Posted By:
Frank WakefieldWell I collect cards, and I did not adopt card grading services, if I did, I wish to terminate parental rights. And I do not accept them either. With great distaste I acknowledge their existance.
Grading is subjective... we have second thoughts about medical opinions and legal opinions that we seek out from very well educated professionals. The truth is that many of us think more of some of our cards than we do our medical and legal matters, yet some collectors trust and even pay for plastic cased opinions from kids that we wouldn't trust to mow our yards, or in Kentucky terms, we wouldn't trust to slop hogs.
I will concede that the major grading services put forth some effort to "try" to have things done in an acceptable manner. And I think that while we refer to it as grading, truth is that more folks use it for a certification of authenticity of a card, and sometimes identification, rather than to determine the grade of a card.
Generally, I trust in my own opinion about what a card is, if it is genuine, and its condition, much more than a label inside plastic. I've encountered collectors who have a slabbed card who think they have what the label says, when I know good and well that the card is misidentified. There is know substitute for knowing about the cards you collect. Woe unto he who collects merely by PSA or GSC labels.