Grading then and now...

[jchcollins]

Starting this thread as kind of a broad one to talk about grading of cards throughout the years, and to get your impressions on how things have changed:

When I first started collecting cards as a kid (9 years old in 1986) there were some pretty set grading definitions as published by those like Beckett and the Krause / Baseball Cards Magazine folks. But they were high-level and the "tweener" grades didn't really exist yet. Mint, NM, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor are what I remember as a kid. Back then, as with today - the last two were sometimes combined into one and the magazines would just show a card with a really bad crease or a rip or some other type of catastrophic defect to represent it. I do recall back then thinking that most new cards should be "mint" out of the pack. If a card was "old" - and to my child's eye that mostly meant 1960's cards and earlier - the 70's I thought were still too new to be "really" old (since that was the decade I was born) - then the condition you hoped for was "Excellent" or better because you tried to find nicer old cards that did not have bad creases and though they may have had some corner dings - they were still generally in great condition to be considered EX. If I recall at least back then, centering was really not much of a factor in grading unless a card was miscut. Cards that were not centered well - whether new or old - were certainly not showstoppers for me as a child collector. I also recall thinking the most important aspect of condition was whether a card was creased or not - today of course most of us would scrutinize a card's corners more than we would for that, at least to start with.

I do recall by the time that I got older in the early 1990's that at least some additional "tweener" grades like EX-MT and VG-EX had kind of crept into the lexicon. An EX-MT card was a really nice EX card that still had something wrong with it that prevented it from being NM or Mint. A VG-EX card might be one with corners that were starting to look pretty dingy, but did not have a crease on it. I do think that during this timeframe (when a lot of folks were scouring their attic for forgotten goldmines...) many people with cards that we would consider EX-MT or so today with professional grading were sold with the honest descriptions of Near Mint or Mint by those that had found them. I don't know about the rest of you, but even today - most cards graded 6 EX-MT still look very sharp to me and I can understand this...

I took a break from the hobby for a while when I graduated high school (1995) and went off to college. When I returned to buying cards as a college senior along about 1998, that was the first time I had seen graded cards. I remember being totally confused for a while. This was quickly replaced by astonishment at what PSA 8 and above vintage cards were actually selling for. The rest as you know from the early 2000's or so takes us up into today. More scrutiny. More tweener grades. More ridiculous prices.

What are your impressions of the path that grading - whether amateur or professional - has taken since you first started collecting? I remember thinking as I said that "EX" cards if they were old were really nice as a kid. Now most 5-EX cards are considered mid-grade at best, and not really anything special. On one hand this makes me sad as I'm not and likely never will be someone who goes out and chases PSA 8, set registry type cards - but on the other hand it makes me feel good because I know those now "mid grade" cards that I collected as a kid still are affordable and for most vintage cards - even stars aside from a few key cards - in that grade can still be had for about the same price magnitude on the whole as they commanded in the 1980's. What did a 1956 Topps Eddie Mathews book and sell for in 1989? And how much does it cost in about EX condition now? About the same. My guess would be actually less if you adjust for inflation - given the fact that the hold the baseball card hobby and the baseball nostalgia craze held on this country in the late 1980's and early 90's is now just a fraction of what it used to be.

Do you still grade cards the same as you did decades ago, or has professional grading changed your perspective? Do you still collect the same level of condition on most of your cards (whether that be high or low grade) or has professional grading changed you there? What other nuances / changes have you noticed throughout the years? I have more questions, but this is probably a long enough start. Interesting to think also of just my limited perspective. I've only been collecting for 30 years. Back even earlier how did collectors look at things? Jefferson Burdick used to stamp his name and address on the back of many of his cards - so I think that's a clue to how even the most serious of all collectors must have taken condition matters as secondary at best a long time ago...

-John

[swarmee]

Growing up in the 80s, I knew what "Mint" was and I knew that there were other grades, but I couldn't have told you them. But I only collected 86-93 sets, so all of the cards should have been mint.

Now that I'm in to grading, I'm working on mid-grade sets of cards that no one else has actually put a graded set together on yet. One is T51 Murad College Series and the other is T56 Emblem series. So although I'm shooting for VG/EX average, I'll be the top set in the registry for a while until someone else decides to start working it. I don't think I'll become competitive at that time, but I did grab a beautiful EX/MT-ish raw set at market price of the T51s and will be grading most of them to either have or replace my PR/FR/GD level cards.

