Are grading companies giving out 8 grades or higher on cards pre 1960 anymore?

[Lobo Aullando]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

To combat it they need to do more than using half grades. They need to keep a few sets of eyes off of the shiny garbage that pays their bills.

Geez, man. I actually started typing this point up, then decided I should get back to work.

They like to say that all their graders can do any card, which makes it sound like everyone is doing anything. Taking that at face value, I posit that it doesn't mean they have to completely silo their graders if they decide to have some specialize. (And they still get to say "everyone can do anything," which is easy to elide from "everyone can do anything.")

At risk of sounding like an organizational consultant, having graders with concentrations builds more knowledge than having a bunch of generalists, which is what it seems like they have right now. Have folks do cross-training (aka, "going on detail").

If they're worried about consistency, they already have published standards with affirmative details. Simply have everyone in those little rooms hew to those standards instead of trying to achieve some goal of relative consistency, which can shift. Emphasizing everybody being a generalist might help homogenize the outputs in the short term, but it seems to have led to inconsistencies over time.

[Kzoo]

I agree with several previous posts, as it looks like they're pretty accurate on the modern 'shiny' stuff and I believe they get the Poor to Good (1-2 range) stuff graded correctly, but the 4-8 range stuff is really off.

I have an order of 1950's to 70's mid to higher grade cards on their way back to me right now from PSA and every single card is at least 1 grade lower (a couple are 2+ grades lower) than I've been accustomed to over the past 22 years. It seems to me that they take an even harsher grading approach to a card that is even slightly off-center. These new graders are so used to seeing perfectly centered new cards, that 40/60 off center vintage cards are getting hammered.....and it seems that they don't realize vintage cards were manufactured with rougher non-perfect cuts, as compared to modern. It would be great to see different graders for only modern OR only vintage, as mentioned.

Knowing this, I'll just stockpile cards for now and see if anything changes in the future.... and I'll patiently wait each month for their 'We Agree We Brutally Undergraded Everyone's 2021-22 Vintage Card Submissions and Would Like to Fix It Monthly Special'....That'll be the day, LOL

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by Lobo Aullando

Geez, man. I actually started typing this point up, then decided I should get back to work.

They like to say that all their graders can do any card, which makes it sound like everyone is doing anything. Taking that at face value, I posit that it doesn't mean they have to completely silo their graders if they decide to have some specialize. (And they still get to say "everyone can do anything," which is easy to elide from "everyone can do anything.")

At risk of sounding like an organizational consultant, having graders with concentrations builds more knowledge than having a bunch of generalists, which is what it seems like they have right now. Have folks do cross-training (aka, "going on detail").

If they're worried about consistency, they already have published standards with affirmative details. Simply have everyone in those little rooms hew to those standards instead of trying to achieve some goal of relative consistency, which can shift. Emphasizing everybody being a generalist might help homogenize the outputs in the short term, but it seems to have led to inconsistencies over time.

First, they are off far more than .5. I could live with their being off by .5. The issue is far greater than that. So using half grades more often does not address the issue, in the least. They have to see a half grade first in order to use them and presently they cannot distinguish an 8 from a 6.

Next, I could not imagine looking at cards 6 to 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year when most of that time I would be issuing mostly 9s and 10s. It is going to throw off anyone's perspective if they then are assigned a vintage order.

I do not know what the answer is but I feel like this is the explanation for why they are crushing vintage. No adjustment will be made by PSA or SGC unless they see submissions drop off.