CGC Jumping into card grading?

[Brian Van Horn]

Overkill.

[68Hawk]

Case looks nice enough to me....I'm a Beckett fan in terms of cases and love clear plastic around the card.
Flip design is fine but the area devoted to it looks to be around 27-28% of the entire slab. Kinda makes a sizeable card like a 52' Topps looks small and de-emphasizes it.
Grading information is important, but the card should be the star.

[68Hawk]

I have to say I was underwhelmed initially at the idea of another TPG'er but the idea is growing on me.
I wonder where their niche will be considered to be.....I mean, you don't grade tobacco cards like you do 2017 Prizm Football (I'm a Chiefs/Patty Mahomes fan LOL), there are standards and parameters that apply to each era otherwise most cards pre 1970 would top out at 5-6's if judged against modern card production while the vast majority would fall in the 0.5 to 4 range.

Then there's game used and thicker slabs, auto's etc.
Do you hire experts in each field and try to do it all? That's a TONNE of card and issue knowledge you need to have on hand.

It's going to be super interesting to watch this baby get born.

[68Hawk]

...sorry for the series of posts as the thoughts flitter through.

Another interesting thing looking at those pics above is that the holder looks to be taller when housing the 52 Mantle. There's the same amount of clear space around the Topps card as the smaller 79 Gretzky and Jordan Rook, and flip also looks same sized among all three.
That's going to lead to some issues in storage I would think, most of us find a way to house the slabs because they fall in a similar range for alot of issues. If I need something tall enough to cover a range of slab sizes it's going to be a hard task....

[drcy]

Why would/should cards from different eras be graded differently?

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by drcy

Why would/should cards from different eras be graded differently?

I think he's talking about the inherent poor quality of gray cardboard stock. Natural fibers from the 50s and 60s would look like surface wrinkles to a computerized grading system or to a person trying to judge a vintage card using the exact same rules as modern cards. Vintage cards also had odder cuts (edge chipping, rough cuts, diamond cuts, tilt) that are forgiven as a vestige of their production style. Corners and centering can be judged the same (mostly), but edges and surface subgrades would need to be determined differently based on the age of production.

Obviously there is a huge demand for card grading; all three "major" companies are months behind in keeping up. This company will get business just like SGC has been overwhelmed in the past few months. I hold out hope that some TPG will figure out how to reject altered cards. Issue is that more scammers want their altered cards graded, than it seems there are honest submitters that want their cards returned if they were altered. So by being accurate and honest, it may lose them business overall.

It will also be interesting to see what their "Guaranty" is (since it's in the name) and whether or not they hem and haw about taking before and after pictures of the same card as evidence of alterations. Will also be interesting to see if they publish a list of the submitters they've banned due to previous bad acts or ones done while submitting to the company.

Price point will also matter. Looks like their CCG (Magic, Pokemon) service requires a membership to submit and has the following price structure:
https://www.cgccomics.com/submit/ser...s/cgc-grading/

Other alterations they'll need to be aware of: bleaching vintage. wiping off autographs from certified auto cards and then people having them signed in-person to get cleaner, autograph authentication in general, waxing/buffing out of scratches from chrome cards, swapped patches from jersey pieces inserted into cards, adding of fake stamps (Desert Shield, serial numbering taking a "backdoored/bankruptcy" card to "production", autopens, family member signatures on "certified manufacturer autograph issues, rebuilding corners, microtrimming, printed signatures passed off as real, etc.

There are a lot of ways the current TPGs are being defrauded. I wish them good luck.

Add: Even more alterations: counterfeit modern cards (Chinese 1990s basketball fakes), counterfeit vintage cards, "game-worn" patches the manufacturer puts in from counterfeit jerseys.

[68Hawk]

Originally Posted by swarmee

I think he's talking about the inherent poor quality of gray cardboard stock. Natural fibers from the 50s and 60s would look like surface wrinkles to a computerized grading system or to a person trying to judge a vintage card using the exact same rules as modern cards. Vintage cards also had odder cuts (edge chipping, rough cuts, diamond cuts, tilt) that are forgiven as a vestige of their production style. Corners and centering can be judged the same (mostly), but edges and surface subgrades would need to be determined differently based on the age of production.

