Grading Has Clouded Our Minds...

[cesarcap]

@ Darren, As the owner of that 61 pirates team PSA 4, I would be happy to trade you for your 8OC and pay you $1 more. Good deal on your side.

Now, look at the 55's (sorry about the bad/ small pix). But Mays (4MC) and Roberto (6OC) are IMHO closer that the technical grades suggest. But I was happy to purchase them for significant discounts to the straight grades. Same goes for Teddy Ball Game (2), which b/c of a tiny red dot gets knocked down to what in the PAST (2 holders ago) could have been a 3 or maybe 4.

[JollyElm]

Although the team picture doesn't have a dead horse in the shot, I thought I'd resuscitate this thread...

I wonder if either of these would've been a PSA 9 OC, but a box was checked:
s-l1600.jpg
1961pirates554psa7.jpg

[Empty77]

Looking technically, there could be a soft corner or two in those specific examples that would withhold 9 grades, but be that as it may, I concur with the point you're getting at, which is that those are the sorts of cards that may not be straight 9s only due to centering, and therefore are candidates for being slabbed however the submitter prefers, either straight or with the "OC"...

But my personal opinion is still that the "OC" label is more gimmicky and problem causing than it is useful. Maybe this is best illustrated by musing: why just OC, why stop there? They could have a "9DC", which would mean, 'this would be a 9 except for the several dinged corners', or worse is getting hit with the dreaded "9RC", which would be the same but accounts for having rounded corners!

To me if something doesn't meet the grade definition, then it doesn't meet it. There's no sense in having an endless serious of "this is the number we would give it, except for this [fill in the blank flaw] that makes it absolutely and definitely not that number". That's what those sorts of qualifiers are, and my opinion is that that's a goofy way to approach the issue of formal grading.

[JollyElm]

It's been awhile, so maybe it's time to play another little game, this time involving the dreaded 'PD' qualifier. Whereas centering is/should be based on math, 'print defects' seem to be utterly subjective.

These eight 1961 Topps Aaron MVPs are all graded PSA 8, and each one of them has a decent amount of snowy dots affecting and pockmarking the beautiful, blue front...but here's the twist...just one of them was given a PD qualifier, just one. So which one of these cards is the only PSA 8 (PD) of the group???

For those of you guessing, let's say the top row contains cards #1, 2, 3, 4, and the bottom row has cards #5, 6, 7, 8. So which one is it?? Which one of these semi-identical cards is worth significantly less than the other seven, simply due to two letters, PD, appearing on the label??



FYI: Some of these are in older slabs and some are in newer slabs.

No cheating!!!

[swarmee]

I'm going to guess #5 based on the black printing on the right border. #6 seems to have the most fisheyes/hickeys.
These different Aarons also illustrate how nice a properly registered card can be. #3 looks so clear it's photograph quality, Hank pops off the card. All the odds ones seem nicer than their even numbered counterparts in terms of registration/clarity.

[jchcollins]

I'll guess #6.

[RayBShotz]

Great thread.

I agree totally with the idea that an O?C card should be graded and slabbed as O/C if that's what the PSA standards call for.

To grade a MINT card NRMT (9 to a 7) is disingenuous and flat out incorrect.
I wish they never allowed "no qualifiers" selectability by the customer.
RayB

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by RayBShotz

Great thread.

I agree totally with the idea that an O?C card should be graded and slabbed as O/C if that's what the PSA standards call for.

To grade a MINT card NRMT (9 to a 7) is disingenuous and flat out incorrect.
I wish they never allowed "no qualifiers" selectability by the customer.
RayB

Yeah, but remember grading standards for Mint - Poor in somewhat decent detail existed before professional grading. It was less precise then, but it is logical that bad centering being the "only" problem with a card will lower the grade. It stands to reason then, that an otherwise Mint 9 card with centering slightly outside the 65/35 standard would be NM-MT. This is how grading worked for at least 2 decades (by those who did it properly...) before PSA decided to invent qualifiers. It's not "incorrect."