Originally Posted by luciobar1980 (Post 2176956)

Ok, well I guess that answers my question. In my mind a "1" was always the bare minimum that any card could grade as long as it was not altered? I guess though, the more I think about it that doesn't make sense as you could have a card missing even more than what my card is missing, and at what point do you draw the line.

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469 (Post 2176957)

The card needs to be square. Yes, it can be creased all to hell.....but if there are a chunk of card missing where it is no longer having an outline, then you won't get a grade. For example, there was an absolute beauty of a 1954 Hank Aaron rookie card in last Weds HUggins and Scott auction. It was missing a corner. Around the size of a nickle.....totally gone. That card would be authentic only as well....and I would love to have had it. I hate that you wasted your money like that, but that was the obviously outcome. You should have gotten it slabbed.

Originally Posted by NiceDocter (Post 2176962)

Are you sure someone didn’t try to “even it up “ by slightly trimming the area around the P on the hat? Can’t tell from that one picture…. not that it would change much … it’s an Altered Authentic card… still pretty cool.

Originally Posted by luciobar1980 (Post 2176972)

In other words, if I take a nice 56 topps card, crumble it up in my hands.. even if that card is complete that doesn't mean it will or should grade a 1.

Originally Posted by obcbobd (Post 2176976)

I think it would grade a "1" as its complete. Your card is not complete a lot of the top border has been removed. .i.e it is "altered"

Originally Posted by luciobar1980 (Post 2176964)

I dunno, it seems sort of arbitrary to me.

Originally Posted by doug.goodman (Post 2176980)

You paid for an opinion, and opinions are arbitrary.

From the interwebs :

o·pin·ion
/əˈpinyən/
noun
a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

NOT NECESSARILY BASE ON FACT OR KNOWLEDGE

Originally Posted by luciobar1980 (Post 2176985)

Thanks for taking time to point that out.

Originally Posted by Snapolit1 (Post 2176987)

Totally sympathize with OP. There are more unwritten rules for grading companies than there is in baseball days. Here is a graded card that is not a complete border. Admittedly the missing piece is not large. But it ain't a complete border.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/11256655995...YAAOSwCbtZvcq1

I always assume that if you had the rattiest ass looking card imaginable it would get a 1 or a 10 assuming it was what it was purporting to be and there was no evidence that someone deliberately manipulated it.

Originally Posted by luciobar1980 (Post 2176964)

Yeah, total waste of money.

See, that wasn't clear to me and still doesn't really make sense to me in my mind. It's sort of a gray area to me. Where does it say a missing piece automatically makes the card ungradeable?

Here's 2 extreme examples:

a) You have an absolutely pristine card except it's missing a corner, nice and evenly cut. That card is ungradeable

b) you have a "complete" card that has been creased to hell, run over, dirty. This card is gradeable?

I dunno, it seems sort of arbitrary to me.

Originally Posted by GRock (Post 2177175)

Here's one I have had since the 80's. Never really thought of wasting money on grading it just wondered if it would even be an "A". A neatly trimmed top edge with some tape to reinstall.


https://i.ibb.co/m6HrNp0/54mays.jpg

Originally Posted by jchcollins (Post 2177307)

To make sense of some of these seemingly silly and arbitrary decisions that professional graders make, you have to understand the history of grading and how it evolved within the hobby. The standards that a PSA or SGC generally use today are a carefully constructed and heavily modified heirloom of the way things were done originally in the 1970's and even earlier, with some totally new and random things added in that somehow survived the cut. The original MO for graders like PSA was to "set standards" and therefore prevent opinion swings between dealers and hobbyists, and to cut out a lot of alteration that was rampant in the hobby at the time. 30 years on, well yeah - they didn't really accomplish those goals - but they started very profitable businesses - so of course they ran with it.

For starters in this case, the difference between "Authentic" and "1-Poor" is heavily influenced by the card hobby notion (unlike in some other expensive hobbies) that alteration is always to deceive, and therefore is BAD, and so most altered cards - including some which look stunning - are automatically WORSE than cards with "honest" wear. This is how a card that has been trimmed a sixteenth of an inch and is otherwise minty in appearance gets a PSA AA, and the same card which is barely recognizable and may have indeed been run over by a truck might be in a PSA 1 - Poor slab. If a card is not necessarily altered, but just missing so much that it's generally considered to be worse than poor - then it will sometimes be slabbed as Authentic without the Altered.

Your Clemente IMO was a case of the grader having a bad day, or perhaps it was just one of their new graders (they have a lot right now...) that honestly doesn't know better or wasn't trained properly. I think that card should have been slabbed "Authentic"; as they have slabbed worse examples of cards missing pieces that way before. True "trimming" is generally done with the intent to be subtle and to deceive - if it was not some kid back in 1959 or whenever who did some obvious trimming, but with the intent of making the card fit into something smaller like a picture frame, or maybe even later with plastic pages designed for smaller cards. Your card is not "trimmed" per se, but missing a chunk.

At the end of the day, remember that yes - grading is subjective due to the necessity of tying a technical standard (generally definable) back to eye appeal of the card (something that will always be in the eye of the beholder). Grading companies count on this discrepancy, and it's one of their best kept secrets to keep cards flowing in, not to mention the large number of collectors who pop their cards in frustration and resubmit them, hoping to get a higher number on a piece of paper sealed up in a piece of plastic. Convincing collectors that they are experts who apply standards evenly (they aren't, and they don't...) is the great marketing genius of TPG's.

If you think your card is bad, look at the "half a T206 Wagner" graded early in the game as "Genuine" by PSA which has been making headlines recently for heading to the auction block. There are no true standards really at any given moment. It's just whatever the graders feel like doing when they first look at your card.

Originally Posted by robw1959 (Post 2177324)

It looks like the "half a Wagner" card you're referring to is actually the second card ever graded by PSA. So they gave the first one, a trimmed T206 Wagner, an 8 and the second one a "Genuine," which would translate as "Authentic" in today's grading. Two over-graded cards is not an inspiring start for PSA. Admittedly, they hadn't figured a lot of things out at that point.
https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...06-wagner-psa/

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469 (Post 2177323)

They would have if the OP had requested it. He specifically said he DID NOT want that. He wanted a number grade. That card simply would not have gotten a number grade. Put it this way.....if they had cut away the entire background and only left Clemente, to the point that is isn't a card anymore, but only a cutout of Clemente, would THAT be worthy of a grade? If the answer is no, then you understand the point I am trying to make.