Grading Has Clouded Our Minds...

[avalanche2006]

I do agree with the thread title.
It seems that everyone is so focused on getting their beautiful vintage cards in plastic and for someone, somewhere, to put a number on the card to say how nice it is. I always have and always will appreciate that feel of cardboard in my hand while enjoying my hobby and the memories from my childhood.

[mrmopar]

How about which one does your eye like the best? I think, based only on what I can see from the small photos, that card 1 would be my pick.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by mrmopar

How about which one does your eye like the best? I think, based only on what I can see from the small photos, that card 1 would be my pick.

For my eye, card #4 would probably be the best of the OC's. And it has/had the added benefit of being the lowest priced of all except for the vaunted #6.

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

For my eye, card #4 would probably be the best of the OC's. And it has/had the added benefit of being the lowest priced of all except for the vaunted #6.

I agree, if these were Mantle's and you added a couple zero's to your example, I would buy #4 with the grade. Nobody want's those OC's. They are graded kryptonite. worthless. Nobody like em. AND HOW DO WE CRACK THE SGC & PSA cases. I only ruin cards when I try.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Fuddjcal

I agree, if these were Mantle's and you added a couple zero's to your example, I would buy #4 with the grade. Nobody want's those OC's. They are graded kryptonite. worthless. Nobody like em. AND HOW DO WE CRACK THE SGC & PSA cases. I only ruin cards when I try.

With both you just have to be careful. PSA is easier; use some pliers or a cutting tool to snip off a corner of the case. Then you will see the exposed thicker two layers of hermetically sealed plastic that you can slowly (and this is the careful part) work a flathead screwdriver around to separate. At some point you will have enough of it done to just pull the two halves apart. If you've done it right, you will have a naked raw card just sitting there waiting to be carefully picked up and put into a penny sleeve.

IMO, SGC cases are tougher than PSA to bust because the plastic I think is weaker. I damaged a card last month for the first time in busting probably at least 100 TPG slabs. The rub was that the face of the case itself started to shatter (this does not normally happen...) and the resulting little pieces which broke off were razor sharp and unfortunately pressed directly into the cardboard beneath. About a $250 mistake in 30 seconds. Oh well at least no women, children or animals were harmed...

[BruceinGa]

Originally Posted by Fuddjcal

AND HOW DO WE CRACK THE SGC & PSA cases. I only ruin cards when I try.

I haven't cracked open any but have always wondered if an inexpensive band saw from Harbor Freight would be the safest/easiest way to open a case.

[avalanche2006]

Originally Posted by BruceinGa

I haven't cracked open any but have always wondered if an inexpensive band saw from Harbor Freight would be the safest/easiest way to open a case.

I have opened many cards from psa, bvg, and sgc.
All you need is a sharp knife and a hammer or something similar.
I use a pair of pliers to hit the knife. You just need to locate where the 2 slabs come together. Put the sharp blade there, hit it and it will crack a small piece out.
Then put the point of the blade in position to separate the 2 halves. Hit it again to separate.
Get the point in there and twist the blade. Work until you get the case evenly opens enough to let gravity lower the card.

Beckett cases are the hardest to open. SGC the easiest. The cases come right open. I have opened about 100 cards for my sets and have no damaged cards.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Fuddjcal

I agree, if these were Mantle's and you added a couple zero's to your example, I would buy #4 with the grade. Nobody want's those OC's. They are graded kryptonite. worthless. Nobody like em. AND HOW DO WE CRACK THE SGC & PSA cases. I only ruin cards when I try.

I'd love to know how to crack open cases. Any tips?

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I'd love to know how to crack open cases. Any tips?

Use aviation snips on an angle near (relatively close to) one of the top corners, and gently chop it. Then push a flathead screwdriver into the gap to pop it open and separate the plastic pieces. A real simple method I've used the couple of times I did it.

[GasHouseGang]

I would have to guess #3, only because the top border is a bit thinner than the others.

