Are grading companies giving out 8 grades or higher on cards pre 1960 anymore?
 

I had dinner with a collector friend last night and we were talking about the recent big time auctions that ended. He noticed that most, if not all, of cards (pre 1960) in those that auctions that were graded 8s or higher were old grades. Most were graded 5 years or older.

For the era that I mentioned (pre 1960), are grading companies not giving out 8s or higher anymore? Anyone graded a card recently and received an 8 or higher? Standards changed?

I agree with your friends observations except of 59 Topps....a lot of them get graded 8’s or higher....pre that good luck..it better be balls on.

For some reason, they are notoriously tough on the 1959 Topps. I never understood why.

I've found them to be notoriously tough from 1909-1969....:D

I've found them notoriously tough on my submissions...

I would guess insiders continue to do well but that's just speculation based on history.

745. “Four is the New Seven” (adage)
As old cards are regularly being hammered by the new brutality of the TPGs, lower slab numbers are not only the order of the day, but are now more acceptable to collectors than ever before.

See also: Higher Heightsing - with high grade examples of cards becoming a rarity due to harsher grading standards, when you see a vintage card with a high number sitting inside of a new holder, you know the graders TRULY deemed it to be outstanding.

See also: Apexceptional - a newly graded vintage card with a high number on the slab.

Except that many are now exchanging old holders for new holders, so an old 8 becomes a new 8

I just got several 9's in a submission 1955 -1964. They were from 1955, 1956 and 1960 respectively. Also got eight 8's and six 7's. I thought all cards were 8's with an outside shot at some 9's.

Except the serial number doesn't change.

I wonder if sneaking in a random Charizard or Pikachu amongst my Lathams and Snodgrasses would brighten their days and make up for the backs not being glossy.

You may have lucked out and got the one friendly grader in the building.

I know that to be true for PSA, but not SGC.
They will give older cards a new 7 digit cert number, although if you look up the cert I do believe it gives the original date of grading.

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PSA has drastically moved the goalposts on us. Nearly all "high-grade" vintage cards are either trimmed, graded eons ago, or both. None of those cards would regrade the same today. Most would grade 2 full grades lower if the serial begins with a 0.

It's still possible to get 8s and 9s, but they're super rare. I've seen some from the 50s sets, but it's far more difficult than it used to be. Most NM-MT cards get 7s and 6s nowadays.

This is frustrating, as I used to be pretty accurate at guessing the grades of my submissions over the past 20 years. I know they've denied changing any grading stipulations, but the results are clearly obvious.

This is the answer, whether they admit it or not. And since every thread needs a card, here's a great example of two 1962 cards with the same grade. Both beautiful cards that I'm thrilled to own, but the Kaline would be a 5 today, and the Brooks might have been an 8 if it was graded 15 years ago.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...f6c49be1_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...fe0ab542_b.jpg

SGC was the first to make adjustments to much stricter grading standards from what I experienced and was seeing. PSA followed suit and seems to have taken it a step further. Of course both deny grading standards have changed.

Nat laughed about such a silly notion in a recent interview and said it is more likely that submitters' expectations account for the disappointment. So I suppose collectively we all need to lower our expectations. At least Nat acknowledged it. Peter from SGC refuses to address the elephant in the room.

I have heard various reasons why this might be happening at SGC and PSA and the one that made sense is that never before has there been so much new crap submitted. Graders have adjusted to seeing mostly nearly perfect pack fresh cards all day long thereby distorting their perspective.

I would agree with this. Grading standards definitely seem to be tougher now than 5+ years ago.

what's funny is that I read an article on coin grading where the writer showed examples of how the standards didn't change in writing, but in practice the grades were becoming more lenient.

This is what I think is mostly the cause. They see so much "perfect" or "near perfect" stuff that they start using more range to define those, and ultimately it ends up compressing the mid- and low-grade stuff into fewer tiers. (To combat this, they could start using more half-grades, but that's probably too easy a suggestion to implement.)

Anyway, as the saying goes, buy the card, not the slab.

What I've always thought was happening was that in the early years of grading, the earlier vintage cards were more dominant in what was being submitted to the TPGs. And as a result, the standards of what was considered as say NM for these older cards that were produced under generally less consistent and lower quality control conditions, along with using inferior quality material, inks, etc., compared to what is used today, were set based on what those earlier vintage cards all seemed to look like. But over the years, the more modern cards, with their higher quality materials, inks, production processes, and seemingly much more stringent quality control standards, have taken over the TPG market.

