Grading Has Clouded Our Minds...

[mq711]

1 and 6

[irv]

Originally Posted by irv

#1

Originally Posted by JollyElm

The 'rules' have been updated a bit to provide a little more flexibility. Instead of choosing one card, you can select the two cards you feel are the best 8's from the group.

As per the rule update, I am now including card #6 as well.

[JollyElm]

The only contestant with a PD qualifier is (drum roll, please) lucky card number 6...




Pretty wild. The picture in the auction actually made it seem like there was a decent flurry of snow in the dark areas (tantamount to card #3 or #5, but my guess is the seller's scanner has a bunch of dust on it), but that isn't the case at all in hand. I have no idea what the print defect is. No way, no how. The only 'defect' is the white dot on the border above his hat (the back is clean), but it's nothing at all. Take a look at how many white dots interrupt the top border of card #8.

For a comparison, I took a pair of random PSA 8 PD cards I ran across online and put them next to the one (first card) I bought. A drastic difference...

[JollyElm]

What a difference a hair makes...

The 1971 Topps Greatest Moments #24 Bob Gibson is a tough card to find. No doubt about it. On the auction prices realized site, there are only 15 sales of any grade recorded since 2006. And of those, there are only four straight PSA 8's (the only PSA 8 I see on ebay right now is priced at $975 or BO).

Pictured here are three cards, with a pair of said 8's. Look how close to the border the top left-hand corners of the white boxes come. Very, very close. Now look at the PSA 8 OC. It is only but a hair closer to the border than the other two, a nearly indistinguishable difference and nothing to fret about. Here's the good news. The straight 8's both sold for over $400 apiece...but I was immediately able to (picture David Lee Roth) jump on the OC one the other night for less than a quarter of that price.

[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.)

[Hxcmilkshake]

5 is the O/C, I dig the 3

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[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.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

The only contestant with a PD qualifier is (drum roll, please) lucky card number 6...

Insanity. Another reason why it makes little sense to hang your hat only on a grader's opinion. The '61 Topps cards with black backgrounds are damn near impossible though. Even Mantles in high grade usually have something going on back there.

[JollyElm]

Okay, to be clear, this isn't a complaint or anything of the sort, but I have to say I am rather confounded (don't think I've ever actually used that particular word before) by this card's grading. For my fellow variations-chasing brethren, this is the hardest to find of the 1966 Topps #432 Bob Heffner cards. There is the regular version, the purple tree version, and what I call the purple tree 'lens flare' variation found here (I'm happy it's an 8). There is nothing subjective about it. An explosion of magenta ink lays waste to the background foliage. But here's where it gets interesting. These variations are in no way officially recognized cards in the PSA master set registry...so why in heck isn't my card downgraded with a horrible 'PD' pronouncement??? There is clearly and obviously a print defect that is as plain as day to anyone looking at the card, yet no designation is made...

1966heffner432psa8.jpg

...yet for the love of criminy, my 1961 Topps #485 Banks MVP card got the Scarlet Letters 'PD' attached to it, although for the life of me I will never understand why. There are no explosions. In fact, it seem Topps was in a state of detente at the time...

1961banksmvp485pd.jpg

I have a couple of Schmidt rookie cards with a decent amount of snow floating around, and they were both correctly PD'ed. Are the PSA graders collectors who know about this variation, so they ignore the fact that said variation IS a print defect?? Strange. Again, not complaining, just wondering what the logic is here.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

These variations are in no way officially recognized cards in the PSA master set registry...so why in heck isn't my card downgraded with a horrible 'PD' pronouncement??? There is clearly and obviously a print defect that is as plain as day to anyone looking at the card, yet no designation is made...

Attachment 403745

...yet for the love of criminy, my 1961 Topps #485 Banks MVP card got the Scarlet Letters 'PD' attached to it, although for the life of me I will never understand why. There are no explosions. In fact, it seem Topps was in a state of detente at the time...

This is typical PSA inconsistency that has never really been corrected. Not that it's an excuse, but the Banks is in an old slab. Back in the day they were very tough with the PD qualifier, and at some point that suddenly changed. I had the Willie Mays MVP from that same set, and it was riddled with snow, way worse than your Banks. But it was in a (newer) straight PSA 7 case. These kind of things added up is why the consensus still points to professional grading being very inconsistent, and something that should be considered as only one opinion and not the end-all, be-all, as far as I'm concerned. You could bust the slabs and send both of those cards back in tomorrow and they could come back with totally different grades.

