Forum Shopping within grading companies
 

So this card has me drooling (currently on Goodwin at $7,500). It is gorgeous. The back doesn't bother me a bit. But you know what does? This is a 5-figure card (or close to it), in a psa 5 holder, but if this card goes to sgc, it is a 1.5 due to the paper loss. Correct me if I am wrong here, but that has been my experience both personally, and from my observations.
The lack of consistency within grading companies themselves is bad enough, but now we have astronomically large differences from one grading company to another, which results in forum shopping! The card has paper loss? DONT SEND TO SGC! That card is a 5 to psa, but a 1.5 to SGC. You have a handcut Bazooka Mantle or Ruth BigHead? DONT SEND TO PSA, because they won't give a numeric grade. SGC WILL! They are different companies, and have every right to grade cards as they see fit. But these huge discrepancies bring the legitimacy and purpose of the grading process into question.

totally agree. and if that's not bad enough...disparities amongst the different TPG'ers grading standards...its disparity amongst one TPG'ers standards over time...such as the case with PSA.

It's a big crock!!!!!!

One need to look no further than the biggest card in the hobby, which as we know should be be in an Authentic Trimmed holder!

That's a misgrade by PSA. If you crack it out and send it back to PSA, it would get a 1.5 or 2.

See Pete's comment above.

And let's assume for a second that is true. Let's say it's really a psa 2. Would guys shell-out 7500-plus on it? It's the SAME CARD isn't it? Only the holder has changed. Are we card collectors or are we flip collectors? It is such a joke, and we continue to feed into the myth by buying holders over cards.

JuST A Few Observations:

1st ~ When PSA were iN their Primal Stage
They would Boost their Grade Opinion to an Extreme!
There's NothiN "PROFESSIONAL" About THiS iN Any Way Shape or Form,
Hence the PSA 8 Wagner!

2nd ~ to Note PSA's Primal Beginnings We Should Look to the "Flip" itself,
It Tells us Alot!
THiS one of Mr. Cobb's wit a Green Background,
The PSA Flip is From Their "Primal Stage"...
Way Back THeN, THiS was a PSA 5 to Them,
At THaT Time, Some Even Agreed to THiS Standard.

If You Look at the "Rounded White Corners, Wit the Red Background"
THiS Configuration Tells us THaT "The Slab is Very Old!!!"

JuSt to End...
When it Comes to "Flips", I Only Remember the Basics
I Do Know THaT There are a Few Members oN Here
THaT Could Teach a Class oN "Flips: Bar Codes & Configurations"

https://goldinauctions.com/1909_11_T...-LOT29129.aspx

That's true BUT you can argue that if that card were graded a 2, it would have superior eye appeal to practically any other green Cobb that was graded a 2. So even card collectors (and not flip collectors) would still value the card significantly above the average VCP for a 2. Saying all of that, I don't think the card should sell for what a 5 does.

Agree with Gary.

That card is a 2 at best. A nice visually 2 and will sell at a large premium...but no more a 5 than a 10.

The amount of money these grading companies make a year is unreal and people keep feeding them more of it just to have a number and a slab for there card. If that card was without a holder and you tried to sell it verses some clown slabbing it and putting a number on it that he decides and only him so now it's 2 maybe 3 times as much in value? Maybe even more depending on who it is. All because it's slabbed with a number. When you think about the grading companies and only them deciding what the value of a card is because there is some number on a slab it hard to make sense of it. Another words basicly 3 companies controlling the whole market and what the value of cards are. Can't we do that on our own? It's funny when a guy wants to have a card reslabbed to see about a higher number or he'll say PSA will get me more money than SGC. Right there it's all about the slab and not the card so fueling the grading companies more money. They have to sit back and just love it.

Definitely an old grade. What the seller should do is send it back in to PSA and have them refund the difference of what they paid and whatever the card is worth as a PSA 2 (which I would expect it to grade now).

Is the white spot on the front also a tiny paper loss? If so, it might be a 1.5 now at PSA. Does the back actually have paper loss or is it possibly a print defect? There seems to be mild discoloration where paper loss would be, but I don't see any tears.

You can expand the card fairly large in this link posted earlier.
https://goldinauctions.com/1909_11_T...LOT29129.aspx#

There's TWO obvious spots of paper loss and glue residue on the back. Not tobacco..........glue.

It was obviously soaked out of an album or scrapbook.

I thought I was annoyed when I picked up a 1960 Jim Brown PSA 7 without a scan of the back and found the back centering was like 120/-20 when I had it in hand.

