2 Questions/Observations about TPG Grading

[perezfan]

Probably obvious, and likely already discussed ad nauseam...

But could someone please explain the following discrepancies, regarding TPG Grading...

1. Why is there such a giant span in acceptable condition for cards graded 1,2,3 and such a miniscule difference for cards graded 8,9,10? Why not make the grading increments equal for each numerical progression? The condition variance for a PSA 2 (for example) can range from a totally destroyed card, to one with barely perceptible paper loss. On the high end of the spectrum, the differences between an 8 and a 10 are barely visible to the naked eye.

Why and when did people start collecting this way, and why is a ridiculous premium paid for something you can't even see without the aid of a loupe or microscope? I'd love to hear from somebody who puts complete faith in the hands of TPGs, and actually collects this way. I know most people will say it's "The Registry", but how did it become a hobby for only the most extreme OCD? Is it pure ego?


2. There are apparently two separate factors that go into determining a card's numerical grade...

A. The condition of the card, i.e. the amount of degradation due to handling, exposure to the elements, etc. This includes wrinkles, creases, surface and corner wear, etc. I get this.

B. The centering of the card. This has nothing to do with the condition or handling. It is how the card originally came off the presses. So why do they penalize cards severely for poor centering, and not for more serious issues like focus, registration and color? Both represent the original traits of the card. So why is poor centering such a crime, but much more visibly distracting issues are completely given a pass? To me, the image on the card itself is the most important factor, yet is never factored into the grade.

A good example is the Leaf Larry Doby below. The focus, registration and color is so bad on the "6" that you can't even make out Chief Wahoo on his sleeve. Yet the grade is not impacted at all. In what world are these factors less important than slight off-centering or some corner wear?

Really want to hear actual collectors' thoughts, as it's been bugging me for years. I will not be critical of any responses... just want to understand, as I often feel like I'm living on an island. Thanks!

[Peter_Spaeth]

I've never understood the relative unimportance of focus, registration and color. Nor do I understand the recent centering mania such that people pay multiples at the same grade level to get a few degrees better centering. So I guess I can't help you there.

[Fballguy]

Great questions Mark. Shouldn't the eye appeal of the card be of more value than the corners? Not only can you not make out Chief Wahoo, Doby looks caucasian. Who would rather have that card?

I've only submitted a few cards to PSA and Beckett and that was over 10 years ago, so I'm not really qualified to speak to it, but from all the bad publicity, differences of opinion and inconsistent grades I've read about on here...It seems like too much of a crap shoot for me to spend my money on. If I want the luck of the draw, I'll head to Mohegan Sun.

[kateighty]

I have a feeling you're going to get quite a few opinionated responses on this so I'll just stick to the centering. Personally for me I'm just a goof about everything being centered. It's that simple.

[RiceBondsMntna2Young]

This is just through my lens as a Bonds collector...but I think the reason for those fine - often imaginary - differences in high grades is overproduction since the 80s. I've seen print run estimates of 7M for the '87 Bonds Topps RC. People my age and younger needed a way to squint out (virtually) imperceptible conditions in order to stratify. As collectors, we've always obsessed about condition. The PSA registry sent this predisposition into overdrive. Now there was a numerical grade that could separate the haves and have-nots on a public database. An irrational fixation on centering to the exclusion of every other subgrade category either exacerbated or flourished as a result of this new way of ranking cards by condition, and ranking collector by his ratios of 10s. To be fair, it's the one thing that can be quantifiably assessed on a card, measure in pixels if you like. In a sea of Bonds RC, at least a collector can accurately say his card is in the 99th percentile of centering of those that have been graded.

My grasp of the low end of the PSA grading scale in vintage isn't as personal. What I saw when I attended the National last year was eye opening though. There are much more perceptible differences in condition at the low end of the scale. Registration, fading, surface damage, staining, printing flaws, type of edge wear, paper loss, etc, all varied, sometimes vastly. There's no way to account for this on a number line, even if we did stagger the intervals more "evenly." But the dominant factor separating old cards remained centering. I suspect the decision was made by PSA and the like, and pretty much every collector followed. There's no way other way to turn a qualitative assessment into a quantitative metric, so that's what the powers that be went with. And almost an entire industry followed.

We've always wanted to know whose card is nicer. Like two friends running up to a lunch monitor on the playground, we asked PSA to decide who wins. And that's how we let a company bilk us collectively for millions.

