Is this Overgraded?
 

With the talk about PSA being more strict lately I had a friend with better eyes than me come over and look at some cards last nite. This is a PSA 4, is it overgraded? Wrinkle on left is visible on back, and part of the "g" in King is missing on back. I don;t want to sell it or trade it and get complaints! You guys know a lot more than me. Thanks for any ideas!

I'm not sure what the PSA criteria for creases is. That's a light crease to me but I'd put it at VG. The centering on the front is nice. I'd be willing to guess the grader missed the small crease because they probably handle so many cards a day and after a while it just becomes mundane and complacency sets in.

I'd just call it a weak 4. I've seen so many cards graded with defects that should have been considered but missed by the grader. Many of the small defects are difficult to find unless you're really looking the card over closely. But then again, isn't that what people pay for when they send a card in for grading? Oh, that's right, you always hope the grader misses those little things... :p

I don't think 4's should have creases, but I think PSA allows for them? The centering is almost perfect. Call it a 3.5? It's a great looking card.

Would not grade over 2 if submitted now

Why have a 1-10 scale if a 110-year old card that looks that good is a 2 at best? The scale is completely broken if that is the case.

Lajoie
 

Hi- 4 looks right to me. Far too many collectors and graders want to cripple
old cards for minor flaws. Beautiful! Trent King

I agree, but I didn't think the scale was supposed to change with the age of the card.

Regardless of the assigned grade the card will sell strong because it looks great!
Enjoy it, keep it for the long term and forget about number grades.

Echoing many others, that card is beautiful. Light crease doesn't affect the face or body. If you have to sell, deal with a collector that buys the card and not the grade.

Sent from my SM-G9900 using Tapatalk

Thank guys! I didn't even know it had a crease so with my bad eyes I can enjoy it anyway! Back when they graded it maybe it was a 4 and now it would maybe be lower but it's good enough for me I guess. When I have to sell it I'll disclose the crease (when I bought it the seller did not). Thanks again!

PSA used to have easy to copy/paste grading standards. It looks like then went to not so easy to cut/paste viewable grading standard.

Here's what they have for PSA4:

A PSA VG-EX 4 card's corners may be slightly rounded. Surface wear is noticeable but modest. The card may have light scuffing or light scratches. Some original gloss will be retained. Borders may be slightly off-white. A light crease may be visible. Centering must be 85/15 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the back.

Edited to add - it's a nice card with the crease. It's not that noticeable. Enjoy it!

Scott,

Don't know the exact answer, but in an attempt to possibly try and provide a logical answer to your question, maybe because since card grading became a thing, the modern cards issued since then are all made using modern manufacturing techniques that create better overall card quality and appearance, while using possibly superior materials. Plus, most people/collectors now know and realize that a card's condition is what helps to create its value, so modern cards are typically not treated and handled at all in the same manner as cards were when I was a kid, and prior.

So now for the last 20-30 years or so you have the preponderance of cards being kept in as pristine condition and shape as possible, way different than cards made prior to that. TPGs are supposed to be grading ALL cards, regardless of when they were made, using the same consistent measures and standards though, right? So think about this. Earlier vintage and pre-war cards were never originally expected to become collectibles worth much of anything. So, they were usually well loved and handled mostly by kids, if not ultimate just tossed by Moms across the country as their kids grew up and moved out. The vast majority of those older cards are probably in what we'd consider today to be in the lower to maybe mid-grade range of conditions. But look at the more modern cards that collectors now expect to be worth something in the future. The vast majority of them aren't originally acquired and handled by kids anymore, they're mostly acquired and kept as nice as possible by adults, probably in what we'd consider in at least NM and higher grades.

