[DocScoot]

Funny you listed the 89 Griffey as the example, I agree this is one where the grading has become beyond crazy, not sure if the price gap between 9 and 10 drives crazy grading criteria or vice versa. I just spent way too much money having about a dozen of these graded from my childhood collection. I had maybe 25, picked the dozen that I thought had a chance of grading a 10, if not I would have been happy with a 9. I've always been pretty OCD so these went right from pack to penny sleeve and top loader in 1989. Maybe half of those were perfectly centered front and back to my eye, with complete holograms. The hologram is what throws off the grade on a ton of these, no way to even get a 9 with an incomplete hologram anymore (didn't used to be the case judging from a lot of the 9s I see on eBay). Long story short, they all came back 7/8. Some of the 7s are clearly better than the 8s. One of the 8s has a folded over corner in the slab, clear damage during encapsulation. My guess is they're just beyond sick of seeing this card at PSA (I believe there are close to 100,000 of these registered) and largely are just hate grading these now with no care taken. Definitely would like my money back on the grading, but live and learn!