ISA Grading
 

In another forum, saw a lot of discussion about ISA Grading. Has anyone used it? Thoughts?

No. Won't use them.

Read up about the owner...however with that said the owners of a few other grading companies are not much better and people use them.

I believe there are discussions about Mr. Koonce on Blowout. He is also all over YouTube.

Not really interested in ISA at all - I do believe they are more popular in Canada tho.

Here's the rub directly from their grading scale :

An ISA 7 may have weak corners. Much of the original gloss of the card is maintained, but the surface of the card may be worn some. An ISA 7 could have staining on the reverse of the card. It’s possible that the card will be slightly out of focus or suffer from print dots. An ISA 7 is centered at least 75/25 on the front and 90/10 on the back

That and the fact that they dont look anywhere close to having the collector acceptance of a PSA or SGC or BVG or even CSG.

IMHO

I am not interested in the smaller, start up grading companies. There are already too many with the big 4...

And a card from the only grading company I will submit to, currently...

I do appreciate how CSG handles and protects oddly-sized cards

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...peaker%201.png

I just stumbled upon this on CSG's site https://www.csgcards.com/news/series...-alert/?page=1

It's nice that they are sharing some of what they are catching with the public.

I think PSA has gone to a similar system recently, although I'm not sure if it's applied consistently.

Fun fact: ISA has been around for 10+ years. No one cares about them which is why they are grouped in with random startup companies like HGA, FCG etc

Don’t ask the owner why none of his collection is in ISA holders either. You won’t get a legit answer.

Not here to defend ISA in the slightest - I wouldnt give them the time of day.....but its not entirely clear to me that the owner of a company should own cards graded by his own company. That is a clear and obvious conflict of interest.

They may very well be just fine, but to me it's kind of like what's the point? Especially with vintage, cards not graded by one of what the hobby considers the big 4 aren't really worth more in a slab than they are raw. I have a couple of odds and ends like this which I have picked up simply because I wanted the card and thought it was in reasonable shape for the price - but I don't seek them out. In many cases the grades and grading consistency don't seem very trustworthy.

Might actually be worth less in some cases because collectors assume that the grader was either compromised or incompetent, due to the high number of fakes or trims that got into their holders before they went kaput.

And before someone says it, this isn’t intended to slander any of the big 4 current graders.

Right. If I ever had something I was going to sell in one of those slabs, I'd probably pop it first.

Well, Leon, they graded that card accurately.

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It isn't. I saw someone's brand new return from PSA that is a rattler.

Brilliant!

/facepalm

Yes, they did. And I thought all 25 cards in the submission were accurately graded. And as a plus, their head grader knows what a Yum Yum card looks like!
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I’ll put Reza or Lummy up against Andy in a knowledge battle any day of the week. I know you like him and he may be a nice guy but come on.and I’d put Derek up against Andy and his whole damn staff.

When ISA first came out the had ads placed in several hobby magazines and when I saw one I was floored by the mistakes in the copy. So much so that I actually kept an image of it.

There are four distinct errors in the ad they placed.

1. They failed to capitalize their own name: In the first sentence, they typed their name "international Sports Authentication".

2. They offer "expert grading, great rates, and quick turnaroudn".

3. They ensure a "tip-notch" grading relationship as opposed to a "top-notch" one.

4. When informing us of their location, they abbreviate Michigan as "Mi" instead of the proper state abbreviation method of "MI".

I knew back then that if they were this incompetent with their own ad, then they likely would be grading anything very well either.

At least that was my impression.

Sorry for the blurry image, it was the best I could do for now.




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