[gregndodgers]

In the early days of grading, this card receives a 3 or a 4.

I was at a card show this weekend with a VERY prominent dealer that everyone knows and asked him for his opinion as to why the grading companies are severely undergrading vintage cards. He said that it a “political issue” that he does not like commenting on, so I pressed him and he finally gave an answer. He said that the grading companies have too many graders, so there is a lack of consistency. I pressed him more and asked if there are financial reasons. He said probably. Then he said that if there is a small population of high demand vintage cards with good grades like 5 and above, their value will stay extremely high as long as the number of them stay low. Once you increase the size of the population of these cards, the pool gets watered down and values go down. Hence, he said there is likely some manipulation going on to keep prices high and motivate people to keep grading their cards.

Another dealer I asked said that some of the higher ups in these companies own many high value cards, and they intentionally depress grades in order to keep the value of their own cards high.

I’ve been collecting since 1975, and my own “eye test” supports the conclusion that grades are being intentionally depressed.

If subgrades were required, it would help identify the problem. For this card, I would give it an 8 for centering (a little off left to right), a 7 for edges, 4 for the for corners (due to the rounding and the yellow on bottom left corner) and a 1 for surface (for the mark on back). So the strength of this card including the strong centering, excellent edges, and vivid color would counter balance the weak areas of this card. However, because I don’t have the actual card in hand and am unable to put it under a scope, I would assume my 5 grade is too high, and I would lower to a 4. Hence, IMO of seeing cards for almost 50 years, the 1.5 is an injustice to this card. It would make me want to crack it and resubmit or just leave it raw. That 1.5 on the top right spoils the cards appeal severely and is just plain wrong!