PSA 7???

Mantlefan

There has been talk of stricter grading recently by PSA. Unless my eyes deceive me, this is a PSA 4 card in a "7" holder! I've noticed some other of these "Gradeandtrade" cards that have been over-graded. What's up here?

1951 Bowman Mantle PSA 7

HalleyGator

Using THAT scoring system ...

I can be honest when I tell my wife that she is a "10" !!

After all, that 7 would be a 3 on a scale of 1 - 10. Pathetic

zardoz51

Something is very wrong here.

boggs301012

I want all of my cards to be handled by the graders that pegged that a 7 . That is a sad sad 7 , I would say its need to be bought back asap. I dont get it either 3 graders handle ever card and 2 must agree. It really has me

boggs301012

CARD INFORMATION
Year: 1951
Brand: BOWMAN
Player: MICKEY MANTLE
Variety: N/A
Grade: 7


No mistake on the cert. I was a little bored who ever submitted that has a nice collection ...Cobb...... Joe D......and others

Vargha

I saw that card. It is butt-ugly. Not all 7's are created equal, that is for sure. As to the corners (which look like 5's), some scans distrort to a great degree the wear on corners and I believe that this is the case here. Secondly, old cards can have quite a bit of toning without it affecting the grade. That being said however, I would still not pay above SMR for a PSA 6 for that card. It is truly "low-end" for its grade. Fortunately I bit the bullet on Mantle in PSA 8 a few months ago when I sold my 1949 Bowman set to pay for it and a couple of other cards.

dom

I posted something about gradeandtrade1 on the Sportscard and Memorabilia Forum a couple of days ago.

Thread

I was trying to get a feel for was going on with them. My suspicion was that PSA under the gradeandtrade1 ID may in fact be doing the same thing Beckett is doing with BCCG and SGC with SCCG (?), only in a more subtle way. I've looked at a number of scans of their offerings over many weeks and more often than not have come away with the feeling the cards were very overgraded. I wondered if they could be recycling their own mistakes and buybacks. But then that would only perpetuate the cycle since the cards may be reholdered, not repackaged under the name of a different division. I have decided I will never bid on a card in a gradeandtrade1 auction.

Joe, are you being upfront with us? What exactly is going on with gradeandtrade1?

theBobs

That card reminds me of Elvis playing Vegas in the studded jump suit after eating the cheeseburgers and ...

boggs301012

Fried bananna sandwiches? No matter what it is a "Fugly" card. I have a 7 that blows that away.

SUPERPUNK813

there is no way that mantle card is even a psa 6, ive looked at several gradeandtrade cards and i thought at least 75% were overgraded. from what ive seen i wouldnt bid on any gradeandtrade auctions. junk!

uniship

That's like Jrink selling his 48 bowman Rizzuto as a legit PSA 8 - what a sad card in that holder. God help the poor recipient.

mikeschmidt

That is *truly* a horrible card. I would like to hear Joe Orlando or someone else's reaction to that poor specimen. That is worse than even many of the infamous back-door grading stories that some of us have heard over time. I am very disappointed with that card and grade.

uniship

HEY JOE ORLANDO - I respect you and I give PSA all my business, but how the heck do you explain this one???? If you or anyone at PSA is reading this, can you please respond here???

LuxuryWines

I agree with the group that has to be the worst 7 in a PSA holder that I have ever Seen...

I just Emailed the thread to Joe Orlando...


Jeff

HalleyGator

Let us know what he says ... and whether he can tell from the cert number who the grader was.

Because I want to send my cards DIRECTLY to that lenient SOB.

zardoz51

Yep, that is going to be the most popular grader in the history of PSA .

toppsgun

Yep, I bought a gradeandtrade1 '63 Aaron this month. PSA 8. Ha! It would not have gotten an 8 had I submitted it with my last invoice. I had 34 very nice '63 lows and they were severely UNDERGRADED: only 6 came back eights. Should have been 4 nines and the rest eights in that lot. The Aaron was a 7 at best using my last invoice as the "new standard."

That's my last gradeandtrade1 auction! I haven't left feedback yet, either.