So my recommendation is to pick a set that you like that nobody else has created a registry for, and start one. It could be a 50s/60s oddball set or some non-sports set that appeals to you. That way you can be #1 for a while, and possibly provide better visibility for that set, and the value may increase if others jump in.

[pokerplyr80]

I'd say my collecting story is pretty similar to yours, only it started 3 years later in 89. I think most kids don't really care about condition, and I was no exception. I'm sure I would have been equally excited to have an old Mickey Mantle or Nolan Ryan card in a 5 as I would have a 9 or 10. Centering wasn't a very big deal either as you mentioned.

I also am into graded cards now, and do go after higher grade cards, or the highest I can afford any way. A big part of that is I feel they have better investment potential. And I do notice the difference in lower grade cards. Although I do admit it's sometimes hard to tell some 8s from 10s, nevermind 9s vs 10s. My tastes have changed a lot compared to what I collected as a kid. I attribute most of that to the fact that I didn't have much to spend back then.

Centering has become more important to me as well, mostly because the cards look so much better centered. They don't have to be dead centered, but I prefer them to be pretty close. On bigger cards I do settle for lower grades, because that's all I can afford. But I do still try hold out for good centering.

[jchcollins]

I went through a phase in my mid- 20's where I was concerned about higher-grade and centering, but I also used to sell a lot of cards on ebay before my kids were born. I put them away for a good while along about 2004 when I went back to grad school. When I gradually got back into buying stuff purely for my own collection - my thoughts on condition and centering had changed a bit. As long as I'm happy with the eye appeal of the card, that's usually what matters. And I do try to buy the card and not the holder. My main condition pet peeve is creases still, but many times you can still find decent looking cards in the PSA 4, VG-EX range that are not creased but just have corners or borders that are a bit more worn than what is acceptable for EX. Often because of the lower grade on the slab, these cards can be had for huge bargains. I have a '58 Topps Hank Aaron that is a 4, but has no creases and is a heckuva lot nicer card than the same creased '58 Aaron I had as a kid, and I'm totally happy with it. Maybe age of the cards has something to do with it as well. For example with 1950's cards, I try to buy PSA 4 or 5 stars if I can afford - but into the 1960's and later my standards seem to go up to at least EX-MT.

[steve B]

I started collecting a bit earlier, early 70's as a kid, and in 1977 moved to a town with a card store. There wasn't really much for established grades, the first Beckett checklist came out in 78 and I think had grades. I recall the in between grades coming a bit earlier, but I was into both older stuff and "new" stuff, and the chances of a grade that's unclear between two of the basic grades was higher with the old stuff. Why make VG-EX distinction for more modern cards when nearly everyone has plenty of Solid EX cards? (Also keeping in mind that a fairly nice 57 Aaron was $3 and 52 Mantles hadn't gotten over $1000 for a nice one )

I was also fairly inactive as grading got bigger. Skipped shows for a couple years after talking with PSA when they were new. Didn't much like what I heard. To me grade was more about the cards physical state than common production issues like registration and centering. And allowing 1/32 of an inch for a card to be short but not being able to grade cards that were over the standard size seemed wrong.

Back at a big show after a couple years and it seemed like all the stuff people had usually had out in boxes like 50's commons was now graded and being sold for less than the grading fees. Didn't know than about bulk submissions and how much that one really great card would bring.

Grading has always seemed to me to be needed for some things and ok for others. The expensive stuff certainly did benefit, as did the hobby in general for a few years. The investors wanted an easy way to get some consistency. I saw a lot of cards at flea markets at high Beckett for a card that was only G maybe VG, but the seller called it "excellent for its age" ---A crease is still a crease!
I don't quite get the obsession with having the "best" set or card, yeah, Now that I have a few that are the best of that card it's kinda neat. But I don't think I could get into chasing everything in 9 or 10.

I never worried much about the grade, I just liked cards.
Now I use spreadsheets as checklists for some sets and check off the cards in only 3 ways. Capital H is for the ones that are pretty nice and don't seem like something I'd worry about upgrading. Lowercase h is for any card with a "problem" that could range from a big hole and too many creases to count to a fairly nice card that got checked off when I was in a less forgiving mood. Graded cards I put the number in the box. When I'm adding cards I do still check if the nice ones are actually better than the already nice ones I have but I don't really even go out of my way to find upgrades.

Steve B