Grading Has Clouded Our Minds...

[JollyElm]

Today's episode is called Ellis in Wonderland...

(These cards were randomly placed in three rows, so there is no underlying rhyme or reason to the layout. As always...no cheating!!)

The very lesser known 1972 Topps John Ellis IA card is part of the ridiculously-hard-to-find-centered grouping of In Action cards from the set that includes (among others) Willie Mays and Harmon Killebrew (who, coincidentally enough, appears right on the Ellis card). To actually find any of those cards nicely centered and sans tilt is a feat that requires the likes of Indiana Jones traversing the globe to accomplish. Be that as it may, pictured here are a bunch of straight PSA 8 cards that all look remarkably similar to each other, except one - only one - is a PSA 9 OC. Which one is it, and/or which of these cards would you prefer over the others?

(The top row contains cards #1, 2, the middle row #3, 4 and the bottom row has cards #5, 6.)

[JollyElm]

On a side note, I ran across this PSA 7 Topps 1973 'Broadway Joe' on ebay today. The rule of thumb is a PSA 9 card that is off-centered could be magically turned into a straight PSA 7 if the 'no qualifiers' box is checked on the submission form. (Have no way of knowing whether or not this occurred in regard to the grading of the card here) I mean, coloring problems in the graphic on the 7 aside, wouldn't virtually everyone immediately prefer the PSA 9 OC card (although it's a little worse top to bottom), since they have nearly identical features???

1974namathpsacomp.jpg

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

...wouldn't virtually everyone immediately prefer the PSA 9 OC card (although it's a little worse top to bottom), since they have nearly identical features???

Attachment 400509

Yeah the 9 OC is the better card here.

Whenever it was that centering as a key feature rose to prominence 20 years ago or whatever, it made grading a lot tougher. You continue to see changes today, with SGC suddenly getting tougher than PSA on centering even within the last year or so. Often a borderline card with them will get the lower grade, and I've seen some cases where it would appear that professional graders simply don't know how to compute centering ratios properly, or are bad at eyeballing. They obviously don't measure all of them. Some people will penalize a 70/30 card as if it's 90/10, which is wrong.