Tried TAG grading.
bigtime36
Posts: 963 ✭✭✭✭
Very nice slabs. 👌 
Collect raw morgans, walkers, mercs, SLQ, barber q. Looking at getting into earlier date coins pre 1900s.
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How much is it?
Has anybody else noticed that collectors who use these 4th tier grading companies always talk about their “nice slabs,” but never “accurate grading”? (I’m not bashing the OP, I’m bashing these companies).
Yaz Master Set
#1 Gino Cappelletti master set
#1 John Hannah master set
Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, Dwight Evans, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
it seems like we are reliving the early 00s. there were tons of "4th"tier grading companies then too. they will last about 5 years and become former grading companies.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
$14 per.
Collect raw morgans, walkers, mercs, SLQ, barber q. Looking at getting into earlier date coins pre 1900s.
Check the website to see how they grade compared to the rest.
Collect raw morgans, walkers, mercs, SLQ, barber q. Looking at getting into earlier date coins pre 1900s.
I can't speak on the grading, but the scans are beautiful. Nice looking cards as well!
Thanks
Craig
Thank you.
Collect raw morgans, walkers, mercs, SLQ, barber q. Looking at getting into earlier date coins pre 1900s.
The only thing 4th tier about this company is the current lack of adoption of their services by the market. These guys are the real deal and exactly how grading should be.
There are a lot of positives, like the transparency of why the card got a certain grade.
(Ironically they don't appear very transparent on cost. LOL. Also, do they charge on minsize?)
I'm not really a fan of downgrading cards by using AI tech on flaws that can't be seen by the human eye.
Maybe if a card was $10,000 or more? I don't know. Just thinking out loud.
Just like when computer chess first came out (Crap. Am I old?), it was interesting to see the man vs machine.
It would be an interesting study to see what TAG's AI would grade, what I feel is, an undergraded PSA card.
The battle between self grading, PSA's grading, and machine grading.
I just might do it.
I must say, the grading reports are quite impressive.
Hey there, I am new to grading and went with TAG because the process was simple for me. They do drops for the grading service every 2-3 weeks and you can pick 5, 10, 20, and I believe 40 card subs, currently it's $14 per card and the last time I submitted it was year 2000 and up as they are new and ramping up, they may be doing 89' and up now. I suggest anyone that is at all curious to just try the 5 card sub which I did previously. $29 shipping and they send you the kit to send the cards to them, very streamlined 20 business day turnaround. Check out some people's YouTube reviews on the kit and process.
Jim
Collect raw morgans, walkers, mercs, SLQ, barber q. Looking at getting into earlier date coins pre 1900s.
The problem is that you have to snag one of their grading “drops” - because they can’t handle volume - yet at least. So, you have to play the wait in line drop game. I believe they only have one or two machines, so they have a low peak capacity - I assume that will change.
My collecting blog: http://ctcard.wordpress.com
Just got my submission back, here's how it comes packaged, less the fed ex package.
Collect raw morgans, walkers, mercs, SLQ, barber q. Looking at getting into earlier date coins pre 1900s.
Is it just me or does it seem like a grading company other than PSA should not be being pushed here. Does not feel like it should be.
Your pictures didn't include the grading report you get when you scan the QR code. This thread is muc less interesting without those.
I highly doubt PSA feels threatened
Collect raw morgans, walkers, mercs, SLQ, barber q. Looking at getting into earlier date coins pre 1900s.
Wow, that grading report is incredible. Talk about disruptive.
My first thought is I wonder how much the hobby actually wants transparency like this.
The only difference is now there is a large population of "new" hobbyists who have decided that PSA should be challenged as the pre-eminent grading resource in the hobby. These new hobbyists want transparency. If their card gets a 4, they would like to know why it received a 4 and they will go on social media to publicly shame the TPG. Its a strange world.
I believe that the new start TPG's will force PSA to continue to become more transparent providing a better experience for all of us.
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Competition is a good thing for the hobby. Merging and acquisitions occur often to either shut down the direction a company is taking or to adopt the changes the competition has used to grab a market share.
I'm a software engineer and I wouldn't want cards graded solely on software, however, modern card printing standards have expectations of being a 9/10 out of the pack everytime and the only excuse for a 9 is mishandling. Precision with centering and coloring is an expectation.
The softwares accuracy is currently limited to the data is has access to. I would love the transparency of seeing their software, and more importantly, the test cases and procedures used to verify the software always does what it is intended to do. Verification and validation is just as important as the software itself and this is a corner most companies take. The FAA has requirements for software verification and the latest standard is called DO-178C (Directive Order). You cannot get certification (air worthiness) without a stockpile of testing, analysis, and reporting. Accidents occur even with all the measure in place because we are human and make mistakes.
Software does only what it is told to do and a human is who tells it what to do. AI that creates AI is still a derivative of human intelligence which is never going to be absolutely flawless 100% of the time.
Can really good AI replace human intelligence? No because we designed it, naturally. Can really good AI perform better than any single individual? All the time but that's comparing a team of people to just one person and it's not apples to apples.
I don't think TAG, or any company, will ever create software which works for all cards past and present for 2 main reasons.
1) Not everyone agrees on grading standards for vintage because the technology used at the time wasn't consistent. Also, decisions by humans decide how flaws affect the overall grading and that is always subjective. People will never fully agree on these standards.
2) AI needs data and nobody knows what technologies will come in the future. Cards might someday contain software with sound, motion, or lighting effects and blow our world away and software will need time to adjust to the changes.