Obviously there is a huge demand for card grading; all three "major" companies are months behind in keeping up. This company will get business just like SGC has been overwhelmed in the past few months. I hold out hope that some TPG will figure out how to reject altered cards. Issue is that more scammers want their altered cards graded, than it seems there are honest submitters that want their cards returned if they were altered. So by being accurate and honest, it may lose them business overall.

It will also be interesting to see what their "Guaranty" is (since it's in the name) and whether or not they hem and haw about taking before and after pictures of the same card as evidence of alterations. Will also be interesting to see if they publish a list of the submitters they've banned due to previous bad acts or ones done while submitting to the company.

Price point will also matter. Looks like their CCG (Magic, Pokemon) service requires a membership to submit and has the following price structure:
https://www.cgccomics.com/submit/ser...s/cgc-grading/

Other alterations they'll need to be aware of: bleaching vintage. wiping off autographs from certified auto cards and then people having them signed in-person to get cleaner, autograph authentication in general, waxing/buffing out of scratches from chrome cards, swapped patches from jersey pieces inserted into cards, adding of fake stamps (Desert Shield, serial numbering taking a "backdoored/bankruptcy" card to "production", autopens, family member signatures on "certified manufacturer autograph issues, rebuilding corners, microtrimming, printed signatures passed off as real, etc.

There are a lot of ways the current TPGs are being defrauded. I wish them good luck.

Add: Even more alterations: counterfeit modern cards (Chinese 1990s basketball fakes), counterfeit vintage cards, "game-worn" patches the manufacturer puts in from counterfeit jerseys.

Quality post, thanks for capturing what I was trying to allude to re inherent differences in stock, printing and cutting coming in to play when judging condition of cards from different eras. On a 1-10 scale, there were almost no real 9/10's ever created in the first 90 years of card production so it's like grading on a curve for those cards. And even then each decade and change to offerings need to be graded on their own merits.
Many collectors view the requirements of what needs assessing for grading through the lens of their own fairly narrow interests.
The prism is enormous and why I cut the TPG's more slack than most wish to.

[Exhibitman]

I like a clean, crisp label with easily read lettering. I don't like feeling like I'm trying to sort 1970s Topps cards by number when reading a flip.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by swarmee

I think he's talking about the inherent poor quality of gray cardboard stock. Natural fibers from the 50s and 60s would look like surface wrinkles to a computerized grading system or to a person trying to judge a vintage card using the exact same rules as modern cards. Vintage cards also had odder cuts (edge chipping, rough cuts, diamond cuts, tilt) that are forgiven as a vestige of their production style. Corners and centering can be judged the same (mostly), but edges and surface subgrades would need to be determined differently based on the age of production.

Obviously there is a huge demand for card grading; all three "major" companies are months behind in keeping up. This company will get business just like SGC has been overwhelmed in the past few months. I hold out hope that some TPG will figure out how to reject altered cards. Issue is that more scammers want their altered cards graded, than it seems there are honest submitters that want their cards returned if they were altered. So by being accurate and honest, it may lose them business overall.

It will also be interesting to see what their "Guaranty" is (since it's in the name) and whether or not they hem and haw about taking before and after pictures of the same card as evidence of alterations. Will also be interesting to see if they publish a list of the submitters they've banned due to previous bad acts or ones done while submitting to the company.

Price point will also matter. Looks like their CCG (Magic, Pokemon) service requires a membership to submit and has the following price structure:
https://www.cgccomics.com/submit/ser...s/cgc-grading/

Other alterations they'll need to be aware of: bleaching vintage. wiping off autographs from certified auto cards and then people having them signed in-person to get cleaner, autograph authentication in general, waxing/buffing out of scratches from chrome cards, swapped patches from jersey pieces inserted into cards, adding of fake stamps (Desert Shield, serial numbering taking a "backdoored/bankruptcy" card to "production", autopens, family member signatures on "certified manufacturer autograph issues, rebuilding corners, microtrimming, printed signatures passed off as real, etc.

There are a lot of ways the current TPGs are being defrauded. I wish them good luck.

Add: Even more alterations: counterfeit modern cards (Chinese 1990s basketball fakes), counterfeit vintage cards, "game-worn" patches the manufacturer puts in from counterfeit jerseys.

Unfortunately, I agree that being honest might be bad for business for a TPG. And that says something about our hobby nowadays. I have heard countless stories, from big dealers., about what their customers want. They want a label with a high grade regardless of anything else. Sad.

.