Quote:
Originally Posted by benjulmag
Putting aside the issue of (IMO) the utter inability of TPG to detect alterations, what is perhaps sadder is the criteria used to arrive at a grade. Wasn't the whole idea behind TPG to establish an unbiased rating system that reflects how a typical collector would view a card's condition? It would seem to me that paramount among the relevant criteria used to rate the card would be how the card looks. Yet that doesn't seem to matter much at all, which is incredible. Yes, I get it that attempting to rate something based on a subjective criteria such as aesthetic appeal interjects subjectivity into the process. But how can one say subjectivity is not already integral to the process? At the end of day a number appears on the flip, which is supposed to reflect the sum total of all various criteria used to evaluate a card's condition. But when the result is what the current system often churns out -- a much higher grade for the card with the much lower aesthetic appeal, card registry or not, the system is wacko.
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Agree - plus, we don't even have a single, agreed upon set of grading standards for the hobby as a whole. We've foolishly let the individual TPGs each decide what they think, not what the hobby collectors think, when it comes to grading. And then throw in a registry that one portion of the collecting community appears to downright worship, and you've got a setting for all the perceived negative things that have occured in the hobby since grading began.
One of the main reasons independent card grading was originally started was to counter perceived abuses by sellers allegedly not properly and honestly representing the condition of cards they were selling, if they were altered in some way, or if the cards were even authentic to begin with. Independent grading by TPGs was supposed to counter that. Unfortunately, the old saying can often be true, and sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease......................!