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davidcyclebackIf you want an idea what Beckett is like, it's like an office building with offices and conference rooms. It's carpeted with art on the walls. The magazine and marketing areas take up the most space and the grading, research and encapsulating have their own rooms in the back. Mark has his own office. I had no idea what a grading place would look like, but it resembles a large law firm or other business offices.
Mark also confirmed to be that it's very expensive to develop new holders-- need to have a large volume to justify the costs--, which is why card companies don't pop up with new sizes as often as collectors want. PSA, SGC and Beckett can't sink the production costs into a new size or shape because ten collectors want it. There has to be a guarantee of large scale demand to get that cost per slab down.
Also, I was there consulting in a certain collecting area (photography), and had a conference with all the graders including Mark. Much of the graders' questions concerned identification and authentication. However, many of the questions were about the collectors of the material and what they like and don't like, what they collect and don't collect. I realized that I was half called there because I'm know the sensibilities of the collectors. Even the question of whether or not to assign a number grade was up in the air. One grader specifically asked me if the average photo collector would want a number grade for their photo. If I had insisted that photo collectors would loathe number grades, Beckett would likely not have chosen assign grades. However, I said I assumed many collectors would like their cabinet card or CDV to have a grade. Presumably, a collector can ask that his postcard be holdered without a grade.
THE hardest grading question concerned how to grade news service photos (UPI, AP, wirephotos, etc), as a 1930 wirephoto often has 1930 editorial and printing notes on back, date stamps, image highlights. Are these things a natural part of the photo? Or should the photo be downgraded compared to the same photo with no writing? It was decided, with my support, that all that original production/photographer stuff was an accepted and vitage part of the photo and a photo could receive a high grade with it. I stated that Charles Conlon's signature and notes on the back of one of his photos is a positive to photo collectors and raises the market value. You wouldn't want to be docking the grade because he signed the back. This production stuff, however, could lower the grade if it adversely effected the image or overall front aesthetics. For example, if the newspaper editor wrote the image caption and date on the back, that's a natural part of this newspaper photo. However, if this writing in ink bled through to the front damaging the image quality, then there would be a downgrade. I punctuated that photo collectors collect largely due to the image aesthetics, not due the baseball card technical grade of the back. Also, to separate the wheat from the chaffe, the editorially marked photos will receive a designation on the label to distinguish it from the same photo that has not printer's or editor's markings. I can't remember what was the grading decision on news service photos that were originally cropped, as many of these old wirephotos and such were not-so-neatly cropped down as part of the production process-- but that was a big topic. My guess (only a guess, my memory is foggy) is that these cropped photos will be authenticated but won't get a number grade, as with many handcut but authentic cards.
Beyond the above sticky issues, other photos, like cabinet cards Old Judges and real photo postcards are already graded, including by PSA and SGC, so there's nothing radical there.
I can assure you that all those common collector's concerns were brought up, and usually by Beckett graders not me (I'm an academic-type). For example, Mark asked my opinion about N172 image quality and assigning grade, as he was aware of this being a concern for many Old Judge specialists.