Quote:
Originally Posted by oldjudge
Greg--Old Judges have two different issues. One is certainly fading. The other relates to the fact that in 1889 Goodwin experimented with adding pink and purple tints to the images. The last card you show isn't faded, it is a pink image. These images tend to be unattractive but occasionally you can find a sharp one. Grading companies don't take either into account which is one reason why I don't grade Old Judges. There are two Harry Wrights that I have seen, one and 8 and one a 7, both with horrible images. I would always rather have a card with a sharp image with rounded corners and back issues than a card with a bad image and sharp corners and a clean back. An Old Judge is a fragile albumen photograph glued to a blank piece of cardboard for protection. I'd suggest that people worry more about the photo than the cardboard.
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To be clear, I am not calling pink tints faded cards. The one I pulled appears to be significantly faded, and a dubious 3 before that. Many of the tinted cards appear to be faded too. Fading most affects the albumen photo cards, CDV’s, old judges, etc., but it seems to be ignored across the board. Old Judge grading has never made any sense to me, most of the high grade examples are significantly deteriorated. Albumen cards are things of beauty when one finds one that has not suffered the fading and looks close to how they did originally.