Eye Appeal -vs- Technical Grade

[dstraate]

I don't really collect rarities (yet) but for me, eye appeal is everything. A clear image and nice centering will make me bid up to 30% over what I think fair value is. I've got a couple of PSA 2s that I wouldn't trade for half the 3s I see. Number grades are important from a business standpoint, but eye appeal is critical from a collecting standpoint.

[drc]

For a practical matter, eye appeal usually is reflected in resale value. Often, if you think it has eye appeal-- brighter colors, whatever--, others will agree.

[t206hound]

Originally Posted by dstraate

Number grades are important from a business standpoint, but eye appeal is critical from a collecting standpoint.

Well said.

[Leon]

I am not necessarily a high grade collector at all. I like eye appeal and will pay for it. When I find a card that is priced at the numeric grade, has awesome eye appeal for that grade, then I tend to buy it more often. I had been looking for a T205 Cobby forever. Even though you can literally find at least 10 every single day to buy (including ebay) you almost never see ones that don't have some sort of distraction to them. So far I have not seen any 6's that look better than this one I very recently acquired. Almost none of the 7's even look as good, except for the tiny bit of corner wear. The only thing about this one is that it had a speck of dirt on his cheek. As I told several friends that is all I could see.....not the beauty of the card. Two to three days ago I went ahead and cracked it from it's SGC 70 holder (*it's now raw) and the speck of dirt literally flew off of his cheek. I didn't even touch the card. Now I just need it back into a holder, for protection, and I am as good as gold (border)......So the short answer is eye appeal counts more than the number on the slab to me...or even it's technical grade regardless of it being slabbed or not. regards

[mintacular]

I'm glad this topic has been raised, recently a board member correctly reminded me that technical grades and eye appeal are two different factors i.e. technical grades do not quantify a cards' overall "eye appeal". Example: a perfect t card with a pinhole could and oftentimes get the same grade as a non-pinholed card but is an eye sore in every other respect.

Any further comments on this issue would be interesting for me to hear.

[famousgolfers]

It’s all about eye appeal for me. I have sold higher grade cards to buy or keep a lower grade card that has much better eye appeal to me. I often regularly pass on higher grade cards, where they just don’t present as well. I assume I am not in the minority, but I know a few people have to have those extra registry points! I do have some of my cards listed on the various registries, so I am not completely knocking those individuals.

[DeanH3]

Eye appeal is more important to me than technical grade. Like others, I prefer a lower grade with nicer eye appeal over a higher grade with less eye appeal.

[WhenItWasAHobby]

Definitely eye-appeal for me. When I was active on the PSA Registry, I'd sometime sacrifice a grade or two for a stunning, dead-centered, sharply focused, vibrant colored PSA 8 card instead of an PSA 9 or 10 that wasn't that aesthetically nice.

It's rather bizarre when one thinks about it. People pay sometimes tens of thousands of dollars more for a certain card compared to another because under 10X magnification they can't see traces of wear on the corners of one card but they can see microscopic wear on the corner of another card and that makes all the difference in value. The best example of late was the 1979 O-Pee-Chee Gretzky PSA 10 that went for $94,000+ while PSA 9 examples typically sell for $5,000 -$7,000. If you covered the flips on those 9's and 10, would you really see $85,000+ difference between the two?