PWCC's 1936 Goudey World Wide Gum DiMaggio PSA 7

[seanofjapan]

My 2 cents:

I can kind of see the point that the card is overgraded at a 7 since the toning and centering suggest it is lower (maybe a 5 or 6? Not sure).

But I don't think you can fault PSA for not catching the cleaning. When they get a card to grade the only thing they should be looking at is the card itself because that is an easily identifiable objective standard to go by. Assuming the card itself displayed no signs of cleaning, then as far as I am concerned they weren't negligent in failing to catch it.

If you change the standard of grading to include background research on the specific card, (such as going through old auction listings) you start introducing more subjective elements to the process that are going to be impossible for them to meet in most cases. OK, its kind of easy with this Dimaggio card since it is low population and the outlines of the toning make it pretty easy to match, but most cases involving cleaning aren't going to fit that profile. What if it is a higher pop card of high value (52 Mantle or something) and the match between the card in question and some random previous card with a flaw that seems to have disappeared is less obvious. Its really unclear how you would define a satisfactory level of in-depth background research for the grading company to undertake before reaching a grade - do they have to look through all previous 52 Mantle auctions to satisfy it? Its just creates uncertainty for the grader and the people buying graded cards if the criteria for grading is left a bit vague like that.