[bb66]

1st choice #1
2nd choice #6

[JollyElm]

Whoops, I neglected to resolve Ellis in Wonderland...

[GasHouseGang]

.

[JollyElm]

Let's call tonight's brand new episode What the Eck is Going on Here??!!...
(A Quinn Martin Production)

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

Pictured here is a group of very nearly identical 1976 Topps Dennis Eckersley rookie cards (and I won't even ask what the Eck is going on with that weird long lock of matted hair covering most of his ear). Each and every one of them has been graded as a straight PSA 9, except one - only one - which was callously deemed a PSA 9 OC. Which one is it? Which one is the terrible outcast who has been exiled to the Island of Misfit Cards??

(The top row contains cards #1, 2, 3, 4 and the bottom row has cards #5, 6, 7, 8.)

[deweyinthehall]

#3

[Hxcmilkshake]

6!

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[hcv123]

#4 and #8. I'm gonna pick #4

[jchcollins]

I am going to guess #7, but again could be any of them. Classic PSA randomness. I am going to guess that whichever one it is is an older slab.

[JollyElm]

And the very puzzling winner/loser is...



As Shaggy would say, "Yoinks!!!!"

[NiceDocter]

This may have been addressed here before but I am still a novice at the graded card game. I have seen a lot of cards that are pretty decently centered on the front but not at all on the back...... couldn’t this account for some of these grades or is that not the way they operate?

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by NiceDocter

This may have been addressed here before but I am still a novice at the graded card game. I have seen a lot of cards that are pretty decently centered on the front but not at all on the back...... couldn’t this account for some of these grades or is that not the way they operate?

Yup, it sure can. No question. The cards I've featured in this thread, though, are (usually) my own, so I always make sure the backs aren't the reason for the qualification when I present a new 'episode.'

[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."

[JollyElm]

I found myself looking through some 1972 high numbers and realized an odd pattern was seeming to emerge, so here's a brand new episode. Let's call it Biting Off Morgan You Can Chew...

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

Pictured here is an octet of 1972 Joe Morgan Traded cards. Each and every one of them has (at least) one side getting pretty chummy with a border. They are quite similar in that specific regard, and all of them have been graded as either a straight PSA 8 or PSA 9, except one - only one - which got an OC qualifier. Which one is it?

Which card is NOT a part of a Well-Oiled (Big Red) Machine??




(The top row contains cards #1, 2, 3, 4 and the bottom row has cards #5, 6, 7, 8.)

Chime in. Let's have some fun!!

[Hxcmilkshake]

Let's see if I can make it 2 in a row....4!

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[deweyinthehall]

I haven't gotten one of these right yet, so like George Costanza I'm going to dp the opposite, go against my instincts and pick not the one which appears most OC to me, but the one that appears the least. I'm going with #8...Serenity Now!!

[GasHouseGang]

I haven't gotten one either. I'll guess #7. But it never seems to be based on what the card actually looks like!

[JollyElm]

I gotta say, it's a little depressing that more people aren't participating in this thread. Oh well, what can you do.

The winner/loser (by a mere hair??) is good ole contestant number 1...



No discernible tilt and pretty acceptable side-to-side centering for a tough HOF'er high number, so I'll take it!

[JollyElm]

For my money, this is one of the best cards of the 70's. A horizontal layout with the crowd wonderfully blurred in the background (Dave Kingman has a similar looking card), coupled with the fact that the hairy-armed Garvey captured the MVP award that year, makes it a quintessential piece of 1974 cardboard. With apologies to Billy Crystal, let's call tonight's episode You Look Garv-uh-lous...

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


Pictured here is a sextet of 1974 Topps Steve Garvey cards. Each one of them has been graded as a straight PSA 9, except one - only one - which was deemed PSA 9 OC. In looking at the entire group, they all seem perfectly fine for those of us in the non-OCD crowd. Really marvelous. None jump out as OFF CENTER!!!!!!

So, which one got the OC qualifier?

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



(On a side note, the average price of the five straight PSA 9's pictured here is almost six times as much as what the one with the OC on the label cost. Six times as much!!! Truly stunning.)

[martingale]

My vote is for #4 getting the OC, with #6 as a close second choice.

[HRBAKER]

I think that a lot of people are just tired of talking about the obvious inadequacies of TPG as it is currently constituted. Most people know, many don't care and certainly quite a few would rather the conversations go away.