[steve B]

The Leaf cards are about as difficult as it gets as far as using them for examples goes.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the two shown are in some ways entirely different cards. There are differences in most of the colors, especially the yellow that were differences between press runs. And those differences were on the plates themselves. The 6 is the more common, and even with the black inked a bit better, it always looks washed out and reddish in the face area. Leaf generally had horrible registration, and I believe some of the reason for multiple press runs was an attempt to hide the poor registration.

The common numbers have 3-5 distinct press runs, maybe more.

[Bigdaddy]

I've never understood the non-penalty for bad registration either. I'm in the last legs of putting together a '57T set and I can tell you that registration is a big issue. Other years, not as much. It especially shows up on cards where the photos are taken at a distance, so that the facial features are either clear or fuzzy. Took me a while to find a nicely registered 'Dodgers Sluggers' card. You can also see registration issues quickly on the team cards.

Shrug.....

[Kenny Cole]

Look at some of the photographic cards from, say, the Old Judges. Cards where you can't even make out the player because the photo has disintegrated can get 4 due to corners while a sharp photo with rounded corners gets a 1. I'll take the one, where I can actually see who the player is, over the 4 every time.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I've never understood the relative unimportance of focus, registration and color. Nor do I understand the recent centering mania such that people pay multiples at the same grade level to get a few degrees better centering. So I guess I can't help you there.

The cards that go for the big premiums you mentioned are not only basically dead centered, but have good focus and color as well. And they're usually free of typical issues like print defects, spots, lines, etc. Every card is different and it's very subjective. But certain cards just transcend their grade and are worth the premium to the right collector.

[Steve D]

Well, as I see it, there are two perspectives you have to consider:

1. Objective Grading

2. Subjective Grading

The TPGs have to grade "objectively"; meaning they grade on technical terms: Sharpness of corners, Cleanliness of edges, Centering, Surface wear.....things like that.

Then, there are the "subjective" aspects: Focus, Clarity of the picture, Crispness of colors....."eye appeal" factors.

There will always be disagreement on subjective matters. If you are Mr. Magoo, that out-of-focus 1948 Leaf might just be perfect for you, as your bad eye-sight counteracts the card's lack of focus. Similarly, if you are colorblind, you might not care about a card being off regarding a color or two. Also, if you are blessed with eyesight to rival Ted Williams, that faded, hard-to-see N172 Old Judge image might not seem so bad to you.

Concerning the difference between particular grades.....

A PSA 10 is considered "virtually" perfect (or "Gem Mint" condition), meaning it has no perceptible flaws. If there is even one "minor" perceptible flaw, it is not perfect; so you knock it down to a "9" (still "Mint" condition). If there's a second "minor", barely perceptable flaw, you wouldn't be wrong to knock it down to an "8.5". The lower you go in the grading scale, the wider the range of acceptable flaws gets. If you were to tighten the scale between the lower grades, you would greatly increase the size of the overall scale. One only has to look at coin collecting and comic book collecting to see that.

Coins are graded on a 1-70 scale, with single-number increments between 60 and 70. Below 60, the spread between grades is 5-10 numbers: i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 53, 55, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70.

Comics are graded on a 1-10 scale, but there are 1-2/10th-point margins in the scale: i.e., 9.0, 9.2, 9.4, 9.6, 9.8, 9.9, 10. Below 9.0, you have 8.5, 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.5, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.5, 4.0, 3.5, 3.0, 2.5, 2,0, 1.8, 1.5, 1.0, 0.5.

So, in coins, there are 28 different grade levels. Comics have 25 grade levels. Cards have 18 grade levels.

Do we really need more grade levels? There is already confusion regarding the grade levels we do have, and too many people who supposedly can't tell the difference between grades; do we really want to increase that confusion, "incompetence", and all the resulting heartburn and arguing? I say no.

Steve

[perezfan]

After your very well thought out reply (thanks BTW), this may sound quite elementary....

I do believe that a 1 - 10 grading scale is fine.... certainly no need for more increments. I just feel it should be spread more evenly from grade to grade throughout the scale.

Just a difference of opinion, which is terrific. I guess I just don't see the need for such miniscule/barely detectable differences to have such a giant impact at the top end of the scale. I guess it just is what it is.

[Steve D]

Regarding your question about when people started grading this way:

It basically began when money started becoming a bigger factor.

Back before PSA, we had Mint, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor. When money started being spent in higher amounts in the 1980s, people started wondering why one Mint condition card was so much better than the next Mint condition card. The 1980s also was when counterfeiting of cards became more and more prevalent (starting with the counterfeit Pete Rose RCs). Soon enough, PSA came on-line to attempt to bring some order to all the "chaos".

