Recent Personal Observations from Vintage Card Grading Trends

[parkplace33]

From my perspective, both companies recently have been tougher across the board. Centering, print, eye appeal.... all are now taken into consideration and many cards that would have graded higher in the past are now getting low grades.

I am actually in favor of this new view. I hope we move away from some of the more lenient grading in the past (the gift grades given out in the 1990s come to mind).

[oldjudge]

Interesting, your observation concerning centering is contrary to what I have seen. I have always found PSA to be more concerned with centering than SGC.

[Snowman]

OPs observations regarding what both companies focus on is accurate. There is always some variance from one grader to the next, but as general rules of thumb, each point listed is the OP is spot on.

The one that cracks me up most is PSA's completely arbitrary usage of the half grades. Despite what their website says, it is rarely applied for centering and eye appeal. The number of OC cards in PSA slabs with half grades far outnumbers those which are well centered. A true head-scratcher.

[glynparson]

Call me crazy but I don’t want PSA to give a rats ass about customer experience. I want some people to have an awful experience. I want PSA to get the grades right. By doing this they would inevitably disappoint some people therefore some need to have a bad experience for them to properly do their job. And that’s what I want from them proper grading and authenticating. I don’t need my hand held or ass kissed.