Thanks for sharing. I was wondering how I should grade my scoring kings cards since my pack fresh got an 8 and appeared as a 9 or 8.5 at the worse to me, and maybe it deserved it, but I'm not seeing it and there's no justification for the grading other than what we already have been told by customer service, or read on the forums/website, and that's on PSA to decide what they want to do. It is what it is. I do think this topic is touchy to put on the PSA forum because they allow the exchange of information to help us connect while it also is an arena for competition to see what complaints people have and try to tap into the market by beginning with a baseline from a current grading company and then making some changes. The baseline they used was likely researched and developed at the expense of the competition who they derived from and the improvements came from the input of their competitions customers, and we often just care about what's only best for our pocketbook.
Grading companies who have been around 20 years have had to spend a lot of resources to get to where we are today for all aspects (holders, labels, drops, status updates, crossovers, which cards to exclude, etc.). Loyalty from customers is something greybeards remember and often customers will attempt to be loyal until they cannot justify it any longer.
I imagine the evolution of the grading justification is a focus for all companies and I'm eager to see what comes of it.
These forums exist for us and for the company to get a pulse on things.
If they're going to get into this sort of detail with every card evaluation then the grading companies better be clear as glass about how and why cards get the grades they do. Just giving back a grade and expecting the customer to accept it is not going to cut it any more. Especially when you're comparing vintage to modern/ultra-modern.
Each company needs to be completely transparent with their grading system. Otherwise, folks will stop trusting in that company, and that's just good business.
My first thought too was, that it was over the top. But at the same time, if they didn't, then someone would be critical saying they were half-assed about it since they have the tech to provide this level of detail.
I think I would be OK with just corners/edges/centering/surface subgrades.
At the very least, giving the deciding factor of a grade.
If a card grades a 4, I don't really need to know that the corners graded a 6 and the centering graded a 7. I want to know what the grader saw to make it a 4.
Beautiful images
My first thought was what it would do to a pack fresh 1987 Topps card. I'm just not sure how to tell the difference between 1000 fraying and 999. Also not sure how to reduce all that data to a single digit grade.
Currently, they're only going back to 1989. (I can't imagine the edge scores on 70s OPC. LOL)
They're using a 1000 pt scale.
The above Sanberg is a 943--->9.
TAG SCORE TAG GRADE CONDITION
990 - 1000 10 (P) TAG PRISTINE
950 - 989 10 GEM MINT
900 - 949 9 MINT
850 - 899 8.5 NM MT+
800 - 849 8 NM MT
750 - 799 7.5 NM+
700 - 749 7 NM
650 - 699 6.5 EX MT+
600 - 649 6 EX MT
550 - 599 5.5 EX+
500 - 549 5 EX
450 - 499 4.5 VG EX+
400 - 449 4 VG EX
350 - 399 3.5 VG+
300 - 349 3 VG
250 - 299 2.5 GOOD+
200 - 249 2 GOOD
150 - 199 1.5 FAIR
100 - 149 1 POOR
With that technology grading vintage shouldn’t be a problem, you just adjust for the issue. OPC? Allown for some percentage of edge fray.
That is happening anyway in trad grading, but very inconsistently. Which is why I haven’t submitted cards lately, very clear the graders can’t consistently grade issues like OPC that have characteristics like a rough cut.
I love the concept and hope they make it. I predict PSA buys them for the tech. Goes machine graded on ultra-modern and stays human on vintage.
Interesting prediction. Let's hope if they get acquired then PSA is the purchaser. I honestly don't think the programming required would be over $250k if you had the right 8 people from India and utilized a couple of existing PSA salaried employees to cadence the team.
I think each slab in a sealed bag is an unnecessary expense, it looks good, but more waste. PSA seems to package their items well and items don't get scratched.
I would rather see all cards graded using both human eyes and machine measuring.
Also want to see a printout on measurements and at a certain service level grader notes.
Software report datasheet for all and graders notes for higher service levels seems reasonable.
I think PSAs manual grading experience of oddball shaped items, sealed packs, cereal boxes, and other misc. items is always going to be necessary to some degree.
It's not about the programming. It's about their patents. TAG pioneered AI grading more than a decade ago and have 130+ patents on the technology.
If I had my own requirements, design, requirements (high and low level), code, and optional verification & validation, then there's an extremely low probability of violating the patent. It can, should, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is accomplished in the next 3 years by at least 1, if not more, company.
A patent is not a right to a monopoly. It means you cannot rip off another person's work but it doesn't mean you can't create a competing product/service.
Has anyone else submitted to TAG since this thread popped?
I imagine not many will since they have a narrow window if cards to have graded.
They are now open to anytime grading and the window is open to 89' and up now.
Collect raw morgans, walkers, mercs, SLQ, barber q. Looking at getting into earlier date coins pre 1900s.
I have graded over a 1K cards with TAG so far. The GEM-Rate was comparable to that of PSA. Love the slabs they are solid and dont feel like plastic as they have a mold that is cast for their slabs. I also cross graded PSA to TAG got the same grades both ways so their process is very similar. I price all my TAG cards the same as if its PSA not different in my opinion. If its a GEm-Mint you can see why.
If you have buyers at the same price as PSA, go for it!
The most impressive thing about TAG is that they have 80+ patents on a box.
TAG is actually pretty nice. Just on idea and effort along with Beckett's laziness, they've surpassed them already in my view.
I've submitted 40 cards to them and was very pleased with the process, results and transparency/explanation of the grade.
It was disappointing that they raised the prices on the 1,000 point scale or what they now call "Score" grade. The communication wasn't very clear to an early adopter and they grandfathered my last order in.
I believe 1,000 point grading started at $15 then jumped $30 and back down to $25. I haven't seen as many "drops" or promotions as I did in the past.
It's $15 for the 10-point grade or what they call "X".
If I submit more, I woud do the "S" or 1,000 point scoring system - just not at that high of a price for ultra-modern.
Erik