Suggestions for Grading Companies

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Posted By: Mark Anderson

Some responses:

Yes, we did remove subgrades from BVG a couple years back. It was a very risky decision, and we knew it would be polarizing. I also loved the report card to show the strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, on vintage material, our feedback was that those cards sometimes need to be looked at in more of an overall manner. The comment in this thread about Old Judge cards is an excellent example - if we grade them as technically as a 1978 Topps card, a little paper scuffing on the back kills the grade. It is also more common on vintage to have one subgrade area with a significant flaw, such as a card with nice corners, edges, and surface, but is off center... or a card with nice centering, corners, and edges, but glue residue on the surface. Manipulating subgrades to arrive at a sensible overall grade could be very difficult at times. While I know some people greatly disliked the change, I have to admit that our vintage business instantly started growing right after that change. It has continued to be our fastest growing segment for three years now.

I emailed Phil privately. But for anyone else, if you have cards that are uncatalogued or otherwise oddball-oriented, feel free to email me with a scan. If we can authenticate and identify it, we would love to get these type of cards in BVG holders. We actually love seeing these types of cards.

Jeff, awesome Clemente card. I'm not a big modern collector anymore, but I had to build that 2007 UD Masterpieces set the old fashioned way, it was so beautiful. Probably my vote getter as the most aethetically gorgeous set of the last 2 decades. The Gehrig image is just incredible.

Joe, that is interesting on the Cracker Jack scan. I rarely ever see that. Sometimes I see glare on the bottom of the sleeve, but the middle glare is very unusual in my experience.

Bilko, we don't have plans to produce anything like that, but for anyone else who wants to, we would certainly be willing to help out. I know there was a company that did some great wood storage boxes for graded cards a few years ago that were beautiful. I think they may be out of business though?

Matt, SGC might send the flips to PSA or GAI. You could probably check with Glyn on that. He's good at responding to Net 54. I'm willing to pull our old serial numbers from the POP for any flips we receive, whether from other companies or individuals.