If I spent that kind of money on a PSA5 Cobb, and it showed up looking like that, I'd be furious. Luckily there's a nice back scan on that listing so you can judge for yourself.

That said, I've never sent in a card to a TPG in my life, though I've occasionally bought graded cards, and there is certainly a benefit to their existence.

I've been around long enough to remember the old wild west days of SCD and Card Shows when one dealers NM was another dealers VG was another dealers EX was another dealers GD/VG.

Thanks. I read about one earlier, but wasn't sure they were talking about the same one. Grading from 20 years ago is a little different than today. Definitely should be sent back by the new owner for a rebate. Nice that it's also a factory 30 card...

When thinking about grading companies, you always have to keep one thing in mind. It's a business.

Baseball itself (except for specific things like ground rules at certain stadiums), is governed by universal rules. An out is an out and a home run is a home run, no matter where you are playing. The rules are codified. When an expansion team enters the league, they, too, play by the same exact rules as everyone else.

But that is not the case with grading companies. They do not share standards that fall under universal guidelines. What's an 8 to PSA may not be an 8 to SGC or any other company. They are not grading cards by using the same specific rules, so there will never be uniformity. Quite frankly, graders can do whatever they want and apply their own standards to the task at hand, just like Ford conducts business differently than Chevrolet.

Ford and Chevy CREATE their own product. In the case of grading companies, they EVALUATE an already existing product. And unlike Ford and Chevy, the decisions made by these graders as to the condition of a product could mean tens of thousands of dollars on one card. I didn't mean in my post to imply that they should conduct their businesses identically. I am saying that us collectors are putting too much stock into their opinions by putting too much value on flips. Their divergent grading policies and arbitrary means of valuation was at the heart of my post. It has gotten to the point where we ship cards to particular companies depending on the particular flaw. Trimmed? Send to BVG and cross your fingers. Paper loss? Send to psa. Handcut? Sgc is your company. We are hungrily feasting on their opinions, rather than judging the cards for ourselves. We are paying 200k for a 52 Willie Mays 9 that looks virtually idenntical, and in some cases not as nice, as many 7s or 8s. This Green Cobb was one of many of my observations about the insanity of grade-worship. I, for one, WISH that Cobb were a 2; I would buy it happily at a fraction of the price that it will inevitably sell for.

For those that didn't see/read it, I did this little experiment just a short time ago. (These were purchased already graded)
2 were recent/newly graded, which was a surprise to me as I always found older graded to be graded less harsh. From what I have seen lately, PSA has lessened/lowered their standard or they are screwing up bad lately. :confused:
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=235854

Regardless, none of my cards will be sent to PSA anytime soon.

Well you dont go by the grade on the holder when you bid..so there are probably others like you that wont bid as much due to the paperloss so the card wont get what other 5s would get. We have seen super 3's sell for 2 grades higher as well so i dont think this is such a big deal. Someone that is just buying the number 5 wont be able to sell it to people like you for a price he likes.

Its still better than no grading company. How many returns would there be when a seller says a card is near mint and the buyer upon holding the card argues its only excellent. Would be ridiculous. People already return graded cards as it is but it would be much worse if all cards were raw in regards to returning cards due to not being described accurately

I agree with you there Jake. There are a lot of smart collectors out there who will pay over vcp on exceptional cards, and often times crappy cards sell under vcp. Even if this were a 2, it would have gotten STRONG bids well over vcp.

Matty's Tale of TPG's ~ Revisited ~
 

JuST Because...

I Sent iN my E95 of The "BiG SiX"
About a Year Ago...

To All 3 TPG's!!!

Here is WHaT THeY Thought...

"WHat Do You THiNK!?!?"

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ale+of+tpg%27s

I'm confused. You're acting like for some reason you disagree with my post, but I'm saying exactly what you're saying. The graders don't use the same standards, so there are always going to be reasons why number-chasing people choose one over the other. And my remark about Ford and Chevy was obviously in regard to the fact that they are both in the same business, yet do things differently (just like grading companies 'do the same thing' but differently). It doesn't matter that they CREATE their own product instead of EVALUATING an already existing product. That has nothing to do with my point.

It may seem that way because I made the distinction, but you are right, we are basically in agreement.

Aw, c'mon man, we need a "fight" today on the main board.:D

No matter what you are collecting, be it hummells or yadro pieces or Victorian music boxes, people are always going to go nuts and pay a small fortune where someone can say this is 1 of 1 or 1 of 2 graded by so and so agency. Human nature.

In the older cards, obviously a lot of the premiums for even small grade bumps has to do with the pop reports.

