Quote:
Originally Posted by savedfrommyspokes
I do agree, but break the Maris card or the Schmidt card out of their cases and raw both would grade much lower, as low as Poor.
Even sadder with the Maris card is that it would rate as a "5" on the registry....should be a "1".
Just as wrong would be the Schmidt card equaling out to a "6" on the registry.
|
Agree. PSA qualifiers do serve a purpose, but I think they confuse more people than they enlighten anymore in 2021. For example, the most common qualifier, OC, is meant to tell a potential buyer squinting at a bad scan on ebay that "Hey, this card would be an 8 if not for the centering", instead of leaving the buyer to wonder if that card with the sharp corners is only OC, or did it get a straight PSA 5 because it has some surface wear or something else funky and hidden going on in addition to the centering problem - which of course both would totally be possible on a straight PSA 5.
What PSA was not counting on when laying things out this way 25+ years ago, was that many collectors don't like OC cards to start with - and even more will shun any type of qualified cards regardless. The qualifier might actually serve to help someone like me who may go after an otherwise "8" card with 75/25 centering, but especially with centering - many collectors never quite properly understand how it is on a sliding scale, and a card with "worse centering" (i.e. the aforementioned 5...) can get a "straight" grade while the 8, being held to a tighter standard - gets the qualifier. Then move into what we are showing here tonight, 7 and 8 grade cards with other confusing qualifiers that work just the same way as OC - and things are even worse.
It would be much more straightforward to call the Maris a 1 and the Schmidt RC a 2 or (maybe?) a 3, fully considering their worst flaws - rather than dancing around them with the qualifiers. As those cards in a normal auction will of course sell for much lower prices than anything close to a true 7 or an 8 - it just gets buyers to the point quicker.