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Posted By: Brian Hodes

As someone who often sells when they get upgrades I have given the issue of how to sell sucessfully without crossing into misrepresentation quite a bit of thought.

I don't for a minute pretend these are the ANSWERS (or that I won't change my mind)... but anyways here's where I am right now:

What the cards BCD points out have in common (from a sellers point of view) is that they are all more presentable (i.e. look nicer, have subtler defects) than their technical grade would ever give them credit for. In other words while PSA/SGC would likely give a card a VG/EX grade at first blush it would pass off as Ex-Mt. This is exactly why if I were the seller I would be a reluctant to send them to SGC/PSA for $7-$15 a pop.
That doesn't mean that I would grade them EX-Mt or whatever. I might use an adjective like "nice" or "sharp" or "beautiful" or whatever but I would avoid calling them Ex-Mt when that implies a certain amount of objectivity or formality that would be (as James acknowledges in his description of the Matty card) belied the minute a reputable grading company graded the card.
Really his cards are EX-Mt or whatever in appearance but not technically in grade. Putting the "appearance grade" in the description catches more eyes on the item and, in many cases, fools "unsophisticated consumers."
When I list cards like this I try to point out the subtle/technical flaws while highlighting that these are very attractive cards whose "overall appearance" exceeds their technical grade.