Similarly, coin collecting was going along with grading terms such as "Choice-Uncirculated", "Gem-Uncirculated", "Uncirculated", "Borderline/Almost-Uncirculated". Again, when money started becoming a bigger player, and more arguments began over one person's (i.e., the seller) "Gem-Uncirculated" being the next person's (i.e., the buyer) "Choice-Uncirculated", PCGS came around to try to calm everyone's nerves. "Gem-Uncirculated" became PCGS 67-70, "Choice-Uncirculated" became PCGS 65-66 (although many people considered "Choice-Uncirculated" to also include grades 63 and 64), and "Uncirculated" became PCGS 60-64.

So to answer your question.....people started grading this way when money started becoming a bigger factor, and the TPGs started doing their thing.

Steve

[Steve D]

Originally Posted by perezfan

After your very well thought out reply (thanks BTW), this may sound quite elementary....

I do believe that a 1 - 10 grading scale is fine.... certainly no need for more increments. I just feel it should be spread more evenly from grade to grade throughout the scale.

Just a difference of opinion, which is terrific. I guess I just don't see the need for such miniscule/barely detectable differences to have such a giant impact at the top end of the scale. I guess it just is what it is.

I tend to agree with you about wishing there wasn't such a giant impact on the top end of the scale.

Unfortunately, as long as money is a factor, that impact will continue.

As I mentioned in my last post, it pretty much all began in the 1980s. If I were to pin-point the exact time and person, I would say it was Alan Rosen, aka, "Mister Mint". Before him, a few people might have used the term "Gem Mint", but it was Rosen who brought that term into wide-spread use. He used flowery language like "The edges on this card could trim Santa's beard", or "This card's corners could stab you to death". He made a ton of money doing his schtick. That led to higher prices being paid across the board for all cards. Soon after, the hobby exploded in popularity, Upper Deck came around, and the rest is history.

As they say, money is the root of all evil.

Steve

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by Steve D

He used flowery language like "The edges on this card could trim Santa's beard", or "This card's corners could stab you to death". He made a ton of money doing his schtick.

Sounds like another guy I know. #saltoftheearth

[Exhibitman]

Cash is king. PSA was started to cash in on the perception--which it fomented with its advertising--that many cards were altered and only the skills of PSA could prevent you from purchasing worthless franken-cards. Seems ironic now...

The grading scale for cards was actually created by a notorious douchebag named Alan Hager, who started the first slabbing company, ASA. You occasionally see a card of his still out there. Hager was notorious for two things: putting his own cards into overgraded ASA slabs and writing a laughable card guide that primarily existed to pump the value of cards in his slabs. PSA paid the licensing fee to get the 1-10 scale; SGC's ancestor did not, which is why it had that 0-100 scale. So the whole business was born of a fraud wrapped in a con.

Since then, PSA and others have further fractionated the point system. If it survives the current scandals I wouldn't be surprised to see a 0-100 true point system some day. All random nonsense, of course, since we all know that a blazing card with a tiny spot of back paper loss is not the equivalent of a beater. It just takes Moser and PWCC to make us all see it again.

[1880nonsports]

has a meaningful spot on my shelves. It was a pretty book for the era :-) Love how he had a sales force dressed in suit and ties with only his tome and overpriced hyped cards in a nice leather briefcase. A known snake oil selling con man from the coin realm turns to the cardboard industry to bury prettied up pigs in plastic cases. Who would have thunk it.

[glchen]

For Question #1, there is a TPG who gave roughly equal spans to the different grades: Beckett via their BCCG grading label, and that was/is a complete bust. Everybody hated it. Therefore, the market has spoken, and folks like/want the current system with miniscule differences for the top grades and giant spans in the lower ones.

Originally Posted by perezfan

Probably obvious, and likely already discussed ad nauseam...

But could someone please explain the following discrepancies, regarding TPG Grading...

1. Why is there such a giant span in acceptable condition for cards graded 1,2,3 and such a miniscule difference for cards graded 8,9,10? Why not make the grading increments equal for each numerical progression? The condition variance for a PSA 2 (for example) can range from a totally destroyed card, to one with barely perceptible paper loss. On the high end of the spectrum, the differences between an 8 and a 10 are barely visible to the naked eye.