So when the TPGS first got started, they used the grades to delineate between the most common types and conditions of cards out there that they were receiving for grading, which back then were mostly the vintage and older cards. There were so few perfect and pristine condition cards that they didn't worry about having to really grade those so the collecting public could say if one seemingly perfect card really was more perfect than the next. See, the grading of cards sort of started around the exact same time as what many may view as the start of the modern card era, where all the cards manufactured are almost always perfect and pristine. Nowadays though, the preponderance of cards being submitted to TPGs are all these modern, virtually perfect and pristine cards. But the TPGS can't just follow the old original grading standards they started out with and just give all these new cards 9s and 10s, based on and in line with their original, older grading standards. That doesn't allow for dealers and sellers to differentiate between the grades on all these "perfect" modern cards so they can ask even more money for those "special few" highest graded ones. Also, if the TPGs ended up just grading everything new as 9s and 10s, people would eventually realize that their services were kind of worthless, because every new card pulled from a pack today should be perfect from the start, so why bother going to a TPG to tell you what everyone already knew and/or thought then? The card companies have already perfected this scheme by creating their 1 of 1s and other manufactured card rarities. The grading scheme is to perpetuate the idea and extend that perception that there are only a very select few highest graded, perfect cards out there among the rest of the modern cards that aren't manufactured rarities, so now the dealers, AHs, TPGs, and others in the collecting industry can profit off collectors as well alongside the card manufacturers by having the prices of these so-deigned perfect cards rise exponentially above the value of the rest of the just mint condition cards, the balance of which most all modern cards seem to fall in, at least to me.

The result is that over the years the TPGs have had to change their focus on delineating between low to mid-grade cards to now delineating mostly between NM-M to Gem Mint perfect cards, as the preponderance of submissions has shifted from older to modern cards, and has caused them to maybe have to re-evaluate how they previously graded those lower grade cards. The proper thing to possibly have been done would have been to realize that there was a decided difference in thinking between older vintage/pre-war cards and collectors, and the new modern cards and collectors, and maybe actually have two distinct sets of grading standards and measures to account for the differences between the two. But that would have called for even more work and effort on the part of the TPGs, and possibly created a split or rift among older and new collectors, or even just confused the heck out of those people that collected both modern and vintage. I'm guessing that if any TPG had ever considered doing that for even a second, they also may have thought about how if the other TPGs didn't immediately follow suite, their decision could be taken badly by the collecting community, and they could lose business/customers as a result. So they just end up doing nothing in that regard.

These grading differences between older cards and collectors, and the more modern cards and their collectors, seem oddly akin to the differences in baseball itself in some ways, and how the game has changed and morphed over the years. Especially in the way baseball and its players are looked at, measured, and compared. The statisticians and numerical experts have all tried to put their measurement standards and techniques towards baseball and the comparison of players across time and eras by developing all these fancy advanced stats and such that everyone seems to quote and point to time and again when comparing players, much like how collectors point to TPG grades when comparing the condition of their cards. But when it comes to numbers, it is commonly known that these modern statistics also seem to carry a somewhat modern game bias, based more on how the game is played today, rather than how it was played say in pre-war times. This switch in the preponderance of cards (modern vs. old) being submitted to TPGs seems to have possibly created a similar type of bias against older vintage/pre-war cards as well. What may have looked like a really nice card to an older, vintage collector, may look more like a piece of junk to a modern card collector. And over time as the modern collectors enter and slowly take over the hobby, so do their thoughts and opinions. Food for thought, and a possible explanation on the seemingly changing grading standards and measures of vintage/pre-war cards. The TPGs, and their graders, are merely "going with the flow", and not a whole heck of a lot us older vintage collectors can really say or do about it, is there?

I was just going to say grading is random at best; corrupt at worst.

It looks like there is a second crease on the same side, close to the top of Joss’ head.

Are the white spots in the yellow background paper loss or a printing defect? I often have a hard time telling from a scan of graded cards.

4 seems to be a very generous grade even before the standards shifted. I would grade it a G-VG in my catalog spreadsheet if it was my card, and expect PSA would give it a 2. However, it looks great and that it’s a 2-2.5 says more about how heavily the 10 point scale is weighted to the top end than it does the card. When 8-10 is almost or entirely arbitrary and appears the same, it forces an opposite situation at the bottom end.

A few thoughts:

- If the card is not trimmed, then a numerical grade is in order. It's tough to determine without looking at the sides of the edges. The third side, if you will. I only mention this because the card looks a bit short from top to bottom. Yes, I realize T206 and other cards issued 100+ years ago do vary in size naturally.

