Grading Has Clouded Our Minds...

[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]

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[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.)

[deweyinthehall]

#3