BGS Subgrades on front v. back of slab...

JackWESQ

Dear Group,
As I am sure most of you are well aware, the listing of subgrades on the
front of BGS graded cards is a relatively new feature. As such, a buyer/seller
can know that a card with BGS subgrades on the back is older than a card
with BGS subgrades on the front.
I bring this up because for one reason or another, I believe that in the past
6 months/1 year, BGS has become less stringent in their grading standards.
Of course, I have no empirical data to establish this. However, I do note the
higher prevalence of true "BGS 10" graded cards. Where once they were
virtually non-existent, you can find a decent amount of them on ebay.
So my question to the board is this: All other things being equal (e.g. same
exact card with same exact subgrades), would you rather have a BGS graded
card with subgrades on the front or back? For me, I would prefer the subgrades
on the back.
For the last five or so years, I've been tracking the 1985 Topps Mark McGwire,
1986 Topps Jerry Rice and 1981 Topps Joe Montana in BGS 9 and BGS 9.5 fairly
religiously. Just from simple observation, it appears to me that the more recent
graded cards are not as "clean" as the older ones. I recall it took a VERY LONG
time before a Rice rookie in BGS 9.5. The green edges make it very difficult to
find the Rice rookie in high grade. I would almost venture to say that it is
borderline impossible to find a BGS 10. However, I suspect one of each of the
aforementioned cards will surface soon.
Just my thoughts.

/s/ JackWESQ

mikeschmidt

Jack:

I tend to avoid BGS cards altogether because of the prevelance of sheet-cut or trimmed examples that seem to find their way into BGS holders.

cheers-
~ms

Glynparson

"Jack:

I tend to avoid BGS cards altogether because of the prevelance of sheet-cut or trimmed examples that seem to find their way into BGS holders."

Jaypers

BGS has gotten way too lenient in the past few years, no question in my mind.

Brian48

I don't think this leniency is across the board though. I used BGS periodically up until about 7-8 months ago before I gave up on them. Their problem is not whether they're grading to easy but rather how inconsistent their grading is (which is a worse problem). On some submissions, the grading was ridiculously hard and I've found I had to resubmit to PSA for a higher grade. On other submissions, the grading was absolutely the reverse. I even had two vintage hockey cards that they claimed was trimmed, but eventually graded fine with PSA. This is obviously either a training issue or their attrition rate for qualified graders is very high.