Grading Has Clouded Our Minds...

[irv]

Originally Posted by irv

#1

Originally Posted by JollyElm

The 'rules' have been updated a bit to provide a little more flexibility. Instead of choosing one card, you can select the two cards you feel are the best 8's from the group.

As per the rule update, I am now including card #6 as well.

[JollyElm]

The only contestant with a PD qualifier is (drum roll, please) lucky card number 6...




Pretty wild. The picture in the auction actually made it seem like there was a decent flurry of snow in the dark areas (tantamount to card #3 or #5, but my guess is the seller's scanner has a bunch of dust on it), but that isn't the case at all in hand. I have no idea what the print defect is. No way, no how. The only 'defect' is the white dot on the border above his hat (the back is clean), but it's nothing at all. Take a look at how many white dots interrupt the top border of card #8.

For a comparison, I took a pair of random PSA 8 PD cards I ran across online and put them next to the one (first card) I bought. A drastic difference...

[JollyElm]

What a difference a hair makes...

The 1971 Topps Greatest Moments #24 Bob Gibson is a tough card to find. No doubt about it. On the auction prices realized site, there are only 15 sales of any grade recorded since 2006. And of those, there are only four straight PSA 8's (the only PSA 8 I see on ebay right now is priced at $975 or BO).

Pictured here are three cards, with a pair of said 8's. Look how close to the border the top left-hand corners of the white boxes come. Very, very close. Now look at the PSA 8 OC. It is only but a hair closer to the border than the other two, a nearly indistinguishable difference and nothing to fret about. Here's the good news. The straight 8's both sold for over $400 apiece...but I was immediately able to (picture David Lee Roth) jump on the OC one the other night for less than a quarter of that price.

[JollyElm]

Today's episode is called Ellis in Wonderland...

(These cards were randomly placed in three rows, so there is no underlying rhyme or reason to the layout. As always...no cheating!!)

The very lesser known 1972 Topps John Ellis IA card is part of the ridiculously-hard-to-find-centered grouping of In Action cards from the set that includes (among others) Willie Mays and Harmon Killebrew (who, coincidentally enough, appears right on the Ellis card). To actually find any of those cards nicely centered and sans tilt is a feat that requires the likes of Indiana Jones traversing the globe to accomplish. Be that as it may, pictured here are a bunch of straight PSA 8 cards that all look remarkably similar to each other, except one - only one - is a PSA 9 OC. Which one is it, and/or which of these cards would you prefer over the others?

(The top row contains cards #1, 2, the middle row #3, 4 and the bottom row has cards #5, 6.)

[JollyElm]

On a side note, I ran across this PSA 7 Topps 1973 'Broadway Joe' on ebay today. The rule of thumb is a PSA 9 card that is off-centered could be magically turned into a straight PSA 7 if the 'no qualifiers' box is checked on the submission form. (Have no way of knowing whether or not this occurred in regard to the grading of the card here) I mean, coloring problems in the graphic on the 7 aside, wouldn't virtually everyone immediately prefer the PSA 9 OC card (although it's a little worse top to bottom), since they have nearly identical features???

1974namathpsacomp.jpg

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

...wouldn't virtually everyone immediately prefer the PSA 9 OC card (although it's a little worse top to bottom), since they have nearly identical features???

Attachment 400509

Yeah the 9 OC is the better card here.

Whenever it was that centering as a key feature rose to prominence 20 years ago or whatever, it made grading a lot tougher. You continue to see changes today, with SGC suddenly getting tougher than PSA on centering even within the last year or so. Often a borderline card with them will get the lower grade, and I've seen some cases where it would appear that professional graders simply don't know how to compute centering ratios properly, or are bad at eyeballing. They obviously don't measure all of them. Some people will penalize a 70/30 card as if it's 90/10, which is wrong.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

The only contestant with a PD qualifier is (drum roll, please) lucky card number 6...

Insanity. Another reason why it makes little sense to hang your hat only on a grader's opinion. The '61 Topps cards with black backgrounds are damn near impossible though. Even Mantles in high grade usually have something going on back there.

[JollyElm]

Okay, to be clear, this isn't a complaint or anything of the sort, but I have to say I am rather confounded (don't think I've ever actually used that particular word before) by this card's grading. For my fellow variations-chasing brethren, this is the hardest to find of the 1966 Topps #432 Bob Heffner cards. There is the regular version, the purple tree version, and what I call the purple tree 'lens flare' variation found here (I'm happy it's an 8). There is nothing subjective about it. An explosion of magenta ink lays waste to the background foliage. But here's where it gets interesting. These variations are in no way officially recognized cards in the PSA master set registry...so why in heck isn't my card downgraded with a horrible 'PD' pronouncement??? There is clearly and obviously a print defect that is as plain as day to anyone looking at the card, yet no designation is made...

1966heffner432psa8.jpg

...yet for the love of criminy, my 1961 Topps #485 Banks MVP card got the Scarlet Letters 'PD' attached to it, although for the life of me I will never understand why. There are no explosions. In fact, it seem Topps was in a state of detente at the time...

1961banksmvp485pd.jpg

I have a couple of Schmidt rookie cards with a decent amount of snow floating around, and they were both correctly PD'ed. Are the PSA graders collectors who know about this variation, so they ignore the fact that said variation IS a print defect?? Strange. Again, not complaining, just wondering what the logic is here.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

These variations are in no way officially recognized cards in the PSA master set registry...so why in heck isn't my card downgraded with a horrible 'PD' pronouncement??? There is clearly and obviously a print defect that is as plain as day to anyone looking at the card, yet no designation is made...

Attachment 403745

...yet for the love of criminy, my 1961 Topps #485 Banks MVP card got the Scarlet Letters 'PD' attached to it, although for the life of me I will never understand why. There are no explosions. In fact, it seem Topps was in a state of detente at the time...

This is typical PSA inconsistency that has never really been corrected. Not that it's an excuse, but the Banks is in an old slab. Back in the day they were very tough with the PD qualifier, and at some point that suddenly changed. I had the Willie Mays MVP from that same set, and it was riddled with snow, way worse than your Banks. But it was in a (newer) straight PSA 7 case. These kind of things added up is why the consensus still points to professional grading being very inconsistent, and something that should be considered as only one opinion and not the end-all, be-all, as far as I'm concerned. You could bust the slabs and send both of those cards back in tomorrow and they could come back with totally different grades.

[JollyElm]

Whoops, I neglected to resolve Ellis in Wonderland...

[GasHouseGang]

.

[JollyElm]

Let's call tonight's brand new episode What the Eck is Going on Here??!!...
(A Quinn Martin Production)

(These cards were randomly placed in two rows, so there is no underlying rhyme or reason to the layout. As always...no cheating!!)

Pictured here is a group of very nearly identical 1976 Topps Dennis Eckersley rookie cards (and I won't even ask what the Eck is going on with that weird long lock of matted hair covering most of his ear). Each and every one of them has been graded as a straight PSA 9, except one - only one - which was callously deemed a PSA 9 OC. Which one is it? Which one is the terrible outcast who has been exiled to the Island of Misfit Cards??

(The top row contains cards #1, 2, 3, 4 and the bottom row has cards #5, 6, 7, 8.)