[jchcollins]

This thread again echoes the themes of many that I have seen or commented on in the past year or so. While I think there is a point to professional grading or at least trusting the big 3 TPG's to an extent when buying cards sight-unseen, there is still more than ample proof on what a subjective endeavor any kind of grading is, and how discrepancies still exist all over the map. PSA for example as many others have pointed out, today grades many cards 3's and 4's that would have been at least a 5 ten or fifteen years ago, and then...some not still. Dingy 5's and 3's that look more like 6's are still not uncommon.

My own advice to collectors if you are like me and go typically for the mid-grade stuff, is go study some of the older books, Becketts and Sport Americanas and SCDs, etc. on their grading scales back in the 1980's or even earlier. Sure it's still very subjective, but the key is making peace with that subjectivity and what it means / how much it matters for you as a collector. There are certain aspects to grading that should be automatics, or "givens": A card that is O/C 90-10 is not Mint, a card that has a major crease and not a barely perceptible wrinkle is not Excellent, etc. But for other areas of grading, the subjectivity is impossible to totally get rid of. Corner wear for example, is still a very subjective aspect of grading. Say a card is perfect in terms of centering and surface, and the only defect noticeable is corner wear. At what point does an EX card get downgraded to VG-EX or even VG or worse? This still varies widely in my experience from collector to collector and certainly from professional grader to professional grader. Does a card get downgraded more severely if it has one corner that is more noticeably worn than the others, simply because cards with even wear on all four corners are more pleasing to the eye? This kind of thing isn't even addressed by TPG guidelines that can be found online, so far as I know. PSA provides pictures representative of the grade (they are all '52 #311's, of course...) to show the progression in eye appeal as based on the grade, but there are not really super-specific details about levels of corner wear in the fine print. Once you get below about EX in any case, the descriptions on allowable corner wear are very high-level and leave a lot up to the person doing the grading to interpret. What does "significant" rounding of the corners mean to you? Does it mean they are ugly when held at an arm's length? A foot away from your eye? Under a loupe and extra magnification? I started collecting "old" cards in the late '80's and for a lot of those years I never even saw 1950's cards that did not have some degree of corner wear. Most of the supply even of stars and HOFer's in glass display cases at the LCS back then were not PSA 8 or higher quality cards. They were mid or lower grade and appreciated more for what they were, IMO. This vs. the trend today that led to a slogan - where more people are concerned about the grade on a flip than the actual card in the case.

At the end of the day, keep studying TPG cards, but I think that more collectors should learn how to grade for themselves and form their own standards as based on reasonable variations of the accepted ones. I know for me in my mind the difference between EX and VG just based on corner wear, but since I understand how variable and inconsistent this is - I try to take into account other things when looking at cards for sale in person or online. "Oh this guy is calling this card EX, and I can see why he might think that, but for me the corners would be only a 4 at most..." then reason if the price matches my standard for grading more, or the seller's. While I do prefer to buy graded cards online if they are more than a couple of bucks and I cannot hold them in my hands first, I will buy raw cards from online sellers with good reputations if I can get a decent scan and at least some insight into how they graded the item - even in certain cases when I do not agree with their final assessment of grade.

Thanks because I like posts like this. Guessing TPG results is as good of a parlor game as anything else, I guess. Just FYI I would have been way wrong on my guesses here as well. Nice '52s.

-John