[raulus]

To answer the original question: what is the future of grading? Obviously none of knows for sure, but it’s hard to see a big shift away from the current regime.

Understandably, it’s temping to surmise that technology will have a bigger role going forward. After all, grading has been largely driven by human labor, and with machines destined to take over everything, it should only be a matter of time until they take over this thing.

At the same time, Snowman has written extensively on the challenges of leveraging technology to perform grading. Many of the challenges seem to stem from the difficulty in using images to truly identify the condition of a card, as well as being able to have a big enough data set to make sure that the technology can really differentiate between fake and real cards. Throw in the fact that computers struggle to do simple things that are important elements for us such as our tactile feel for thickness and surface texture, not to mention smell.

It’s also tempting to think that the many inherent limitations concomitant with the grading process will spell its downfall. And that’s still a possibility, for sure. But to date, the many scandals and grading failures over the last 35 years have failed to slow down this grading juggernaut. If those events couldn’t even break the stride of the graders, it’s difficult to imagine that further improprieties could possibly lead to a downfall in grading.

So as an earlier response noted: pain. Tech seems unlikely to have an impact, and the need for 3rd party graders is just too acute to get rid of them entirely, which is why any failures on the part of the graders are unlikely to be more than a speed bump.