OC or not OC, that is the question. . .

detroitfan2

Perhaps this has been discussed before, but . . .

Talking strictly about the OC qualifier, do most people prefer the higher grade with the OC, or the lower grade?

Also, if you state on your submission form that you don't want qualifiers, is it an automatic 2 grade deduction (for example, a PSA 8 OC becomes a PSA 6), or does it depend.

I know that the registry deducts two grades for a qualifier, which makes me curious. What happens if you have a PSA 2 MK or better yet, a PSA 1 MK? Becomes a PSA -1 I guess. They probably figured they'd never get anyone registering a PSA 1 MK, but they've never met anyone as cheap as me.

helionaut

I think most people would go for the higher qualified grade, if you're talking about 8oc or 9oc. A NM-Mt or Mint card is usually going to be a nice card structurally. The tolerances for centering on 8s and 9s are also tight enough that it might OC for the grade, but still a visually appealing card.

And yes, the issue of zero or negative registry values was brought up before. They may have changed it in the recent registry upgrade, but I think they did cap values before at zero, no negative values. Now I think any card is worth at least one point. Someone did have something like a '33 Goudey Gehrig that was a 1MK and technically the set would've been better to not have it registered at all.

wolfbear

There is no automatic 2 point deduction for OC cards resubmitted asking for 'no qualifers'.
Each individual card is reduced in grade until it meets the centering criteria for a particular grade.

I've seen PSA 9 OC's on eBay that would qualify to be straight 8's,
and I've seen PSA 9 OC's that the best unqualified grade they could get would be a PSA 5.

Love of the Game

I think it depends on the set.

During the summer, I got heavy into 1961 Topps for a while. They are easy to find with sharp corners, razor edges, good gloss. They are HARD to find without printing glitches and bad centering. I had my Marichal graded, and it came back an 8OC, and I'm very pleased with it. At the same time, I have a few PSA-6 cards from that set, and I'll take the Marichal any day.

At the same time, I have four or five 8OCs in my 1953 Topps set, and another ten or so that will grade that way when I get around to sending them in, and I've got to say that I prefer the 6's in that year. Poorly centered '53s, in my opinion, look miscut and crummy.

So I guess it just comes down to the individual collector. We'll see. PSA just shipped me back a '62 Kaline AS that they gave an 8OC, and I intend on putting it on Ebay. We'll see what kind of price it fetches.

-Al