[Fuddjcal]

Thanks so much for the tutorial! Much appreciated!

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Fuddjcal

Thanks so much for the tutorial! Much appreciated!

No problem. There are also more than a few Youtube videos out there which can show you how to do it.

[JollyElm]

This may be a bit long-winded, but I fear some people simply don't seem to understand the very basic point here.

- A card graded a PSA 8 OC has all the attributes of an 8 (yes, according to fallible human beings), BUT the centering if far enough off to warrant an explanation, the OC qualifier. In other words, the card is an 8 in all ways (corners, focus, gloss, etc.) save for the centering. Very straightforward and there is nothing to question about the specific grade (opinions of people who disagree with the grade assessment aside). In a word, definitive.

- A straight PSA 6 that is obviously way off-center (as the examples shown in the OP are) doesn't give you straightforward information at all. Is the card truly a 6, with what the grader thinks are the proper attributes of a PSA 6, or is it actually a PSA 8 OC that became a PSA 6 because someone checked a box on the submission form?? You can see the card is terribly OC, so why isn't that accounted for (yes, everyone understands that centering requirements differ the higher the grade goes)?? Shouldn't it be a PSA 6 OC? There is no definitive answer. In a word, baffling.

If you're holding the PSA 8 OC in your hand, you know EXACTLY what you have. If you're holding the PSA 6, you have questions, because it is anything but definitive.

Let's quickly take it in another direction to further illustrate the point. Say you have a card that is a PSA 8, but has a bit of gum residue on the front to merit an ST qualifier. So (I'm not sure if you can specifically do this, but let's say for our purposes here you can) since the 'stain' is very minor, you check "no qualifiers" on the submission form and the card comes back a straight 6. Is that a definitive answer to, "What does this card grade?" Of course not. It's fairy dust. If you crack open the card in the PSA 8 ST slab, gently (and easily) wipe away the gum/wax, and resubmit it, you get the exact same grade MINUS the erstwhile qualifier, a PSA 8. If you wipe away the wax from the same card, but it's in the straight PSA 6 slab, some kind of magical transformation happens and it somehow skyrockets up to a PSA 8!!! Simply put, the original grade wasn't 'truthful.'

[Empty77]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

This may be a bit long-winded, but I fear some people simply don't seem to understand the very basic point here.

- A card graded a PSA 8 OC has all the attributes of an 8 (yes, according to fallible human beings), BUT the centering if far enough off to warrant an explanation, the OC qualifier.

I for one think I understand your basic point, it’s just that your interpretation of their grading process is wrong, which I’ll explain my sense of below, but first want to also point out that I agree with your feeling that more information is better, and having the brief/coded notes of why the experienced person who actually handled a card face to face scored it the way they did is good. (if those aren’t going to be listed on the flip, since as you mentioned it’s sort of a curse, then it would be excellent if they bothered to have a mechanism to key in such qualifier codes to the cert verification system so at least looking the item up online would provide that clarification, but I sense that ship has sailed).

It is not that an 8OC gets the OC added as “an explanation” b/c it’s “far enough off to warrant” some helpful extra information, which is the impression that your wording seems to give.

It gets the OC b/c, as PSA itself states, “the centering of the card falls below the minimum standard for that grade”, ergo, it can’t be that grade since it doesn’t meet even the “minimum standard” to be considered so. It’s not that it would be suitable to say: it’s an 8 but pretty badly off-centered, so let’s mention that for clarity; it’s that it is manifestly not an 8 at all and is something else entirely…

What exactly it is depends on the numbers, and here’s where I can also correct your thoughts from an earlier post about the “2-grade rule of thumb” thing (and others who referred to it in follow-up). The reason that always comes to everyone’s mind is b/c that’s how the registry handles qualified cards for the purpose of the registry calculations---since it can’t know exactly what a qualified card should be graded, it uses the 2 grade demotion as a sort of standard average, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to accept cards like that at all b/c it would be too messy to judge what is what.

