I recently ended my employment as a grader with CGC grading. While with them I worked primarily in the eBay authentication, but also did some grading when time permitted. I have seen some myths and assumptions consistently prior to my employment and even more so while employed. I am still under a NDA so I can't give specifics, but I did want to dispel some of these wrong ideas I saw circulating.
Myth 1: "Graders are minimum wage random people off the street"
Well I would hope that the fact that I am now outing myself as a grader, you may see that we aren't "random people off the street". There wasn't a single person that graded/authenticated cards that wasn't a collector in some way or another. A lot of us are incognito on social media and at card shows because we want to avoid conflicts of interest and having to answer too many questions that may go against our NDA. Along with that is that, no, we don't make minimum wage. Like any other job wage was a range based on our level of expertise being brought into the company. I will say that my pay was enough to lure me from another career and move my family out of state. I obviously left the company recently, but that is more personal in nature and not due to compensation nor lack of benefits. Sure there are higher paying career paths, but the compensation/benefits certainly wasn't in line with the claim that we make minimum wage.
Myth 2: This one showed up in various forms but something to the idea of "I bought this card on ebay. I doubt anyone there knows anything about this card." The first time I saw a claim like this I laughed, because I was the authenticator and not only had I seen the card, but own a copy of the same subject. I was one of the primary vintage people. Yet, so often I would see comments that questioned that anyone with any knowledge of vintage would see the cards in question and that we all looked at cards with a "modern eye". I was hired specifically because I collected vintage.
Myth 3: "I know what I am buying, I don't need eBay to tell me it is real." I saw this sometimes when an item would fail. This may be on eBay for not disclosing things better, but typically when I saw this I would look back at my notes and see I failed the card for alterations (Color Touch, Reshaped Corners, Built up corners, pressings, Trims), or for blatent mis representation of a card that had creases that were not seen in a listing. Sometimes this myth didn't come from a failing of a card, but just as a slam against the program in general. The problem is we saw bait and switches happening often. So, yes, the image in the listing was authentic, but it wasn't what we received.
Extra notes: This is an office job. So yes there are employees, like any other job out there, that may not put in the same effort or pride into their work. They don't last long as they make us all look bad when they mess something up. However I would suggest that when thinking of a grading company, that like any company, it is individuals that make up the greater company and they aren't all equal. Some of us take pride in our work and some skate by. I have seen this at any company I have worked at and grading was no different. The biggest difference is that if we made a mistake it made its way to social media and everyone in the department would know of your mistake. Some of our best accountability was not being shamed on social media.
Anyways I hope this was enough to remind you that graders are typically collectors also that are in the hobby alongside you. Like most dealers we just wanted to work in the hobby we love and chose grading as the avenue to pursue the dream.
Some may have dealt with me here, but you may also get more of an idea of my collecting habits on twitter (where some already follow and possibly interacted with me):
twitter.com/collecting4me
And because every thread needs a card, I attached one
