Quote:
Originally Posted by David Atkatz
Mark, a classification system is useful only insofar as the objects considered can unambiguously be classified, and said classification has real consequences (beyond prices realized.) Premature vs. full term? Can a newborn be one day premature? No. A week premature? Perhaps, but it would make no difference.
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David,
First of all, allow me to enlighten you on premature births. The clinical definition of prematurity is an infant being delivered before 37wks gestation. A newborn can be one day premature. Whether or not there will be health consequences is unknown until the child is born and examined. A week premature would be 36wk gestation which, contrary to your opinion above, certainly could make a difference.
Second, you are using an example I chose to rebut Doug's comment about classification systems being only for the "Grade everything" crowd, and are attempting to show how inefficient the "Type" system is by comparing them. Well, I would certainly hope that classification criteria which could affect an infants health and well being would be more strict than one that seeks to stratify the ages of baseball pictures.
So because the type system is not fully unambiguous, it is worse than using terms like original, vintage, period,etc, which are even more ambiguous in their success in classifying/identifying picture ages/generations? Many systems don't start out as perfect, but evolve over time. The hope is that this system, like all others, will become better as it evolves with time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by doug.goodman
What he said.
PS - I hate the entire concept of paying a company to tell me what "grade" a card / picture / etc, is. Yes, I know, everyone is free to use or not use the services. I choose to use a kitchen knife to return cards to their "raw" state. I hate everything that grading has done to our hobby. Just my humble opinion.
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Doug,
I totally get and agree with your feelings about grading, authentication and everything it has done to our hobby. What I don't get is why the ill will towards a system that attempts to help us classify and organize photography collecting, even if it isn't a perfect system. Additionally, it helps provide a common language and terminology that we can use to communicate more efficiently with each other. I would think this is an improvement over using the vague terms that were what was done before.
Best,
mark