[jmk59]

The problem with grading is that, while it can be better than what we had before grading, it isn't perfect.

There are posts here every so often about a card that was misgraded by a 3PG. To Al's point, big misses happen so infrequently that some consider it thread-worthy. Can you imagine how many there would be if there were no 3PG's and threads were about "That Lousy ^$#! Dealer Told Me This Was Ex-Mt!!!!" It would be every day or every hour.

Grading generally aligns descriptions and conditions a lot more closely than having individual seller having his own way of making that scale. This is especially important because the internet allows for many, many more inexperienced sellers and buyers to participate in the hobby. From a buyer standpoint, 3PG gets you fairly close in terms of expectations. From a seller standpoint, it eliminates a lot of contention and possibly loss of reputation based on vocal and too-demanding buyers. This is especially important with today's instant broadcast capability by any individual - message boards, blogs, etc. So in that sense it's good to have grading available in the hobby.

But generally aligning expectations is not the same thing as hanging your hat (and wallet) on minute differences of fractional grades. The system is not that accurate. The fact that the hobby attached huge dollars to these small, subjective differences - leading to things like the crack and resubmit game - is what makes the imperfect part of the grading system just scream.

In the end, it should be a matter of using the grading system for what it is good at while not crossing over into the areas of instability. If everyone simply used grading as a commercial assist for card description, it would not be as controversial. But many people (including and maybe especially sellers) use it as a pinpoint tool to stratify significant differences in value, and crossing into that known imperfection of the grading system causes much of the problem.

And the poetry analogy is good but needs a tweak. The comparison as described by Barry only works if the card grading system was based only on "what do you think of it". If this were the case, examples of grades not matching eye appeal - like Wonka's examples - wouldn't exist.

If the poetry grading had some guidelines, it would be more like card grading. Like high grades for great imagery, effective choice of form, use of metaphor, whatever. And the lower grades would be reserved for things like misspellings, incomplete or the kinds of things that college kids come up with after too many beers. :-)!

There would still be some "wobble" among adjacent grades that would have some subjectivity, but the general range of grade would be significantly less subjective than the personal, individual opinion of the grader.

Which is about what we have now for cards!

J


ETA - from the "great minds think alike" category - Barry and I must have been typing at the same time!