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Posted By: E, Daniel

It's a pity you didn't get to view the cards carefully first before shipping them off for grading, because the more interesting question is whether the Auction houses over-grade purposely for greater profit, or simply don't spend the time to inspect the cards carefully (also for profit in my opinion, as every hour saved in labor is money in the pocket for nothing!).

Had some of the cards which graded very differently been because of a SUPER tough wrinkle to detect, taking a card with otherwise nice corners and stuff from a 6 to a 4, or the most minute of rubs on the back not-affecting-text dropping a card from a 4 to a 2, well, that's kind of understandable.
If they simply over or undergrade on condition that is very simple to gauge - such as corners, edge wear, creases, wrinkles that are reasonable obvious, paper rubs, etc......then that would be something I think COULD be taken up with them, especially if there was some hobby weight (such as this board, Old Cardboard article, etc..) thrown behind it.

But I agree - clearly not all that acceptable 10 years into a reasonably standardized set of grading criteria established by the big 3, and accepted by the hobby to a greater rather than lesser extent.


Daniel