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PSA grading perspectives
Dakillo
Posts: 158 ✭✭
I'm new to this forum, but not to the hobby. My beginnings, like many, were in the mid '80s as an early teenager. By the end of the decade I was well on my way to retirement with my cards...so we all thought, right?
My first break from the hobby was to serve in the military, but I eventually returned in the later '90s with more wisdom and focused on collecting quality rather than quantity. It didn't last long as life took over and swallowed another dozen years.
Earlier this year I decided to pursue something more meaningful and timeless and began assembling a PSA registered set. I honestly have no idea why I chose the '75 minis, but I did and am learning as I go forward.
My question for those who have been doing this for awhile regards the consistency of the grading by PSA. Clearly there are dealers who are sending in cards by the hundred(s) for grading - I have purchased blocks of PSA 8's with strings of sequential cert numbers. However, in these "mass gradings" it would appear that quality and/or consistency slips. Or perhaps there is some bias towards those that spend phenomenal amounts of money with the company?
I'm looking right now at two #425 cards (Tito Fuentes). The first has all the qualities one would expect in a mint card: shine, rich color, sharp corners and 55/45 centering or better. The second appears rather faded, has a stain, shows an obvious stray black ink mark on the yellow and is (what I believe is termed) diamond cut - in other words the picture is crooked within the borders.
Here is the kicker that you know I'm going after...they are both solid PSA 8's, no qualifiers.
So, honestly, how can there be such significant differences resulting in the same grade? To be fair, the "bad" PSA 8 also has sharp corners and good centering. Do certain qualities carry more weight when grading?
Any input would be appreciated.
Dave
My first break from the hobby was to serve in the military, but I eventually returned in the later '90s with more wisdom and focused on collecting quality rather than quantity. It didn't last long as life took over and swallowed another dozen years.
Earlier this year I decided to pursue something more meaningful and timeless and began assembling a PSA registered set. I honestly have no idea why I chose the '75 minis, but I did and am learning as I go forward.
My question for those who have been doing this for awhile regards the consistency of the grading by PSA. Clearly there are dealers who are sending in cards by the hundred(s) for grading - I have purchased blocks of PSA 8's with strings of sequential cert numbers. However, in these "mass gradings" it would appear that quality and/or consistency slips. Or perhaps there is some bias towards those that spend phenomenal amounts of money with the company?
I'm looking right now at two #425 cards (Tito Fuentes). The first has all the qualities one would expect in a mint card: shine, rich color, sharp corners and 55/45 centering or better. The second appears rather faded, has a stain, shows an obvious stray black ink mark on the yellow and is (what I believe is termed) diamond cut - in other words the picture is crooked within the borders.
Here is the kicker that you know I'm going after...they are both solid PSA 8's, no qualifiers.
So, honestly, how can there be such significant differences resulting in the same grade? To be fair, the "bad" PSA 8 also has sharp corners and good centering. Do certain qualities carry more weight when grading?
Any input would be appreciated.
Dave
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Please remember that this site is PSA's, so tread lightly.
Recently PSA added a half grade to the system, so if these were graded prior to that, you might have a 7.5 that was too nice for a 7, and an 8.5 that was not quite nice enough for a 9. Under this scenario they would both deserve 8's.
Without accusing anyone of preferential treatment, I too have seen some VERY confusing grades. Both over and under graded. I recently had a card with a 9PD and looked at the card for quite a while before just cracking it out of the holder for resubmission. I had several of the same card, including a graded one, and couldn't find a thing wrong.
This topic has been discussed often, one theory is that different graders are a little more (or less) strict, and like any other job, people have good and bad days.
"If the grade does not fit, you must resubmit" and "buy the card, not the holder" are a couple of common phrases heard on these boards.
Again, welcome. There's a lot of good people and information to be found here. Watch out for the trolls!
Joe
I am aware that the site is owned by PSA, but do not believe they should be excluded from constructive scrutiny. I obviously and ultimately believe in their system of grading or else I wouldn't be pouring this kind of cash into a set of cardboard.
Your response brings me to another point of curiosity, but chose to not load up my opening monologue with too many questions at once. You indicate that multiple submissions may be necessary to achieve a particular grade. How common do you believe this to be? I understand the principal, but not sure that it would be worth bankrolling several submissions of the same card to prove my opinion of its condition.
To play the other side of the same argument, there is currently a '75 mini Andy Etchebarren (clearly one of the more difficult cards to attain in a high grade) on the bay that is a PSA 9 (OC). I'm struggling to see where the centering is off and would be beyond irritated if that occurred to me.
As for qualifiers, I hate them and believe I'm in the majority with that opinion. Its either a 9, or its not - right? Nobody is tripping over themselves to get a bunch of qualifiers into their collections -- on the contrary, they seem to be difficult to move even at a bargain price.
I too feel PSA is the grading company of choice. In fact I just renewed my membership at the Platinum level. All of my recent submissions have been through a third party as my membership had lapsed.
