Buy the card not the holder

[Bigb13]

What do you guys think about this one? I think the graders were real hard on it.

[tiger8mush]

the corners are so rounded that there are no corners. Some of the staining is caramel but it looks like some is also dirt. Some surface wear along with a few creases. The crease at the top right might be a partial tear. Without seeing the back its tough to know if any light is getting thru to indicate a full tear.

I've definitely seen worse 1.5s. This one is well centered and has a good image. Could it have gotten a 2 by a different grader? Sure, maybe even a 2.5 on a good day. Given how rounded the corners yet so little surface damage or strong creases I'm surprised its not a 1915 (with the heavier paper). Do you have a back scan?

[Bigb13]

Here's the back

[T206Collector]

Grading is a pyramid. At the top, you have the 10s. 10 means perfection and thus all 10s will be identical. As you go down the pyramid, grades are set for a variety of reasons -- 9s almost all look the same, but 3s, 2s and 1s have a huge number of potential flaws, including paper loss on reverse, creasing, corner wear, etc. What makes a card an SGC 30 could be a variety of factors that tell you nothing about the eye appeal of the card without looking at it.

Professional grading is not designed to reflect eye appeal. It is designed to point out flaws, often hard to see or hidden, in a piece of card board. When you see a clean-looking SGC 30, you actually know there are a lot of hard to see flaws. When you see a badgered up SGC 30, what you see is what you get. But not all SGC 30s will look alike -- in fact, at that level of the "pyramid" you will have a lot of different looking cards.

This becomes problematic when sellers try to sell a PSA 2 for what a previous PSA 2 sold for. Without comparing both cards, going by the number alone gets you nowhere because what you don't know about the previous card is whether the damage was similar or whether the eye-appeal was comparable. Sometimes you can get a pretty good deal on a nice looking 2 when a seller is willing to use a previous ugly 2 as a comparable. This is why they say, "Buy the card, not the holder."

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

^ great post. I feast on low grade cards with eye appeal.

[4815162342]

Originally Posted by I Only Smoke 4 the Cards

^ great post.

+1 The pyramid analogy is spot-on.

[1952boyntoncollector]

people on the forum talk about battlefield ebay seller who allegedly breaks out cards from slabs that are lower grade but good eye appeal like a lou G recently 1933 goudey. People are buying the card not the grade..so whats not to like?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by 1952boyntoncollector

people on the forum talk about battlefield ebay seller who allegedly breaks out cards from slabs that are lower grade but good eye appeal like a lou G recently 1933 goudey. People are buying the card not the grade..so whats not to like?

NO, they are being deceived.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

NO, they are being deceived.

ok besides that, what is the problem?