Grading Technical vs. Overall Appeal

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by CobbSpikedMe

I don't agree that grading companies are supposed to line up grades based on secondary market value for the collector. They are supposed to authenticate and grade based on certain stated parameters. The collector then actually looks at the card and decides for themselves if they like the appearance, centering, registration, etc. and sets the market price with their bids. Some sets/cards have issues with centering, some with registration, but not all cards are the same. OJs can be high grade and look terrible where you can't even see the image, while a Jim Brown RC (I know, football and not prewar) can be low grade but command a higher price if it's centered because it's a tough card to find centered. The eye appeal should be left to the collector while technicalities can be the job of the grader.

Disagree. Eye appeal should be factored into the grade. The current model is broken and senseless. Who decided upon the current parameters, anyway? When many 2s look better than 6s, it indicates there is a problem.

Back in the 90s (when grading was in its infancy), I was at SCP's brick and mortar store in Laguna Niguel. They had two 1933 Goudey Gehrigs. One was a beautiful raw example, and one was a PSA 5. The raw card was superior on every visual measure.... better centering, crisp/clear image vs. blurry/out of register, better corners, better color, etc. Looking at the PSA5 made me dizzy and the baby blue background was more grey than blue. Every single attribute that makes that card great was superior in the raw example.

Both cards were priced the same, so it was a no-brainer to purchase the raw one. When I looked closer at the raw card, I noticed a tiny and discrete speck of paper loss that was barely noticeable without magnification.

So fast-forward to today... the ugly off-centered PSA 5 would command more money than the far more beautiful raw example, just because someone at PSA deemed that paper loss in one miniscule spot is more of a detractor than the entire card being faded and out of focus.

Who wrote these idiotic rules, and why are they embraced as the norm? I know that the sheep-like mentality is to fully embrace someone else's numbering system. But who in the hell ever determined that it was right in the first place? Not to mention the obscene and nonsensical variance in pricing that follows (due strictly to a randomly assigned number on a flip).

I love this thread, and kudos to the OP for starting it. I agree with him 100%