GAI box grading......

CDsNuts

What exactly do they look at when grading a box? Shouldn't that crease knock it down to at least an 8?

grote15

GAI grading is all over the place. I've seen packs and boxes with dirt and tears graded Mint 9 and packs that looked mint graded 8. They've had several different graders, some of whom were selling the packs they had also assigned grades too, so there may have been some conflict of interest there in some cases, too.

rana

We'll probably never know exactly why your box graded an 8. Sadly, GAI does not publish any box grading guidelines. For unsealed vending boxes, they do look at the top-facing edges of the cards inside to see that they are aligned as originally packed. For wax boxes, they do consider the packs inside for the majority of the grade, but that is about all I could get out of them. Without a published guideline, it makes it difficult to determine what a grade means though, which is a real shame. I mentioned this to them once, but they never seem to have taken any action on the recommendation. If someone has a contact at GAI, please re-pass this suggestion along to them.

Also, once in the holder, packs are much more difficult to analyze. The condition of the gum (fragmented, single piece, stuck to card, moving freely, etc.) is often harder to determine. If your pack looks like a 10 in the holder and is an 8, it is possible that the gum is not in a single piece and free-floating in the pack. The glare of the plastic holder makes examining the wax roller seal much harder.

I've also seen 9+ graded packs with obvious tears in them. My hope is that GAI didn't just miss all of these, but that movement of the pack after sealing caused the gum to punch a hole in the wrapper, but I'm sure they do miss a few.

I also do not like it that GAI publishes a wrapper centering guidelines in their grading standards, but they regularly ignore their stated percentages. I don't mind them not considering centering that critical, but I do not like them breaking their own guidelines. If they don't consider wrapper centering critical, similar to me, they should make their guidelines state that, similar to how PSA does. I'm sure I sound like a GAI hater, but I don't really have a lot against them - I own tons of GAI packs and boxes, I just believe they have some cleanup of their operation to do. That said, PSA doesn't yet seem to have made major inroads into the pack grading market.

grote15

I also do not like it that GAI publishes a wrapper centering guidelines in their grading standards, but they regularly ignore their stated percentages. I don't mind them not considering centering that critical, but I do not like them breaking their own guidelines. If they don't consider wrapper centering critical, similar to me, they should make their guidelines state that, similar to how PSA does.

I also remember when Murphy first announced the GAI pack grading enterprise, that the only way they'd grade a pack a 10 would be if it came straight out of a sealed case. Obviously, that is no longer the case, as packs graded 10 now surface on ebay with increasing frequency of late. I was also very disappointed that they graded all those homemade grocery cellos from the early 70s, which in turn depressed the value for the authentic cellos from that era which are much scarcer than they seem. GAI also graded a number of bogus cellos from 1958 and mid 1960s as well.

dontippet

I bought a GAI 9.5 wax pack that had holes in the wax at the corner of the packs. I couldn't believe it.