Cards the grading companies got/get wrong

[murphy8276]

PSA's clear "consistency" when misgrading the 1986 Fleer Sticker Kareem Abdul Jabbar as minsizerq...

That card is hands down the most "minsizerq" card in all of grading. There is not one card that consistently gets denied more times than that one does. That should tell PSA all it needs to know---that a factory cut is factory cut. PERIOD.

Cut short from the factory = authentic and should have a number grade.

[here2havefun]

I collect Topps Venezuelans. It's not uncommon to see US issue cards that have been slabbed and ID'ed as Venezuelan on Ebay.

Much less common is seeing VE cards slabbed as US issue. I know someone in the Venny FB group recently found a Yaz rookie, in a BVG holder, that was a Venezuelan (and I assume he bought it for cheap hah).

[sflayank]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/19506196220...mis&media=COPY

[G1911]

A classic

[irv]

Originally Posted by G1911

The Cracker Jack Mack might just be my favorite for how bad of a reprint it is. And at least 2 of their graders still thought it was real.

That the vast majority of collectors will stay pay much, much more $ for a card in PSA’s slab will never cease to amaze me.

Same.

Originally Posted by G1911

Agreed.



A preponderance of the available evidence would suggest that 2 of their graders could not tell a Dover reprint from a real one.



I don't think anyone expects perfection. Most of the ones in this thread are just amusing data entry errors, there are numerous far more serious examples of incompetence (or corruption), starting with the very first card in their system, a trimmed PSA 8 Wagner fraud.



This is largely the problem. PSA rests on an appeal to authority, that they are experts specially able or talented and their seal of approval and grade on a card thus is justified in creating multipliers of value. And yet they've certified hundreds or even thousands of trimmed cards from a single fraud ring (PWCC's) alone, they've certified the most obvious of fakes like Dover Connie Mack's, they misidentify many cards and sets (to cite one of many examples, they still don't know seem to know the difference between T218 and T219 and consistently grade one as the other), PSA 8's become PSA 10's seemingly at random, their foundational card is an altered fraud, etc. and so on and so forth. One doesn't have to nitpick or dig far to find tons of examples, and this is being fairly generous by only accusing them of incompetency. They are inconsistent, often misidentify, frequently miss or simply ignore (at best) altered cards, and occasionally grade the most ridiculous of fakes that are not even good fakes.

An appeal to authority while having these problems rings especially hollow. Whether "some people at these companies" know more than peons like me is, of course, utterly irrelevant. A claim or statement is true or false based on the merits of itself, not of the person making it. We don't even know who is actually grading a card, even if an appeal to authority was valid.

Very well said!

[JollyElm]

Here's a relatively amusing one. PSA gave it a 'PD' qualifier instead of an 'ST,' so I always assumed it was just a data input error? The coffee (or whatever) permeates both sides of the card. No print defects involved, just some clumsy oaf hurriedly reaching for his remote and knocking his half-caff/decaf over into his box of cards, I imagine...


1973schmidtrc615PSA8PDa.jpg1973schmidtrc615PSA8PDb.jpg


Good news is after some back and forth, they agreed to reholder it at their expense, and now it has the proper stain qualifier attached.

[Peter_Spaeth]

On the nonsports side, their identification and dating of many issues is simply atrocious, and the frustrating part is they won't listen to corrections. It has consequences in that segment too, as just one example PSA insists on dating a certain Michael Jackson card as 1969 when it was in fact issued in 1973, with the result that people call it a RC and command a huge premium from unknowing buyers when in fact he has earlier issues.

Other examples and there are hundreds.

Cards of Elvis dated 1950, 5 years before his debut.

A set dated 1930 which includes Frank Sinatra.

A set dated 1935 of movie stars, discussing on the backs films issued 1938 and later.