As long as it helps people trade in the internet age and most importantly line their pockets it really doesn't matter how good (or bad) they are apparently.

[Gorditadogg]

#4 is off center obviously. The others are fine.

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[GasHouseGang]

I should stumble across the right one sometime. I'll guess #2.

[Hxcmilkshake]

4!

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[JollyElm]

I guess sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Number 4 is the winner/loser...




But the good news is it only cost me $36, so I jumped at it. The cards pictured sold for (in no particular order) $203.15, $171.50, $190.01, $151.50, and $305.00, so I'm quite happy to have the 'cheap' one.

Here's what it looks like in hand, by its lonesome. Beautiful. Although technically accurate for the grade, what pack-opening baseball card collector would ever immediately describe it as off-center??

1974garvey575inhand.jpg

[Gorditadogg]

That was a nice pickup for $36, Jolly. I came in late to this thread, what do we win for guessing right?

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[GasHouseGang]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I guess sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Number 4 is the winner/loser...




But the good news is it only cost me $36, so I jumped at it. The cards pictured sold for (in no particular order) $203.15, $171.50, $190.01, $151.50, and $305.00, so I'm quite happy to have the 'cheap' one.

Here's what it looks like in hand, by its lonesome. Beautiful. Although technically accurate for the grade, what pack-opening baseball card collector would ever immediately describe it as off-center??

Attachment 416669

You're absolutely right. No one would describe that as OC. I'm going to only have OC's in my 1974 set if that's the standard.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

That was a nice pickup for $36, Jolly. I came in late to this thread, what do we win for guessing right?

You get a jar full of angry wasps...with an ill-fitting lid.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

You get a jar full of angry wasps...with an ill fitted lid.

Haha, I will let it ride- double or nothing on the next one.

[Oscar_Stanage]

What a great thread!
I was not able to guess any of the pictures correctly, lol.

I would not buy a slabbed card with a qualifier unless i planned to remove it. It seems silly, but I just don't want a special designation, even though it's only optics.

the best advice i have gotten withe respect to TPG is to "buy the card, not the grade". So if the market gives me a discount because of what is stamped (arbitrarily) on a label, then so be it! I primarily buy raw cards, saves me from all the hassle.

[JollyElm]

It's time for another episode of everyone's favorite game show. Let's call this one Ep, Ep and Away...

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

Pictured here are eight different 1972 Topps #715 Mike Epstein cards, a tough high number that is notorious for it's image virtually always floating up towards the top border with the result being an excess amount of white at the bottom. Each and every one of them here has that very same (nearly identical) deviation. All have been graded as either a straight PSA 8 or a straight PSA 9, except one - only one - which got an OC qualifier. Which one is it?

Which card got the Mike drop??



(The top row contains cards #1, 2, 3, 4 and the bottom row has cards #5, 6, 7, 8.)

Put down the cranberry sauce and make your choice!!

[rsdill2]

I guess #1

[Nunzio11]

I’ll reluctantly say #3

[Hxcmilkshake]

This one is particularly brutal. I'll say #8

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[Gorditadogg]

So Jolly, I am not well versed on the 72s. What is ideal top to bottom centering? Should the distance from the top of the card to the top of the arch match the distance from the bottom of the name box to the bottom of the card?

In any event the best centering is on card #4.

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[Kevin]

Originally Posted by avalanche2006

I do agree with the thread title.
It seems that everyone is so focused on getting their beautiful vintage cards in plastic and for someone, somewhere, to put a number on the card to say how nice it is. I always have and always will appreciate that feel of cardboard in my hand while enjoying my hobby and the memories from my childhood.

Preach, brother. I am about to crack open four T206's: Burns, Flick, Bresnahan and Dolly Miller. I like to smell my tobacco cards. Touch them. Connect to the people that owned the card so long ago.

Anyway, glad to read this thread.

[Gorditadogg]

Oh the OC is #5.

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[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Fuddjcal

I agree, if these were Mantle's and you added a couple zero's to your example, I would buy #4 with the grade. Nobody want's those OC's. They are graded kryptonite. worthless. Nobody like em. AND HOW DO WE CRACK THE SGC & PSA cases. I only ruin cards when I try.

I'd love to know how to crack open cases. Any tips?

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I'd love to know how to crack open cases. Any tips?

Use aviation snips on an angle near (relatively close to) one of the top corners, and gently chop it. Then push a flathead screwdriver into the gap to pop it open and separate the plastic pieces. A real simple method I've used the couple of times I did it.