Is the Grading System Broken?

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Posted By: Joann

What a great thread. EVERYBODY so far has been right!

Yes, the system is broken for all of the reasons Barry mentioned in the first post. Yes, it poses a threat to some of the financial underpinnings of the hobby, and Jim C has said. Yes, the practices of collectors are helping drive the problem - see Adam's post upthread.

There are many products that are certified by an independent third party as actually meeting standards and being what they are purported to be. UL does it for electronic devices, SEI in Arlington does it for safety products, CSA in Canada does it for just about everything. This is not new ground here.

But does that mean I could open up Joann Kline's Certification Company for safety devices? I could, but no one would buy anything marked as JK certified. Why? Because it wouldn't mean anything except that an individual or a company has asserted an opinion. No different than what you could get from the next barstool.

But all of the organizations mentioned above are themselves certified by accreditation bodies. Certify the certifier, so to speak. And that's why their marks and certification matter to the markets.

They have to demonstrate consistent practices, equal treatment of all product, qualified personnel - everything that's been mentioned in this thread so far. They are regularly audited to assure that the practices remain in place and are effective. So people will buy the UL mark or the SEI mark or the CSA mark because they know that these organizations are subject to oversight.

But who would provide the oversight for card grading companies? Maybe this is exactly where Jim C's efforts could have been heading. A card-based organization that would certify the certifiers as following good and standard practices. Or maybe a current accreditation body could expand its scope to include third party baseball card graders.

Why hasn't it happened? Because the market hasn't reflected any demand. There are many collectors that buy graded cards despite the known weaknesses in the system - Adam's post above. And I think Barry is right in that the inconsistencies both within and between the grading companies are reaching the point where something will have to happen - there is simply too much money involved at this point (Jim C, above).

So maybe the market will start self-correcting, and the increasing reasons to doubt the reliability of any given grade will show up in sales of slabbed cards. Or maybe some person or entity will start some process for giving accreditation to grading companies. Who knows, maybe neither. I think it's in the best interest of the grading companies to start pursuing accreditation oversight on their own, before all credibility is lost. The Registries can only support the market for so long.

For certain, two things are needed to improve and fix the system:

1) Grading standards need to be universal and not company-specfic.

2) There needs to be some kind of oversight to the third-party certifying companies (grading companies) to assure that they are following a standard set of good practices. If PSA were ever to get some kind of accreditation as a third-party certifier of product, their holder would have meaning beyond simple preference.

Just my opinion, of course. But great thread. The most important point is that this is not new ground - it is a current practice in many industries and countries. It's just far less developed in the sports cards arena.

Joann