Looking for some thoughts on collecting cards by condition

[dlfallen]

Am I just a weirdo?

No, there are a lot of us, here on Net54 and elsewhere. In fact, there is a whole organization of collectors who collect off-grade cards - OBC. There was a recent thread about OBC. I like to think there is plenty of room in the hobby for collectors of any stripe.

OBC has its own (tounge-in-cheek) grading system: The Tipton Grading Scale. Several years ago I was at Cooperstown, and had the Tipton grading guidelines placed into the Hall of Fame library. Here is a link to the guidelines:

www.oldbaseball.com/funstuff/Gurugrading.htm

For example, here is a GGS-8 card I recently acquired:

As the label indicates, Guru (Larry Tipton) acquired these cards at the last National, no doubt at great expense. I have a theory (undocumented) that the "Sewer Find" cards came from Ed Norton's personal collection.

[abrahamrudy]

that was great! those 'grades' gave me a good laugh! and behind every good joke is a kernel of truth.