But that has absolutely nothing (well, very little, it is an average of course) to do with what a qualified card would grade if it were straight; that would be based solely on the numbers in the case of OC, which at least is somewhat objective, compared to say, corners.

So, for instance, an 8 has to be 70/30 (or better) on front and a 7 has to be 75/25 on front, and a 6, 80/20. So if an 8OC is 75/25, then converted to straight, it would come out a 7, not a 6. It’s only the need of the registry to assign an average that the 2-grade concept has seemed to become a rule-of-thumb.

(I think that knowledge would be particularly valuable to anyone comparing items for the purpose like in your original post, both as a pro and a con, whereby a really good 8OC might actually be a 7, but alternatively, it may also be only a 5 [85/15, or I suppose even lower, depending on how it measured out]---and that, as much as anything, might explain why it went for the lowest price of the bunch…)

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

No problem. There are also more than a few Youtube videos out there which can show you how to do it.

those "how to" you tube video's have already cost me 1000's, but I'm willing to try.

[JollyElm]

All right, (if you're on your phone these might be too small to see) anyone want to have a little fun and play a guessing game?? These screenshots show 4 different East Hills Clemente cards (blank backed), all of which are a bit off-centered top to bottom. I chose them because they are very similar to each other in that regard. You obviously can't examine them too closely, so it's a bit of a crapshoot, but here are the facts. Two of these cards are straight PSA 7's, one is a PSA 9 and one is a PSA 9 OC. There's no way to tell, but I'm sort of assuming that at least one of the two 7's would have been a PSA 9 OC, but the submitter checked the 'no qualifiers' box and it became a straight 7...but that's just a guess.

So which is which?
(Again, your choices are PSA 7, PSA 7, PSA 9, PSA 9 OC.)

Card 1 - ??
Card 2 - ??
Card 3 - ??
Card 4 - ??

1966easthillsclemente2.jpg

[JollyElm]

I am definitely a relatively new convert to the graded world. When I saw what ebay prices were for ungraded cards as compared to their graded counterparts, the switch was made. Why pay $25 for an ungraded card that looks pretty decent, when I can find a PSA 8 for only a little more?? This gives me peace of mind and allows me to have a good idea of what I can sell the card for if the need arose.

It's unfortunate that the TPG's handle 'problems' so weirdly, though. If a card is an 8 and is OC, just call it what it is, PSA 8 OC. Why give the option of making it a straight 6???? It's the same off-centered card. It would've been marvelous if all graded cards were given the suitable qualifiers they deserved (everyone who grew up collecting cards before the 1990's/2000's knew that centering and quality control was not Topps' strong point) from the very beginning. No tweaking things. That would have made cards without qualifiers even more desirable, because no funny business would be involved. A PSA 7 would truly be a PSA 7, and not a PSA 9 OC that was sent in to be graded 'without qualifiers,' for example (I know, I know, you can see the centering with your own eyes, but that's besides the point). Unfortunately, it's too late to unring the grading bell.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I am definitely a relatively new convert to the graded world. When I saw what ebay prices were for ungraded cards as compared to their graded counterparts, the switch was made. Why pay $25 for an ungraded card that looks pretty decent, when I can find a PSA 8 for only a little more?? This gives me peace of mind and allows me to have a good idea of what I can sell the card for if the need arose.

It's unfortunate that the TPG's handle 'problems' so weirdly, though. If a card is an 8 and is OC, just call it what it is, PSA 8 OC. Why give the option of making it a straight 6???? It's the same off-centered card. It would've been marvelous if all graded cards were given the suitable qualifiers they deserved (everyone who grew up collecting cards before the 1990's/2000's knew that centering and quality control was not Topps' strong point) from the very beginning. No tweaking things. That would have made cards without qualifiers even more desirable, because no funny business would be involved. A PSA 7 would truly be a PSA 7, and not a PSA 9 OC that was sent in to be graded 'without qualifiers,' for example (I know, I know, you can see the centering with your own eyes, but that's besides the point). Unfortunately, it's too late to unring the grading bell.

