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

[sflayank]

Except that many are now exchanging old holders for new holders, so an old 8 becomes a new 8

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

I just got several 9's in a submission 1955 -1964. They were from 1955, 1956 and 1960 respectively. Also got eight 8's and six 7's. I thought all cards were 8's with an outside shot at some 9's.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by sflayank

Except that many are now exchanging old holders for new holders, so an old 8 becomes a new 8

Except the serial number doesn't change.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Except the serial number doesn't change.

You may have lucked out and got the one friendly grader in the building.

[Jcosta19]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Except the serial number doesn't change.

I know that to be true for PSA, but not SGC.
They will give older cards a new 7 digit cert number, although if you look up the cert I do believe it gives the original date of grading.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

[Snowman]

PSA has drastically moved the goalposts on us. Nearly all "high-grade" vintage cards are either trimmed, graded eons ago, or both. None of those cards would regrade the same today. Most would grade 2 full grades lower if the serial begins with a 0.

It's still possible to get 8s and 9s, but they're super rare. I've seen some from the 50s sets, but it's far more difficult than it used to be. Most NM-MT cards get 7s and 6s nowadays.

[Kzoo]

Originally Posted by Snowman

PSA has drastically moved the goalposts on us.

This is frustrating, as I used to be pretty accurate at guessing the grades of my submissions over the past 20 years. I know they've denied changing any grading stipulations, but the results are clearly obvious.

[rugbymarine]

Originally Posted by Snowman

PSA has drastically moved the goalposts on us.

This is the answer, whether they admit it or not. And since every thread needs a card, here's a great example of two 1962 cards with the same grade. Both beautiful cards that I'm thrilled to own, but the Kaline would be a 5 today, and the Brooks might have been an 8 if it was graded 15 years ago.

[Lorewalker]

SGC was the first to make adjustments to much stricter grading standards from what I experienced and was seeing. PSA followed suit and seems to have taken it a step further. Of course both deny grading standards have changed.

Nat laughed about such a silly notion in a recent interview and said it is more likely that submitters' expectations account for the disappointment. So I suppose collectively we all need to lower our expectations. At least Nat acknowledged it. Peter from SGC refuses to address the elephant in the room.

I have heard various reasons why this might be happening at SGC and PSA and the one that made sense is that never before has there been so much new crap submitted. Graders have adjusted to seeing mostly nearly perfect pack fresh cards all day long thereby distorting their perspective.

[Lobo Aullando]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

Graders have adjusted to seeing mostly nearly perfect pack fresh cards all day long thereby distorting their perspective.

This is what I think is mostly the cause. They see so much "perfect" or "near perfect" stuff that they start using more range to define those, and ultimately it ends up compressing the mid- and low-grade stuff into fewer tiers. (To combat this, they could start using more half-grades, but that's probably too easy a suggestion to implement.)

Anyway, as the saying goes, buy the card, not the slab.

[BobC]

What I've always thought was happening was that in the early years of grading, the earlier vintage cards were more dominant in what was being submitted to the TPGs. And as a result, the standards of what was considered as say NM for these older cards that were produced under generally less consistent and lower quality control conditions, along with using inferior quality material, inks, etc., compared to what is used today, were set based on what those earlier vintage cards all seemed to look like. But over the years, the more modern cards, with their higher quality materials, inks, production processes, and seemingly much more stringent quality control standards, have taken over the TPG market.

And when you look at cards from say around 1989, when Upper Deck first came out, to today, you can see the vast improvement in card production and quality for these modern cards versus the earlier, more vintage cards. Hate to admit it, but the overall card quality of modern cards is vastly superior to that of more vintage, pre-1990's cards. Had the TPGs continued using the standards they initially seemed to set for the more vintage cards, it would seem that none of the modern cards would ever end up grading lower than 9's or 10's. But that doesn't necessarily work or help the hobby market for modern cards.

As has been mentioned and questioned on this forum in other threads, there has been speculation that the TPGs needed to differentiate the grading of modern cards so that everything wasn't always just 9's and 10's. This would allow for those few cards that did get the higher 10 grades to then raise the demand for them, and thus their prices, in the eyes of the hobby market. But to do this, they had to really tighten up the standards and measures of what constituted a 10 versus a 9, versus a 7, or lower grade. Which works fine with most all of the newer modern cards with their advanced production techniques and quality. The problem comes though, in how do you then continue to consistently apply these now evolving, seemingly more stringent, standards to all the lower quality vintage cards that previously dominated your grading business? And there's the rub!

Whether intentional or unintentional, TPG graders are going to consistently see more and more modern cards of superior production quality and standards, than they ever did with just looking mostly at more vintage cards like they did in the past. Even if their bosses didn't tell these graders to start being a little more stringent in their grading standards, constantly seeing more and more modern cards of a superior and more consistent quality is eventually going to create some bias in how then then start viewing the lesser quality, older vintage cards. Possibly the only way around that would have been if any of the TPGs proactively came out and stated that they were going to bifurcate the card grading standards, and going forward have two different sets of standards/measures they would use. One more relaxed set of standards for say vintage cards pre-1990s, and the other more stringent set of standards for modern cards say 1990's through today. But then you're potentially upsetting the hobby by trying to openly force a major drastic change on them, that might not go over well. Can especially see that reeking havoc, and pissing off some people in love with Registries, and rankings. And if just one TPG does that, but not the others, that could end up having a negative effect on that TPG's business if their decision ends up not going over well within the hobby community. So, if you're the TPGs, maybe you just shut up and let things evolve naturally on their own and don't rock the boat.

You can easily do an online search to learn that PSA started grading cards in 1991, right at the very beginning of the modern card era supposedly started off in many people's opinion with the issuance of Upper Deck's first ever set in 1989. That was followed by SGC beginning to grade cards in 1998, then Beckett right after in 1999, and finally GAI in the early 2000's. All the high-quality, fancy modern crap was only just starting to come out back then, so the majority of cards being submitted to graders was going to be the earlier, more vintage stuff, that was made using less consistent and lower quality standards, and with inferior materials and production techniques. Nowadays these same TPGs see mostly the newer, super high-quality cards coming in, and now the older vintage cards that used to come in decades ago and looked so good back then, suddenly don't look as good anymore.

[BobC]

Sorry, double post.

[Lobo Aullando]

I wonder if sneaking in a random Charizard or Pikachu amongst my Lathams and Snodgrasses would brighten their days and make up for the backs not being glossy.