Grade the graders

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob

If GAI's Mike Baker is almost universally recognized as the best grader in the slab world, it seems strange that GAI routinely gets the lowest grades from all the posters here. Granted Baker doesn't grade ALL the cards, but still, what gives?

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Posted By: Lance

Here's a complete list of Grading Companies listed at Trading Card Central:

AGS - Advanced Grading Specialists

ASA - Accugrade, Inc.

BGS - Beckett Grading Services

BSGS - BearStats, Inc.

Collectionmonster - Card Collector Services, Inc.

CTA - CTA Grading Experts

FGS - Finest Grading Service

GAI - Global Authentication Inc.

GMC - Grade My Cards

KSA - KSA Sport Card Certification Service

MAP - MAP Industries

MINT - Mint Grading Service

NASA - North American Sportscard Authenticators

PGS - Professional Grading Services

PRO - PRO Sports Grading Inc.

PSA - Professional Sports Authenticator

PS Grading

SGC - Sportscard Guaranty

TFA - The Final Authority

WCG - World Class Grading, Inc.


http://www.tradingcardcentral.com/grading.php

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Posted By: JK

Bob - For starters:

1. GAI is too inconsistent - perhaps because Mike doesnt grade enough of the cards and the other graders arent worth a you know what.

2. There is no gaurantee that GAI will be in business next year - let alone next week.

3. GAI was less than forthcoming(ie church move, etc) regarding their recent shutdown and that has caused most everyone to lose some trust/faith in the company and once issues started being raised, they never came on this board to explain.

4. GAI graded cards generally sell for less than psa and sgc.

5. The holders are ugly.

6. They dont have a registry despite promising one for several years.

7. Their website has no pop report (at least that Im aware of).

8. They lose cards routinely.

9. They apparently broker deals for cards that you send in to them for grading.

10. Although I believe the problem has been fixed, their earlier slabs had problems with cards slipping out of the gasket. It took a long time to fix that problem despite constant promises to rectify.

Thats all I can think of for now.

Edited to add: While Mike may be a very fine grader and recognized as such, Ive only heard one or two people on this board consistently refer to him as the "greatest" or "best" grader in the slab world. I question whether their opinion is justified and on what facts it is based.

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Posted By: James Gallo

SGC - 9.5 More likely to get an "undergraded" card because they hammer paper loss and writing on the back. What really is undergraded though?....

PSA - 6. More likely to get an overgraded card. Most pre-war stuff I have pulled out of a PSA holder has been taken down a few grades. I find with PSA 1-2 though they are often undergraded.
I wouldn't trust them with a tricky issue or a odd variation.


BVG - 3. I have bought a few cards in there holders and poped them out with a grade or two increase. I would never use them for a pre-war card but I haven't had or seen any problems.


GAI - 1. Can't be trusted at this point. Umm yea and every card I have gotten it one of there holders has had problems and has been grossly overgraded by a couple of grades.

SGC is by far and away the best IMO.

James G

Looking for 1915 Cracker Jacks and 1909-11 American Caramel E90-1.

[Archive]

Posted By: Eric Brehm

I probably do have too much time on my hands, but I'm such a numbers geek I had to tally the results.

The average scores so far:

SGC - 8.6 (38 votes)
PSA - 6.9 (38 votes)
BVG - 4.0 (33 votes)
GAI - 3.9 (34 votes)

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Posted By: Neal Kane

PSA 9
SGC 9
BVG 5 - best holder? best grading system?
GAI 0 - too much of a risk to not get the card back.

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Posted By: Matt

"If GAI's Mike Baker is almost universally recognized as the best grader in the slab world, it seems strange that GAI routinely gets the lowest grades from all the posters here. Granted Baker doesn't grade ALL the cards, but still, what gives?"


What gives is that people aren't answering the question at hand. Instead of answering "how confident are you that a card in their holder s graded correctly?" people are answering "how confident are you in sending in a card to them for grading?"

I would also add that the question should be refined to clarify if what is being asked is "if a card slabbed as a 7 is AT LEAST a 7" or "if a card slabbed as a 7 is EXACTLY a 7" since it seems people feel SGC under-grades yet still rate them a 9.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jon

SGC - 8 (best looking slab, quality)
PSA - 6 (would prefer .5 grades)
BVG - 5 (thick slab)
GAI - 3 (recent problems lowered this grade)

GAI is still the only grader of rack packs. BVG is pretty fast and easy, but I don't like the ultra thick slabs. PSA seems to bring the highest resale, but .5 grades would be better. SGC has always been my personal favorite. I'm glad they are scoring well on this board.

[IMG][/IMG]

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Posted By: Mark Holt

SGC - 8
PSA - 7
GAI - 0 (it'll go up a notch on Monday)
BVG - 0 (we'll grade cards, set prices online and in magazines, oh and then we'll sell them - move along, no conflict of interest here...)