Why and when did people start collecting this way, and why is a ridiculous premium paid for something you can't even see without the aid of a loupe or microscope? I'd love to hear from somebody who puts complete faith in the hands of TPGs, and actually collects this way. I know most people will say it's "The Registry", but how did it become a hobby for only the most extreme OCD? Is it pure ego?

[swarmee]

I think, in the BCCG example, that starting their grading scale at 5 and ending at 10 is what puts people off about it. If they did it as a 1-5 scale, and it was the only scale the company offered, it might have worked. But the fact that BGS and BVG have 1-10 scales, and BCCG has a 5-10 scale which replicates the higher grade #s with lower graded cards, people were bound to hate it.
BCCG 5 (BGS 1-1.5): Poor or Better <---Still no delineation in a Poor/Fair Card: one pinhole or completely trashed?
BCCG 6 (BGS 2-2.5): Good or Better
BCCG 7 (BGS 3-4.5): Very Good or Better
BCCG 8 (BGS 5-6.5): Excellent or Better
BCCG 9 (BGS 7-8.5): Near Mint or better
BCCG 10 (BGS 9-10): Mint or better <--- why do you need "or better" on Mint in this case?

Plus, people want to prove they have the best copy, and pay more to get it. That's why BGS has added grades at the Top end, and SGC has added more too.
PSA: Mint 9 and Gem Mint 10
SGC: Mint 9, Mint+ (9.25?), Gem Mint (formerly 10, now 9.5?), Pristine 10
BGS: Mint 9, Gem Mint 9.5, Pristine 10 (with one 9.5 subgrade), BLACK LABEL 10 (all BGS 10 subgrades)

One of the scandals that started on blowout recently is that a former employee has gotten about A QUARTER OF ALL BLACK LABEL cards in the past few years that have shown up for sale on eBay. Regular submitters who have mailed in thousands of brand new Gem Mint cards might get 5 Black Labels in 1000 cards, while this former employee *either through fraud or subconscious bias by the graders he knows and hangs out with* has submissions of 25 cards where 22 got BGS 10 Black Labels (perfect 10 subgrades).

Here's where the modern market is right now:
Say a card sells for $100 as a BGS 9.5 Gem Mint. It might be $150 as a PSA 10 Gem Mint. It might be $250 as a BGS 10 Pristine. It might be $1,000 as a BGS 10 Black Label. So for an almost indistinguishable improvement on a card that just got cracked from a pack made months ago, the card is worth 7x the PSA 10 Gem Mint price because of this Black Label.

Whereas the price differential between Poors and Fairs is really not all that much, and nice looking Authentics may sell for more than either of them.

[perezfan]

Must be ego and greed driving those insane price differences for indecipherable microscopic differences. Many thanks to all who have replied!

[Leon]

You can't understand that centering is a major aspect of eye appeal? Maybe you should read more threads about it. And I don't think the centering mania is that new of a subject either. I am one of those that will pay multiples of a price for a centered card. Registration, focus and color are very important too. That all said, I prefer my cards NOT to be technically high grade as I don't want to pay those prices.

And to the OPs point, it would be nice if the TPGs DID count how a card looks instead of only a few physical attributes. I always chuckle when I see a TPG high grade 19th century, shadow of a player.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I've never understood the relative unimportance of focus, registration and color. Nor do I understand the recent centering mania such that people pay multiples at the same grade level to get a few degrees better centering. So I guess I can't help you there.

[TanksAndSpartans]

I think it was a Lionel Carter interview where I read that he and a friend used to buy packs in the 30s - Goudeys I think and then go home and divy them up. They would lay them down and have a draft. The well centered cards were picked first - regardless of player even.

[Anish]

Grading is pretty arbitrary when you think about it.

Why is a tiny spot of paper loss on the reverse worse than a crease through a player’s face?

Why does a rounded corner lower a grade more than registration that is way off?

Who decided these things and why are they treated like gospel?

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by Anish

Grading is pretty arbitrary when you think about it.

Why is a tiny spot of paper loss on the reverse worse than a crease through a player’s face?

Why does a rounded corner lower a grade more than registration that is way off?

Who decided these things and why are they treated like gospel?

I guess that was the whole point of my post.

Thanks for confirming it!

[Scott L.]

I use TPG primarily for the authenticity part of it. Then I use my own eyes on grades and what I think looks nice. My collection is dominated by lower grade cards that have nice eye appeal (to me at least). I couldn’t care less about the registries.

I admittedly probably put too much emphasis on the authenticity part. I feel pretty confident I can tell the difference between a real T206 and even a good fake just by a picture. Maybe other issues not so much.