I often wonder.....

[jchcollins]

It's funny to me how even after cards were a thing and "known" to be valuable in the 1980's - still - our perception of condition and keeping them nice is ever evolving. Back in the late 80's and early 90's, there were many vintage cards that we would have called "mint" which would probably be nice PSA 6's today. Even with current Topps cards right out of the pack then, the commons and players that were not superstars and rookies occasionally going directly into toploaders (we didn't use penny sleeves back then, or at least I didn't...) were still being shuffled and going into boxes. So it was not uncommon to have a dinged corner here and there, and of course centering was not really a concern at all. In going back and looking at my large stacks of commons or maybe even a favorite player in the 90's - say Don Mattingly - the cards are generally in good shape, but for some it's obvious that they've been handled. Whereas today maybe an "8" is a bad grade for a modern card, back then a lot of my modern cards that got handled probably were left in PSA 5 or 6 shape, not 9 or 10. And this is when we knew condition concerns affected card value.

I wonder what happens next, with everybody today grading ultra modern hot rookies. In the future will companies like Topps and Panini just issue cards that have already been graded? LOL.