If PSA is not going to be consistent, it is going to do great damage to the hobby and their bottom line. Big Time. We better not find out that PSA and gradeandtrade1 are in bed together.

aconte

Although I'm unfamiliar with the 51 Bowman's and the Mantle card in terms of grading and what
to look for in terms of flaws, I agree with this group's assessment. The card appears to be
overgraded when looking at the scan.


aconte

BigKidAtHeart

some of the problems may just be the bad scan...

here are other Gradeandtrade scans that all have similar problems
like the dark "scuff" in the bottom left - near corner of card...
They must have a bad scanner or dirty glass on it!

zardoz51

At least those other cards have corners.

You will also notice that the Mantle has an older serial number. Obviously consigned.

theBobs

At least gradeandtrade could use a unique serial number, perhaps starting with 666... or something. That way all G&T cards could quickly be identified and avoided.

BigKidAtHeart

<< <i>At least those other cards have corners.

You will also notice that the Mantle has an older serial number. Obviously consigned. >>

the corners are very hard to see in the scan, so you really do not know there true condition... and the old serial number proves that it is not just a "grade & trade" preferencial treatment here... IF this is truely misgraded then, ok... but it has Nothing to do with Grade&trade, now does it?!

theBobs

<< <i>but it has Nothing to do with Grade&trade, now does it?! >>



Who is the seller of the card?

zardoz51

There is a huge gap between selling a POS and getting alleged preferential treatment

theBobs

<< <i>There is a huge gap between selling a POS and getting alleged preferential treatment >>



I agree. My point is the regardless of consignment or a card graded thru G&T, it is all the same to 99% of the collectors. Only those well versed in serial numbers could detect the difference.

And for PSA bashers, this sublty will be lost.

It appears that there is "preferential treatment" whether that is the case or not. That appearance is real.

FatCat

It's all about the scan. Grade & Trade's scanning skills are horrible.

As Bigkid mentioned, their scanner glass is dirty. The dirty glass makes it look like every card has either a smudge or severe print problems. However, that's not the only problem with their scans. They do not have their brightness and contrast levels set properly. That is why every single vintage G&T card looks like it has severe toning. Also, there is a green tint in all of their scans that should not be there.

Besides the things mentioned above, keep in mind that the corners of white bordered cards always look softer when a clear background is used in the scan. A black background should be used. In addition, their scans are quite large....a bit too large, in my opinion. The larger the scan, the more flaws you will see.

I do not think that you are seeing preferential treatment here. I think what you are seeing is a really bad scanning job. People are looking at that Mantle PSA 7 and wondering why it isn't in a PSA 4 holder.....but I can guarantee you that if I scanned that same exact card, people would be wondering why it isn't in a PSA 8 holder.

Charlie

Hello All,

Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

I will look into this.


Thanks again!

Charlie

brucemo

I saw that Charlie had responded, so I called him and asked him what was going on, and I can attest that he's taking this seriously.

I can think of three things wrong with that card:

1) Toning on the corners.
2) Possible corner wear.
3) Splotch along left edge near bottom of card.

Point 3 is been refuted by others who have shown that G&T has a dirty scanner bed. That leaves us with points #1 and #2. If you look at the scan, the top right looks bad, but when I blew it up, it was sharp. The top left might be rounded, but it's very possible this is just an issue related to trying to scan something with toned corners.

So I think point 2 is inconclusive.

Point 1 is the remaining issue. If the card is sharp but has toned corners, 7 is possible. Just from the scan, if I had bought that card and it had sharp top corners, maybe, but if there is any wear on the corners, perhaps the toning is related to that, and the grade drops like a rock.

Bowmans do get toning, and you can get good grades on toned cards. I have a '52 Bowman Nellie Fox card that's brown. I sent it in myself and it came back PSA-8, which is what I (perhaps naively) expected. That card was uniformly toned.

I would have thought that the point of G&T was that you'd send your card in, and it would get graded by a professional and sold by a professional. It looks like this is only half right. Anyone with sense would have cleaned their scanner bed and scanned the card sideways, at least. That card is way too big to spend 30 seconds on it.

bruce

Bailey

Zardoz beat me to me. The Mantle was graded before Grade and Trade started. The other cards in the same scan were more recently graded.

