth, or assuming it gets crazy, a cheap house? I just don't see that.

Steve B

Back scan from the original auction -- the little mark on the right border doesn't appear to go through to the back.