Originally Posted by BobC
One of the biggest problems in this hobby is that no TPG should have been allowed to determine their own grading standards, and then go even further and to then change them as they saw fit over time. One single set of agreed upon standards should have been set by the people in the hobby, and the TPGs should have had to seek approval and accreditation from whatever group spoke for the people in the hobby. Not the TPGs, not the dealers, and not the people/companies originally printing out price guides and other hobby publications years ago that often included their ideas of what the grading standards should be. And each and every TPG certified and accredited by the overriding hobby group setting the standards should have to adhere to those standards, be transparent in all they do in regards to grading (in other words, when a customer paying for grading asks why a card got a lower grade than expected, they should be given a complete, full answer), certainly not be able to charge grading fees based on a contingent percentage of a card's perceived value (doing so can cause the grading service to not be viewed as independent and unbiased, and it should take about the same time and effort to grade a '52 Topps Mantle as it does to grade an '87 Topps common, so why the difference in grading fees), and also be required to undergo some type of independent, periodic, third-party review of their grading, and if found to be deficient, their certification as an approved TPG should be subject to suspension, or even forfeiture.
It is too late though, as the TPGs have control of the hobby (with too many people now having too much value tied up in certain TPG slabs to ever want to go against them), basically call the shots, charge what they want, and decide what is what.
And as far as TPGs hiring more graders, exactly what experience do these new graders have to start, probably none. So who then is training them, and exactly how and what are they being trained to do? For all the errors and mistakes, and the uncaught alterations, in TPG slabbed cards that continually seem to keep turning up in our hobby, maybe it is about time the TPGs get held to some accountable standard, and start explaining how they go about performing their selection and training of graders, and exactly how they do what they're doing as far as grading. It sure as hell isn't like any of them have something akin to a proprietary grading technique or trade secret, like Coca-Cola's formula or KFC's fried chicken recipe, that could or should allow them to keep from their paying customers exactly what it is they're doing. .
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