And when you look at cards from say around 1989, when Upper Deck first came out, to today, you can see the vast improvement in card production and quality for these modern cards versus the earlier, more vintage cards. Hate to admit it, but the overall card quality of modern cards is vastly superior to that of more vintage, pre-1990's cards. Had the TPGs continued using the standards they initially seemed to set for the more vintage cards, it would seem that none of the modern cards would ever end up grading lower than 9's or 10's. But that doesn't necessarily work or help the hobby market for modern cards.

As has been mentioned and questioned on this forum in other threads, there has been speculation that the TPGs needed to differentiate the grading of modern cards so that everything wasn't always just 9's and 10's. This would allow for those few cards that did get the higher 10 grades to then raise the demand for them, and thus their prices, in the eyes of the hobby market. But to do this, they had to really tighten up the standards and measures of what constituted a 10 versus a 9, versus a 7, or lower grade. Which works fine with most all of the newer modern cards with their advanced production techniques and quality. The problem comes though, in how do you then continue to consistently apply these now evolving, seemingly more stringent, standards to all the lower quality vintage cards that previously dominated your grading business? And there's the rub!

Whether intentional or unintentional, TPG graders are going to consistently see more and more modern cards of superior production quality and standards, than they ever did with just looking mostly at more vintage cards like they did in the past. Even if their bosses didn't tell these graders to start being a little more stringent in their grading standards, constantly seeing more and more modern cards of a superior and more consistent quality is eventually going to create some bias in how then then start viewing the lesser quality, older vintage cards. Possibly the only way around that would have been if any of the TPGs proactively came out and stated that they were going to bifurcate the card grading standards, and going forward have two different sets of standards/measures they would use. One more relaxed set of standards for say vintage cards pre-1990s, and the other more stringent set of standards for modern cards say 1990's through today. But then you're potentially upsetting the hobby by trying to openly force a major drastic change on them, that might not go over well. Can especially see that reeking havoc, and pissing off some people in love with Registries, and rankings. And if just one TPG does that, but not the others, that could end up having a negative effect on that TPG's business if their decision ends up not going over well within the hobby community. So, if you're the TPGs, maybe you just shut up and let things evolve naturally on their own and don't rock the boat.

You can easily do an online search to learn that PSA started grading cards in 1991, right at the very beginning of the modern card era supposedly started off in many people's opinion with the issuance of Upper Deck's first ever set in 1989. That was followed by SGC beginning to grade cards in 1998, then Beckett right after in 1999, and finally GAI in the early 2000's. All the high-quality, fancy modern crap was only just starting to come out back then, so the majority of cards being submitted to graders was going to be the earlier, more vintage stuff, that was made using less consistent and lower quality standards, and with inferior materials and production techniques. Nowadays these same TPGs see mostly the newer, super high-quality cards coming in, and now the older vintage cards that used to come in decades ago and looked so good back then, suddenly don't look as good anymore.

Sorry, double post.

To combat it they need to do more than using half grades. They need to keep a few sets of eyes off of the shiny garbage that pays their bills. The 6 to 8 grade on postwar is now 4 to 6 across the board.

I actually thing its silly to honor a prior grade if you reholder.

it would make the newer holder cards more legiit with high grades....they can agree to give a little extra weight on the old grade..but to guarantee to old grade for the new holder doesnt fix any issues...

when you see a new holder you will know the current grading standards are in place..yeah i know its all subjective...but if you have a 6..and they now think its 5.5....still keep it at a 6...but if its a 6..and it should be a 4....make it a 4. or they can just return it in the old slab....

but they wont make as much money on reholder fees..and people with weak 6's trying to show the public 'fresh' grade wont submit it. but the fresh new grades..will be worth more

I agree that the mechanisms pointed out above by Bob are likely culprits. But it is becoming a serious problem for the vintage side of the hobby. Modern is easy to grade. No flaws? Then 10. Nearly flawless? Then 9. And slowly demote from there. Modern cards almost never grade below an 8 unless it was damaged somehow.

I don't believe it's intentional or some sort of pop control effort or anything like that, but these guys have now moved the goalposts on us by two full grades. That's unacceptable. It would be great if we could figure out a way to prove to Nat that this is in fact happening and that it's not just some hobby conspiracy theory being peddled by sour grapes. With some effort, it can be irrifutably proven, but getting him to listen is the challenge

I certainly was not suggesting there was anything intentional. In fact quite the opposite. The graders' frame of reference has changed more dramatically in the last two years than in the 10 preceding years. Vintage has always made up a minority at least in volume of what is submitted.


