Catch 22 of card grading - is it worth the gamble?

[Rich Falvo]

You’re not guaranteed a specific grade. You’re paying for a service. I don’t see how you could argue that you didn’t get what you paid for.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Rich Falvo

You’re not guaranteed a specific grade. You’re paying for a service. I don’t see how you could argue that you didn’t get what you paid for.

No disrespect, but how many threads have we had on here with people questioning TPG grades and how they always seem to be graded more harshly than they should?

How about this, take a TPG to court and as part of your argument, bring along a card graded by them say 10-20 years ago, and put it up against a similar card graded by them say this past year. And then ask them to explain to a jury why the cards may look like they have been graded on completely different standards. Would love to hear what a TPG owner/employee/rep would say on a witness stand, under oath. Would be interesting to see if they would actually admit to maybe having changed their standards over the years, and hear them then maybe explain why they supposedly changed them without having informed any of their customers they've been doing this. And instead of giving their grade "opinions" based on a supposedly constant and unchanging set of fixed standards.

And before you, or anyone else, again says it doesn't matter because it is just an opinion, try telling that to Trump regarding his issues with real estate appraisals in New York. Those appraisals are nothing more than opinions also. And you can't really claim those issues are different from cards because they involve property values as these TPG grades are what are basically used to determine a card's market value as well. And as we've learned of late over the years, even a slight error and/or difference in a card's TPG given grade can easily equate to a difference of thousands, tens of thousands, or even more dollars, in a card's value.

[Rich Falvo]

Originally Posted by BobC

No disrespect, but how many threads have we had on here with people questioning TPG grades and how they always seem to be graded more harshly than they should?

Too many, and most are premised on the fact that if a card doesn’t get the grade you wanted, that it’s the grader that was wrong. Rarely does the poster consider that they had an overinflated opinion of their card.

The whole premise that a card got the “wrong” grade if the grade is lower than you want is shaky. I bet you could take the five most experienced graders here and give them the same card and it wouldn’t get five identical grades. If the card got two 3s, one 3.5, and two 4s, which of the graders were “wrong”?

[parkplace33]

Circling back, I just felt bad for the dealer. Seemed to be in a bad spot.

As for grading, has it gotten harder on cards? It sometimes feels that way.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

Circling back, I just felt bad for the dealer. Seemed to be in a bad spot.

As for grading, has it gotten harder on cards? It sometimes feels that way.

I don't think it has gotten harder.