Quote:
Originally Posted by jchcollins
Kind of as a companion topic to all of this, I've never understood why print quality and color are not treated with the same discernment at PSA and SGC as pure technical issues with the cardboard itself.
A hidden wrinkle is a hell of a lot less obvious to eye appeal than a badly faded card, yet I've seen examples where an ugly faded Mantle can still get a PSA 6, whereas a beautiful example of the same card with a hidden wrinkle gets a 3 or a 2. That just makes zero sense.
Likewise with focus issues. The '69 Topps Nolan Ryan #533 is a good example here. Due to focus issues, this card can often be found with Nolan having strange looking lips, overlapping pupils, or 4 eyebrows. But if this is the only thing wrong with the card, it can also easily be found this way in fairly high grade - like PSA 6 and 7. Makes no sense. I'd rather have the card moderately OC or with some other minor flaw, trading that for a well-focused image.
TPG's have harshly judged centering as a "factory" issue for at least a generation now. I know they have the OF qualifier, but in practice I rarely see this used. The criteria behind judging how a card is made at the factory either OC or OF is not really different. In terms of "color quality", at least to my knowledge there is no standard for this, and many graders seem to be at least somewhat incompetent at recognizing even badly faded cards.
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I guess if somebody is buying the grade and not the card, that can be annoying. By my own standards, I weight color, focus and centering (which are easier to see from a picture than the technical irregularities the TPG's evaluate) much more than wrinkles and other surface irregularities. So I guess I am happy they spend their time on those things, so their grade gives me a good baseline before I look at it.
For example, this to me is a really nice 3.5. I don't need a TPG to grade it on eye appeal, I know what I like. But if this was being sold raw it would be very tough for most of us to know it has a major flaw. To me the technical grade of the card is what is important.