I collect Harmon Killebrew cards and memorabilia only, and am fairly knowledgeable on these items.
Funny you should comment on posting about "constructive scrutiny" as a thread on the 75 mini that was several hundred posts long was recently removed because of a post that was.....well I don't know....inappropriate or offensive in some way. The entire thread was removed and it was a wealth of information (and scans) on the minis.
I have heard that the minis are graded more harshly than the standard sized cards. I have not noticed this myself, but I only have a couple of them in my collection, they seem accurately graded. Looked at the 75 mini Andy Etchebarren and the 9 is centered low, possibly beyond the tolerance for a 9,(60/40) so it rates a 7 in the registry. that doesn't make sense either, if centering is within tolerance for an 8(70/30). Might just be the scan but I like the straight 8 that's on there much better, price notwithstanding.
How many times do you have to send in a card to get the desired grade? Personally I have not tried it.....yet, but some people have posted some big jumps, others have not been lucky and their cards have come back with lower grades or worse yet evid of trim or min size req. I would assume most come back the same. This would be on a card removed from the holder. Few people seem to think sending a card in for a review is worth the effort. Purchase a 10x jewelers loupe to examine the corners, it will show corner damage much better than the naked eye.
I used to feel the same way about qualifiers as you, but my thinking has changed somewhat. I know qualifiers seem to be "the kiss of death" (your 9OC Etchebarren seller doesn't seem to feel that way), but if a "mint" card is off-center, an accurate description would not be it's a near mint card. It's a mint card with centering problems. We can certainly agree to disagree on that.
Shoot me a pm if you like.
Have fun collecting!
Joe
In other words, continuums with five anchors are far more reliable than continuums with ten. For reasons that have never been clear to me the market has insisted on a 10 anchor grading scale, which absolutely ensures that so long as grading is conducted by human beings it will be inconsistent; and often absurdly inconsistent.
In all seriousness, if you want to put together a graded set where all the cards are graded consistently and there are precious few surprises then put together a set graded by BCCG. The five-anchor scale (poor, good, ex, nm, mint) worked great for decades, and the systems that PSA/SGC/BGS etc. have adopted are not an improvement.
It may in fact be true that human responses vary more the more choices we have, in fact common sense says it MUST happen with the average person being asked his/her opinion.
However any BUSINESS that offers an expert service to accurately rate the quality of goods or services is quite different. There will be "mistakes" and differences of opinion, but with the example given of trained/expert card graders, this should be a very narrow range. Cards are supposed to be viewed by more than one person, further reducing "errors" or variations in perception of grade.
What Dakillo seems to be asking is a bit different. Unless an ex card grader can come along and let us know the exact process the cards go through and many other of the business practices of the grading companies. We are going to be scratching our heads over grades as long as we depend on experts to assign them.
I am thinking that the two Fuentes cards mentioned could be sent in together for reviews and regraded with only a small charge for cards deemed accurately graded. Seems like in this case, at least one of these cards gets a different grade. Grading companies are in business to make money, but should correct errors at a small fee.......or none at all for an obvious mistake.
After all we all know how much money is on the table for the sellers and buyers of high grade cards.
Joe
<< <i>Interesting post Boo.
It may in fact be true that human responses vary more the more choices we have, in fact common sense says it MUST happen with the average person being asked his/her opinion.
However any BUSINESS that offers an expert service to accurately rate the quality of goods or services is quite different. There will be "mistakes" and differences of opinion, but with the example given of trained/expert card graders, this should be a very narrow range. Cards are supposed to be viewed by more than one person, further reducing "errors" or variations in perception of grade.
What Dakillo seems to be asking is a bit different. Unless an ex card grader can come along and let us know the exact process the cards go through and many other of the business practices of the grading companies. We are going to be scratching our heads over grades as long as we depend on experts to assign them.
I am thinking that the two Fuentes cards mentioned could be sent in together for reviews and regraded with only a small charge for cards deemed accurately graded. Seems like in this case, at least one of these cards gets a different grade. Grading companies are in business to make money, but should correct errors at a small fee.......or none at all for an obvious mistake.
After all we all know how much money is on the table for the sellers and buyers of high grade cards.
Joe >>
Excellent points Joe, though I would argue that the final grade assigned to a card DOES fall within a very narrow range. There are occasional exceptions, but I think the vast, vast majority of cards graded by PSA have less than a 2% chance of bumping two or more grades if resubmitted. With a 10 anchor grading system I think that's the best anyone can hope for.
A PSA grade means that a card falls within tolerances to meet that grade, not that each card within that grade must have identical characteristics. You will see variance within a grade, and as powderedh2o said, those variances are subject to opinion. What separates PSA from the average collector is that their opinions are generally far more correct. People are willing to pay extra for that accuracy. That said, even grading "experts" will disagree somewhat. But if you looked at 100 PSA 9's from any set, I'd bet that 90 of them will fit their grading guidelines, and the other 10 might be questionable to some collectors.
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Ralph