BVG accuracy on lower-mid vintage...?

[steve B]

That's what makes lower and to some extent even mid grade stuff challenging.

When I started, a crease or more serious wrinkle was almost an automatic G. Mostly because there were usually other problems. Centering didn't count for as much with most people.

When I asked about a couple of my cards that didn't grade as well as I'd expected, the guy from SGC explained that it was both cumulative and somewhat subjective. And with that, some of the grades made a bit more sense.
A few examples.
This one has a tiny wrinkle halfway up the left side. It barely reaches into the image. The corners are nice, and I'd thought that the tiny flake of paper loss on one was the reason for the grade even though I've seen 60s with more wear than the chip that came off. Nope, it's the wrinkle, the off register green, and a couple other trivial things that push it down to a 50


On the other hand, this one has a fairly big wrinkle/crease down the center. About halfway down starting at the top. Probably from being removed from a page. Apparently that's it's only real problem. I didn't expect it to do this well.


This one has a thick but small paper inclusion. It's right where the white spot in the background is. No paper loss, but the ink has worn off. The card is also nearly AB narrow. I'm not sure what else is wrong, but maybe the inclusion was enough to rate only a VG?


Last, this one has some obvious corner wear, 3 just barely better than what I think of as VG, one worse. Plus the obvious corner crease, and some other general wear you'd expect.
I thought the VG was generous, but maybe...
It's also possible they went easy because the other ones I had done at the show were basically no effort to grade, a few blank backs which were obvious As, and a Cobb that got a 10, but could have been A just as easily.