I don't think Nat is in denial but I think he might not be aware. Or he simply many not care that the graders are applying a two grade deduction for vintage. PSA is a business for him and as a great businessman, you are not going to spend time and money fixing something which is not broken. I am sure vintage submissions are not down, materially, as a result of their harsh grading standards.

I think if the matter were brought to his attention in a non confrontational manner with lots of evidence there is a chance he would attempt to correct the issue.

Yes, exactly my observation as well. I primarily collect postwar vintage mid grade cards. I'm a very active set collector as well, so I see a lot of examples on a daily basis of both recently graded cards and older serial numbered cards. 6s to 8s are indeed now 4s to 6s. Dead mint cards are coming back in 7 holders. And the majority of cards that make their way into 9 holders nowadays, at least from that post war vintage cohort, are cards that have been trimmed. Occasionally, you can still get lucky with a submission, but those days are few and far between now. SGC has also moved the goalposts, but just not by quite as much. 6s to 8s are now 5s to 7s there.

I do think he is in denial though. Or at least he presents that way publicly. He laughs it off and excuses it away every time it gets brought up in interviews. He blames it on submitters being noobs/ignorant and essentially engages in condescension frisbee with his customer base. I like Nat for the most part, but it's a bad look. He's not listening to his customers.

Perhaps he could be persuaded if the situation were right and the data was well presented. But setting that table in the first place and getting him to join you is the challenge.

In my first post on this topic today I opened with the fact that SGC has done the same thing. In fact SGC tightened up before PSA did.

Nat is denying which is different than being in denial. Again, in my first post I noted that in interviews when this has been brought up he chuckles and says nothing has changed and it has to be our expectations. Again, this is business for him. Unless people talk with their money by not using them, he is gonna laugh all the way to the bank and make zero changes.

To that, when Joe was in charge at PSA he did the same thing. He would say the graders have not changed the standards but then you would see shortly after that the standards would loosen up.
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I'm a data scientist who works on problems that are very similar to the problem of "AI" card grading. Here are some links to some of my thoughts on the topic.

Geez, man. I actually started typing this point up, then decided I should get back to work.

They like to say that all their graders can do any card, which makes it sound like everyone is doing anything. Taking that at face value, I posit that it doesn't mean they have to completely silo their graders if they decide to have some specialize. (And they still get to say "everyone can do anything," which is easy to elide from "everyone can do anything.")

At risk of sounding like an organizational consultant, having graders with concentrations builds more knowledge than having a bunch of generalists, which is what it seems like they have right now. Have folks do cross-training (aka, "going on detail").

If they're worried about consistency, they already have published standards with affirmative details. Simply have everyone in those little rooms hew to those standards instead of trying to achieve some goal of relative consistency, which can shift. Emphasizing everybody being a generalist might help homogenize the outputs in the short term, but it seems to have led to inconsistencies over time.

I agree with several previous posts, as it looks like they're pretty accurate on the modern 'shiny' stuff and I believe they get the Poor to Good (1-2 range) stuff graded correctly, but the 4-8 range stuff is really off.

I have an order of 1950's to 70's mid to higher grade cards on their way back to me right now from PSA and every single card is at least 1 grade lower (a couple are 2+ grades lower) than I've been accustomed to over the past 22 years. It seems to me that they take an even harsher grading approach to a card that is even slightly off-center. These new graders are so used to seeing perfectly centered new cards, that 40/60 off center vintage cards are getting hammered.....and it seems that they don't realize vintage cards were manufactured with rougher non-perfect cuts, as compared to modern. It would be great to see different graders for only modern OR only vintage, as mentioned.

Knowing this, I'll just stockpile cards for now and see if anything changes in the future.... and I'll patiently wait each month for their 'We Agree We Brutally Undergraded Everyone's 2021-22 Vintage Card Submissions and Would Like to Fix It Monthly Special'....That'll be the day, LOL :D:D:D

First, they are off far more than .5. I could live with their being off by .5. The issue is far greater than that. So using half grades more often does not address the issue, in the least. They have to see a half grade first in order to use them and presently they cannot distinguish an 8 from a 6.

Next, I could not imagine looking at cards 6 to 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year when most of that time I would be issuing mostly 9s and 10s. It is going to throw off anyone's perspective if they then are assigned a vintage order.

I do not know what the answer is but I feel like this is the explanation for why they are crushing vintage. No adjustment will be made by PSA or SGC unless they see submissions drop off.