Recent Personal Observations from Vintage Card Grading Trends

[Johnny630]

Has anyone noticed or experienced over the past year or two some slight cool little nuances between the two major grading companies most of us (self-included use) for our vintage cards? I've done some comparison and came up with a couple of my own theories that I have personally noticed through my submissions and from what I'm seeing at shows on newer/recently slabbed cards.

SGC tends to be more lenient on corners then PSA and stricter on Centering.

PSA seems to be more difficult/critical on corners over centering.

SGC seems to be difficult/critical on print as compared to PSA which seems to be more lenient on print.

Overall eye appeal of the card more so geared towards centering seems to be rewarded by SGC regardless of one or more soft corners...SGC more frequently rewards with the .5 bump. PSA seems to be super difficult/critical on getting that bump to the point .5 regardless of centering.

Just a couple of my personal recent observations.

Look forward to hearing what others maybe noticing themselves.

[skelly423]

This is consistent with what I've seen as well. PSA seems to put more emphasis on technical aspects (corners and edges), while SGC rewards eye appeal

[rats60]

This is nothing new. It has been going on for as long as I can remember. Here is an older grade that SGC graded harshly because of a print mark and centering.

[53toppscollector]

From my own grading experience with both companies, and from watching lots of grading reveal videos, the one constant is the inconsistency from both companies. SGC seems to be a bit better in terms of their consistency, but PSA is all over the place. Lack of consistency is a huge issue, and one that seems inherent when you are talking about subjectively grading hundreds of thousands of cards in a short period of time.

I know this is nothing new, but the big problem is the lack of transparency or understanding of why your card got the grade it did. You get a card back, you get a numeric grade, and you get nothing else. Did they dock the card for corners? For centering? Did they detect a wrinkle under magnification that I can't see with my 30x loupe?

TAG grading has introduced the detailed grading report for every card. I don't know if TAG is going to survive, if they will catch on at all, and I suspect they won't until they branch out into older cards. But their report for every card contains detailed scans that show where they find surface issues, it gives exact measurements for centering and corners to indicate why your card got the grade it did. Has TAG's measuring methods been verified? I don't know. But I've watched a few of their reveal videos (I haven't submitted myself, since I only bother with vintage) and the level of detail is impressive. If the card gets a 9, you know exactly why it got a 9 based on the 4 key factors.

PSA continues to do massive volume, so they have no incentive to actually try to improve the customer experience or do value adds like grading reports. Even if a grader is only taking 30 seconds per card to assess a grade, you'd think the grader would need to input "sub grades" on the corners, edges, surface and centering to indicate how they got to the grade they gave the card. That info alone would be invaluable to people submitting their cards.

One thing PSA doesn't understand is sizing on American Beauty backed T206 cards. So many of them are labeled as miscut, when they were cut specifically for the AB sized packs they were distributed in. That always annoyed me.

[bnorth]

Around 8 months ago I bought 3 simi rare error cards in freshly graded SGC slabs. Two 6.5s and one 7 that looked to be graded correctly. I cracked them out and sent them to PSA in one of the subs Bobby done.

Both SGC 6.5s came back as PSA 7s and the SGC 7 came back as a PSA 8. That is my best recent comparison of the two grading companies. Best part for me was the grade bump PSA gave them made 2 of them the highest PSA graded examples. I am vacation or I would post pics.

[parkplace33]

From my perspective, both companies recently have been tougher across the board. Centering, print, eye appeal.... all are now taken into consideration and many cards that would have graded higher in the past are now getting low grades.

I am actually in favor of this new view. I hope we move away from some of the more lenient grading in the past (the gift grades given out in the 1990s come to mind).

[oldjudge]

Interesting, your observation concerning centering is contrary to what I have seen. I have always found PSA to be more concerned with centering than SGC.

[Snowman]

OPs observations regarding what both companies focus on is accurate. There is always some variance from one grader to the next, but as general rules of thumb, each point listed is the OP is spot on.

The one that cracks me up most is PSA's completely arbitrary usage of the half grades. Despite what their website says, it is rarely applied for centering and eye appeal. The number of OC cards in PSA slabs with half grades far outnumbers those which are well centered. A true head-scratcher.

[glynparson]

Call me crazy but I don’t want PSA to give a rats ass about customer experience. I want some people to have an awful experience. I want PSA to get the grades right. By doing this they would inevitably disappoint some people therefore some need to have a bad experience for them to properly do their job. And that’s what I want from them proper grading and authenticating. I don’t need my hand held or ass kissed.