But those are dangerous assumptions people make. Not only are there ungraded cards in collections that, if/when graded would alter the pop reports, but there are likely still attic finds that will do the same. I would never play that lottery but many do.


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FWIW I sent in an N28 in very similar condition last year (a bit more back damage but no staining) and it got a 2 from PSA.

I used to get my music boxes slabbed, but it made them hard to hear. :D

... and comic books are hard to read when they are graded too.

I cannot wait until someone starts grading video games and DVD's, and sealing them in slabs.

video games
 

they do slab video games.


https://cgagrading.com/VideoGameGrader/default.aspx

Look who made his way into a new holder and is currently on eBay. When it sold at Goldin in April, I posted this thread. You can see the pic in the old holder in post #1. The card is gorgeous, but with the paper loss, "there is no way it's a 5 in a NEW holder," we thought!. Looks like psa didn't want to take the hit and pay the difference.

At least it didn't bump to a 5.5.

me and 2000 other guys just laughed.

Ridiculous.

Don't get it. From another thread?

Would have both of these cards, in number sequence, (98, 99) been graded by the same grader? :confused:
Personally, I give up trying to figure out card grading!
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/1952-TOPPS-ED...kAAOSwr7tZgqgH

Grading companies miss things. Why does this call into question the legitimacy of the whole industry? Doctors miss things sometimes. So do lawyers. So do people who draft players for the NFL. The folks at NASA missed something a few years ago that led to a terrible tragedy. Judges, teachers and detective miss things. So people post examples here of stuff that was mishandled. What does this prove other than every human endeavor is subject to human error?

To be fair, I don't think Orlando is complaining about the missed grade so much as people being slaves to the flip in terms of how much they pay.

In my opinion, this goes on and on far too often. I am unsure how many TPG's PSA employs but you would think it was a 100 or more based on the grading discrepancies that one sees far too often.

Look at those cards I just posted above, 98 and 99. There is no way both are 4's. Miller is either a 2-3 or Pellagrini is a 5-6. Even the back on the Miller is stained and Pellagrini's is clean.

Color me confused, but this inconsistency, over and over again, leads me to believe these guys don't really know what they are doing.

Thanks Peter, but not this time. This card actually sold for only 9k in April (with BP),so people took the paper loss into consideration and didn't pay "5-prices." I just recognized a card I posted about monthsback and realized it was in a new holder. I was shocked to find that it made it into the new holder at a 5 despite the obvious paper loss. So I guess PSA made the same mistake TWICE. This appears to be ok with Steve, so there is nothing to see here.

I am not sure it gets much if any review on reholder.

As long as the slab is not compromised there is no review of the card.

Irv, it's the same card. It's the same serial number. It WAS in an old psa holder at a 5. Then it was sent to re-slab and psa left it at a 5 rather than correcting the mistake. It's not a big deal, because, after all, they are human.

I personally know a board member who sent in for a reholder and they knocked his 51 mantle like 2 grades. They apologized, and told him they couldn't allow that error to continue. They paid him the difference.

Never heard of that happening. Glad to know they do it sometimes and refunded the difference. It still had to really suck for the owner of the rookie Mantle.

I am much more concerned about altered cards in holders than overgraded ones. We can spot the overgrading from scans for the most part and bid/pay accordingly. Highly skilled alteration, much less frequently.

I have heard that before, and that's only part of the problem I see with TPG's, namely PSA. Like has been talked about, that card should have never been graded a 5, but, as you say, it's a human factor, but it's hard to believe, unless the owner specifically requested no grading change, that PSA didn't correct it when it had the chance.

The 2 cards I posted just reiterated my thoughts about grading in general. I have seen many that make me scratch my head but thinking those 2 were likely graded by the same person, it just reconfirms my thoughts that grading has turned into a joke, if it wasn't already?

I think of the Dimaggio card with PWCC, and all the others I have seen since joining the site.
I have, time and time again, thought about getting some of my high number/value cards graded but based on what I have seen, they could grade at 2's or could grade at 5-6's? I am not about to take the chance, and that's all it is, nor spend all that money knowing my cards could come back at such a low grade. It simply isn't worth it, imo, and will add no value to my cards if they do.

Of course, I could roll the dice, but I'm not much of a gambler, and hope they come back at least 4-5's? It's frustrating, especially after you think you have educated yourself only to see what you have learned get thrown right out the window again. :mad:

You would think so, lol, but he was actually thrilled. He got the card on the cheap because it was clearly overgraded. If I recall correctly, he was only into the card for like $1600 after psa cut him the check.