Rough cuts and grading standards

[perezfan]

The fact that a rough cut isn't punished but off-center is heavily punished shows you just how arbitrary and senseless "professional" grading is. Both are factory traits, and should be treated similarly.

Take their assigned number with a grain of salt. There's very little consistency, and the people grading them devote about as much time as Lucy and Ethel spent on each piece of chocolate on the conveyor belt.

That said, it varies from grader to grader and day to day. But rough-cut corners do tend to get favorable treatment and garner more forgiveness than straight-cut edges... the "affirmative action" of trading cards, if you will.

[Oscar_Stanage]

Originally Posted by perezfan

The fact that a rough cut isn't punished but off-center is heavily punished shows you just how arbitrary and senseless "professional" grading is. Both are factory traits, and should be treated similarly.

Take their assigned number with a grain of salt. There's very little consistency, and the people grading them devote about as much time as Lucy and Ethel spent on each piece of chocolate on the conveyor belt.

That said, it varies from grader to grader and day to day. But rough-cut corners do tend to get favorable treatment and garner more forgiveness than straight-cut edges... the "affirmative action" of trading cards, if you will.

I don't agree that penalizing centering and not cut is arbitrary. If a factory uses a wire to cut cards, it is not avoidable, it's just how they did it at the time. Centering, on the other hand, is a characteristic distributed randomly. They were not able to precisely measure all the time, and sometimes it worked well, other times not. Cards should certainly be penalized for bad centering.

Originally Posted by Wid_Conroy

I don't agree that penalizing centering and not cut is arbitrary. If a factory uses a wire to cut cards, it is not avoidable, it's just how they did it at the time. Centering, on the other hand, is a characteristic distributed randomly. They were not able to precisely measure all the time, and sometimes it worked well, other times not. Cards should certainly be penalized for bad centering.

Even though it’s a random characteristic it’s very common and impossible to keep sheets perfect on large running offset printing presses. Even though they check sheets regularly throughout the run sheets get by with imperfections before the press can be adjusted. I’ve press checked thousands of jobs over my thirty year career and like trimming it’s common to the printing process.

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by Wid_Conroy

I don't agree that penalizing centering and not cut is arbitrary. If a factory uses a wire to cut cards, it is not avoidable, it's just how they did it at the time. Centering, on the other hand, is a characteristic distributed randomly. They were not able to precisely measure all the time, and sometimes it worked well, other times not. Cards should certainly be penalized for bad centering.

I understand your point, but the rough cut can vary just as much as centering can. The same card in the set can have a very rough cut one time, and virtually a straight cut the next.

I agree with you, that cards should be penalized for bad centering. But seems like there is far more random leniency and forgiveness with regard to severe rough cuts.

[Oscar_Stanage]

Originally Posted by perezfan

I understand your point, but the rough cut can vary just as much as centering can. The same card in the set can have a very rough cut one time, and virtually a straight cut the next.

I agree with you, that cards should be penalized for bad centering. But seems like there is far more random leniency and forgiveness with regard to severe rough cuts.

I think the card posted is being penalized for a rough cut. I think to the extent that there is 'chipping' on the surface near the edges, it is certainly penalized. Perhaps the author can share scans of the front, and clarify what the position is on the card. Is he saying it should be a 4?

With the info provided, it looks like a 5 is reasonable based on the corner and edges that I can see from the back scan.

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by Wid_Conroy

I think the card posted is being penalized for a rough cut. I think to the extent that there is 'chipping' on the surface near the edges, it is certainly penalized. Perhaps the author can share scans of the front, and clarify what the position is on the card. Is he saying it should be a 4?

With the info provided, it looks like a 5 is reasonable based on the corner and edges that I can see from the back scan.

This is the front of the card. My point was that it has pretty heavy damage to the corners (especially the bottom right corner but more noticeable at the bottom left corner of the back scan) and should probably have graded a 3, but that if you compare the corners to the edges and have decided that the edges look just fine then the corners don't seem so terrible.

[Oscar_Stanage]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

This is the front of the card. My point was that it has pretty heavy damage to the corners (especially the bottom right corner but more noticeable at the bottom left corner of the back scan) and should probably have graded a 3, but that if you compare the corners to the edges and have decided that the edges look just fine then the corners don't seem so terrible.

this looks to me to simply be an old-slab issue. Probably is a 3-4 if it was graded today just on the eye-test. And I think the edges and corners do matter in that determination

[vthobby]

Glenn,

Do you own this card? I'm interested in it if you do. Thanks!

Mike