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Posted By: Jerry Spillman

SGC 8.5 Tough graders - Consistent on mid and high grades
SCD 8.5 Fair graders - Started too late
PSA 7 Inconsistencies in grading - Best card description
GAI 4 Authentication without knowledge
ASA -10

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Posted By: JK

Matt said:

"What gives is that people aren't answering the question at hand. Instead of answering "how confident are you that a card in their holder s graded correctly?" people are answering "how confident are you in sending in a card to them for grading?"

I would also add that the question should be refined to clarify if what is being asked is "if a card slabbed as a 7 is AT LEAST a 7" or "if a card slabbed as a 7 is EXACTLY a 7" since it seems people feel SGC under-grades yet still rate them a 9."

I disagree with this assertion. If you read the comments, you will see that most people believe sgc to be the most accurate of the grading companies - even if it means that the card is going to get a lower grade than they expect. Most who comment that sgc undergrades are refering to how they kill paperloss and writing on a card. True, these cards are usually going to get no better than a 30 no matter how good the rest of the card looks. However, if you look at sgc's grading criteria, they are getting the exact grade that they should based on sgc's own standards. They are very consistent with their grades and that is why they rate a 9. I will also add, in most instances, when Ive received a card back from sgc that was lower than expected or wouldnt cross, on second review, Ive found the defect that justified the grade.

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Posted By: Matt

Josh - your own post above lists 10 reasons people are rating GAI lower. 9 of those 10 reasons have 0 to due with their ability to accurately grade cards. Not sure what your stance is...

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Posted By: Jeff Prillaman

The average scores so far:

SGC - 8.6 (38 votes)
PSA - 6.9 (38 votes)
BVG - 4.0 (33 votes)
GAI - 3.9 (34 votes)


So what I am seeing here is -- an 8.6 means collectively we think SGC gets it wrong 14% of the time -- that's 1 in 7

PSA gets it wrong 3 times out 10??

If the best company misses 1 in 7 times why are we even sending stuff in to be graded?

I think some of us might be focusing on a few cards that mistakes are made on and not taking into account the volume of cards that are correctly graded -- or maybe are looking at our confidence in the company in making up for mistakes or customer service or something else.

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Posted By: JK

Matt,

I responded to your post regarding sgc being rated a 9. As far as gai is concerned, I was responding to Tbob's question and with respect to GAI, I believe that its impossible to separate their grading from their other problems given the recent past.

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Posted By: Matt

Josh - you quoted 2 points of mine - one an explanation of why people where grading GAI so low and another a request to refine the original question. If I understand you correctly, you are now saying that you were disagreeing with my second comment, but all my second comment contained was a request for clarification, so I'm not sure what you disagree with.

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Posted By: JK

Ok, let me spell this out:

1. I disagree with your implication regarding sgc and why they are getting 9s. Specifically that we must be considering something other than grading alone if SGC undergrades cards.
2. I disagree with your comment that people arent answering the question - except to the extent that GAI is being more harshly graded than I think they otherwise would due to their recent closing. That said, I think GAI would still come in last among the big 3 and possibly even behind bvg even if they had not closed their doors for a week and lost everyone's confidence. I think this would be true even if the only focus was their grading ability because for all of Mike's purported expertise (of which I dont have any first hand knowledge) GAI still mostly gets it wrong from what Ive observed, heard from others, etc.

[Archive]

Posted By: Matt

Josh said: "1. I disagree with your implication regarding sgc and why they are getting 9s. Specifically that we must be considering something other than grading alone if SGC undergrades cards.
2. I disagree with your comment that people arent answering the question - except to the extent that GAI is being more harshly graded than I think they otherwise would due to their recent closing. That said, I think GAI would still come in last among the big 3 and possibly even behind bvg even if they had not closed their doors for a week and lost everyone's confidence. I think this would be true even if the only focus was their grading ability because for all of Mike's purported expertise (of which I dont have any first hand knowledge) GAI still mostly gets it wrong from what Ive observed, heard from others, etc."

Josh
I never claimed point #1 - I was answering why GAI was getting low grades not why SGC was getting high ones.
Regarding your second point - you say you disagree and then in the same sentence you agree - if people are grading GAI lower because of their recent customer service fiasco then they're not answering the question of being accurate graders - they're answering a question about confidence in sending them cards which was exactly my point.

I don't think continuing our conversation has any value to the other board denizens, so we can continue offline if you want.

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Posted By: Steve

PSA and SGC .............10

SCD (old).................8

Beckett (not BCCG)........6

GAI......................0


IMO



Steve

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Posted By: Josh Siegel

PSA typically brings the most money with SGC in second regarding prices realized. Beckett and GAI are close third prior to Global's recent status regarding prices. Sometimes the customer service at PSA is so lacking that a sharpie and a screwdown holder is better. When it comes to agreeing with grades I would rate:

SGC 8
PSA 6
GAI 6
Beckett 5
SCD negative 2

Hopefully GAI cards can be bought for a bargain and crossed over to another company after they finally announce they are closing their doors in about three months.