- So, if a numerical grade is in order...does a 4 make sense for this card? These days, people flock to the Altar of Almighty Centering. Sharp, in focus cards get slammed for being o/c. Cards with soft corners and/or poor registration get big bumps for being centered. This card has good "eye appeal" going for it, so a 4 makes sense.

- I personally wouldn't give a card the VG-EX grade with a crease, even a very minor one. The crease on that Joss is beyond minor. I'd cap it at VG. However, if we're talking about me saying 3 and PSA saying 4, we're not worlds apart.

It doesn't look like that's from paper loss. If it's just a print defect, I wouldn't worry about that detail.

What is the serial number? Or the first two digits of it at least? That should tell you when it was graded and to which goalposts we're measuring against. I would give this card a 3.

LOL

Not saying some of that randomness and corruption may not be involved as well. But. does anything I was saying make sense to you or others as to a possible legit reason grading may be seen as changing over time? I'm going to guess a majority of the TPG graders out there today are not all old farts, like a lot of us here on Net54 seem to be. Plus, most all the original graders these TPGs first started out with have likely been replaced over the years by now, with newer, younger people as well.

Yes... I agree. Everything you said makes sense. I was just in a hurry to get out of the house, haha.

The person who graded the Joss probably left PSA years ago. Much of the grade you receive is based on which employee is randomly assigned to grade the card upon it's review. Add to that the assumption that the newest batch of graders is likely younger, and is more in tune with modern card standards (which doesn't exactly favor pre-war cards).

I enjoyed reading your well thought out post, and could not add much to it. But on a more general note, I would say to take the assigned grade with a grain of salt, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder (not to be confused with the holder ;)).

Is that PSA or SGC ?

It makes sense to me. When grading was new, there wasn't an overwhelming percentage of mint cards coming to PSA. These days, there is a much larger percentage of cards going from pack to sleeve to slab, never touched by human hands.

As a result, grading companies may have adjusted their standards. These days, they want to differentiate between:

• Mint
• Gem Mint
• Pristine
• Black Label
• Gold Label
• Super Duper "mine's better than yours" Label

*sigh*

Grading companies are catering to collector demand. If people want to collect plastic with silly "weenie wagging contest" numbers, so be it.

The natural progression, of course, is the Spinal Tap Labels:

"These go to eleven!"

.

Thank you Eric, someone who gets what I was saying.

Oh yes, absolutely still take everything with a big grain of salt. you've got that right.

And as for not being able to add much to my posts, you probably know me, I don't normally leave much to be added. LOL

Don't think it matters, probably relates to all the longer term TPGs that have seen major changes in the graders and their emphasis over the years. One TPG may be predominantly more modern in what they grade these days than another, and thus may be subject to more modern experience and bias in their graders than another. But overall things seem to be trending in a similar fashion as the modern market takes a larger and larger portion of the hobby every day.

They don't make anymore T206 cards than are already out there, but every single day there are more and more nearly perfect modern cards being sold and put into the hobby.

From my limited experience with TPG's this one would have been a 4 in SGC holder and a 3 in PSA. If sent in today it is probably a 3 in a SGC holder and a 2.5 or 3 from PSA. When I send in cards now it is usually a mix of my vintage cards and my son's new shinny cards. I simply read through each of the TPG's published grading standards and submit to each of them accordingly. Their scales do not match exactly, so sometimes I will go with SGC, sometimes PSA and I have even tried CSG recently with cards we are grading strictly for our PC. There are certain vintage cards that I will only send to SGC (Exhibit cards). I have noticed that SGC has gotten much stricter on T206 cards over the last 9 months, especially in the 3-5 grades.
Just my opinion the TPG's each have their place right now, but before submitting to any of them, people really need to take the time to read through the TPG's grading standards and make sure their standards meet your own standards, realizing they all have minute differences, especially in the lower graded cards (2-6), meaning what is a 3 under one company's standards is only ever going to be a 1.5 or 2 with another company.

It’s a beautiful card and I would be proud to have it. I do feel it is overgraded and would put my thoughts in the 2.5 camp.

Does not degrade my like of it one bit.