Guess The Grade

[BobC]

Originally Posted by irv

Not that it helps any, but I've always said SGC grades tough. I know it would prolong things, but I just wish they, and all other TPG's, would tell us the reason(s) why?

I've wondered also why the TPGs won't normally tell you why a card got a certain grade, especially since they are being paid to perform a service. Can you imagine going to a doctor to have a check-up and he/she comes out and says you have this illness or disease, and if you ask how do they know, they basically just respond, "Because I'm a doctor, and you're not, and I said so.". No decent, upstanding doctor would ever do that, but that is basically the treatment you're getting back from TPGs, and it is disgusting and insulting. But hey, they probably have it written into or somehow implied in their fine print that they don't have to tell you any more about their proprietary methods of grading, like doing so would let out some secret like the recipe for Coca-Cola that could end up costing their company money. But we, the collecting community, let them get away with this crap because we keep spending money with them without demanding answers and explanations as to why they grade something as they do.

And we, the collecting community, also allow each different TPG to pick their own grading standards, which is more horse crap. There should be one recognized set of grading standards for the entire hobby, all the TPGs should be made to follow them, and all TPGs should be completely transparent as to their grading standards and processes. As well as being subject to some periodic, independent, outside third party review to insure a TPG is keeping up with those grading standards and practices/procedures. During this pandemic we've seen the submissions to TPGs go ballistic, causing unprecedented backlogs and shutdowns to occur. Part of the TPG's response has been to hire more graders, but does anyone know exactly what background or training any of these newly hired, so called grading experts actually has or will go through? I know I don't. But I bet a majority of the members on this forum could run circles around most of these new TPG hires when it comes to grading.

Anyway, enough venting. As to specifically why a TPG won't tell you exactly why a card grades what it does, I've always felt there were two main possible reasons. One, to not let possible card doctors know exactly what it was the TPG caught so they can further refine and improve their activities in the future to get even more cards, in even higher grades, past TPG graders and into numbered slabs. And secondly, by not giving out exact reasons for specific card grades a TPG can not so easily be called out for their grading mistakes, and therefore make it more difficult for them to be held accountable for such grading mistakes in light of any guarantees they may have made. I think about all these cards the BODA guys have been exposing as altered and doctored for years now, and how they keep ending up in TPG numerically graded slabs. Yet I never hear of instances where any TPG has stepped up and made good financially to any collector on a card they had misgraded due to such alterations. I've got to believe this occasionally, at least, happens in the hobby, but why then does it always seem so hush-hush?

So, can anyone think of any other good reasons that TPGs won't tell you why they graded a card what they did? Or any thoughts or comments on the two reasons I put forth?

As for the cards the OP had graded, I too felt they were slightly undergraded based on just the scans, especially the card of McDowell. I'm guessing the noticable, but not extreme, diamond cut on the front and back of the McDowell card didn't help, as neither did the obvious miscut on the back of the Rookie Stars card and the slight diamond cut on it's front and back also. And though the back of the Radatz card was not perfectly centered either, though not as extreme as on the back of the Rookie Stars card, there is a also a very slight diamond cut to the front and back of that Radatz card, along with a slight ding or chipping on the bottom front edge of the card as well, below the word SOX. I'm guessing those are the possible main issues none of the cards got a 5.