Bailey

And then I read the second page of this thread ... oops!

riccaboni

Anyone else notice the diamond cut that Piazza has?... I have a '68 Tom Haller and it had less of a diamond cut than that, and it got graded miscut... What is up with that?

Ian

Mantlefan

<...but I can guarantee you that if I scanned that same
exact card, people would be wondering why it isn't in a PSA 8 holder.>

I don't see how a scanner can mend rounded corners! This card does not meet PSA 7 standards ""slight fraying on some corners" or PSA 6 criteria "corners may have slight graduated fraying". As a seller, I'd sure like to have a scanner that makes my PSA 5's look like PSA 8's!! Please tell me what brand you use and I'm off to the WIZ.

Mantlefan

Sorry, "The Wiz" = NY chain of electronic stores. Motto is "Nobody Beats The Wiz".

brucemo

The corners aren't rounded. They are stained/toned.

bruce

LloydsBaseballCards

auction has been ended early........?

zardoz51

It is my humble observation that after the discussion on this thread, PSA has requested that the card be sent to them for examination. Remember, the card in question was consigned to Grade and Trade and probably hasn't seen the PSA offices in a couple of years.

dude

Zardoz,

It may have never seen the PSA offices. I was once told by someone who worked for PSA during a show that cards that start with a "07........" or "08.........." serial numbers were graded on-site and from my personal experience this appears to be true. I've had 3 cards in my life graded on-site (one at the 2000 National and 2 others more recently at Ft. Washington) and all of them start with "07...". If any other collectors have had cards graded on-site, I'd be curious to know if your cards also have "07..." or "08...." serial numbers.

The card is very dingy in appearance, especially when you compare it to the label. The white in the label looks as clean as fresh snow and the borders on the Mantle look stained at the edges, so I think the scan is not the major problem here (except for the streak near the bottom left corner). I'm not saying that this isn't still a "7" by definition, I'd have to see the corners first hand, but this is a classic example of where eye appeal means a lot more than what a label says.

calleocho

i remember a seinfield episode where they mentioned the WIZ...funny stuff

qualitycards

Ethan - That was the episode where Elaine was going out with the WIZ pitchman, marching all around the place w/ a kings costumn shouting "Nobody Beats The Wiz". Yes! a very good episode...jay

sixdart

It may have never seen the PSA offices. I was once told by someone who worked for PSA during a show that cards that start with a "07........" or "08.........." serial numbers were graded on-site and from my personal experience this appears to be true.

- DUDE

It has been mentioned that the on-site graders is the best PSA staff available?

I have seen other posts where forum members have mentioned that is when people sometimes submit cards to coordinate with the timing of such events - to avoid them.

mikeschmidt

Sixdart:

Funny, I have heard just the opposite:

Stories of "back door" grading happening at these shows -- without sufficient controls in place to confirm the grades.

Also -- stories of trimmed/altered/rebuilt cards being submitted to the 2-hour turnaround time so that graders would have insufficient time to differentiate between which cards were true and authentic and which had "problems"

BigKidAtHeart

<< <i>Sixdart:

Funny, I have heard just the opposite:

Stories of "back door" grading happening at these shows -- without sufficient controls in place to confirm the grades.

Also -- stories of trimmed/altered/rebuilt cards being submitted to the 2-hour turnaround time so that graders would have insufficient time to differentiate between which cards were true and authentic and which had "problems" >>

sadly, this sounds more likely!

PlayBall

At a Ft. Washington show last year, I did my yearly renewal, and had my 4 free submissions. I took 4 t206's that I had bought in PRO 7 or better holders (I knew the PRO stories, but I needed to find out for myself), cracked them open the night before and submitted them at the show the next day. 3 came back "trimmed", and 1 came back a PSA 5. They didn't "miss" mine.

sixdart

Thanks for the correction.

Has this been a major issue with a high volume of cards. Has this only involved high-end cards or commons as well?

I would think that PSA would rather get the proper grade and refund an occassional fee for tardiness?

mikeschmidt

Most PRO cards I have seen can be determined to be altered from sight alone! Sorry about your experience, Playball, but hopefully you avoid PRO graded cards these days.

PlayBall

Yeah, just like the wife's meatloaf!