I agree with you. If I ruled the world, the centering qualifer would not be optional. Like for MC, if the card is OC you get it no matter what. This would be helpful in determining more with situations like today sometimes and you can't tell which cards are a PSA 5 because they have 5 corners and surface attributes, and which ones are really 7's but got a 5 because the centering was too poor and they requested no qualifier. There almost should be the inverse of the "OC" qualifier and call it the "ONLY" centering qualifier. This card is a PSA 6, ONLY because of the centering. Otherwise it's an 8 all day long...that would be fun to look at on a slab. PSA 6 EX-MT (ONLY) :-)

[Empty77]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

It's unfortunate that the TPG's handle 'problems' so weirdly, though. If a card is an 8 and is OC, just call it what it is, PSA 8 OC.

I understand your point of view and where you're coming from, but I have to take the opportunity to make the case for the other side of the debate and say that I just fundamentally disagree with how you're thinking about the qualifiers and rather think it's the other way around.

To me, calling it "what it is" as you phrased it, would in fact be calling it a 6 in your example---since the grading standards were written before the concept of permitting voluntary qualifiers, if something has centering worse than is permitted for 8s, then it's not an 8. End of story. There can be no such thing as "this is an 8 except for this one thing that makes it not an 8", to me, that's what adds all the frustrating confusions.

For instance, almost nothing is more annoying in my mind than someone advertising a 9oc card with the description something like "It's like a 9! Only one graded higher", meanwhile in my head I'm saying, 'No, you have what would be a straight 7, which is bested by a hundred or so straight 8s, a dozen straight 9s, and one GEM, and it is very, very much not "like" as good as any of those'...

Whatever its original intent, the whole voluntary qualifier thing seems now in practice like a gimmick to draw different people in and perpetuate the nuisance of resubmitting and re-slabbing. If my power to dictate, I would end the practice entirely (well, with ultimate power I would go back in time and undo all that had been done and never let that door open in the first place)--and be left saying to someone, 'look, you've got a card that has a variety of characteristics that make it a 6, and that's that.'

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Empty77

--since the grading standards were written before the concept of permitting voluntary qualifiers...

I can see this side of it as well. In 1990 there was no PSA. I probably would have thought the concept of qualifiers was absurd. No, that card is not NM because it's too far O/C. Instead it's Excellent...

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Empty77

I understand your point of view and where you're coming from, but I have to take the opportunity to make the case for the other side of the debate and say that I just fundamentally disagree with how you're thinking about the qualifiers and rather think it's the other way around.

To me, calling it "what it is" as you phrased it, would in fact be calling it a 6 in your example---since the grading standards were written before the concept of permitting voluntary qualifiers, if something has centering worse than is permitted for 8s, then it's not an 8. End of story. There can be no such thing as "this is an 8 except for this one thing that makes it not an 8", to me, that's what adds all the frustrating confusions.

For instance, almost nothing is more annoying in my mind than someone advertising a 9oc card with the description something like "It's like a 9! Only one graded higher", meanwhile in my head I'm saying, 'No, you have what would be a straight 7, which is bested by a hundred or so straight 8s, a dozen straight 9s, and one GEM, and it is very, very much not "like" as good as any of those'...

Whatever its original intent, the whole voluntary qualifier thing seems now in practice like a gimmick to draw different people in and perpetuate the nuisance of resubmitting and re-slabbing. If my power to dictate, I would end the practice entirely (well, with ultimate power I would go back in time and undo all that had been done and never let that door open in the first place)--and be left saying to someone, 'look, you've got a card that has a variety of characteristics that make it a 6, and that's that.'

For the record, while the two grade drop is a decent rule of thumb I have occasionally only dropped one grade on a regrade with no qualifier request. Remember there's a centering standard for each grade. If one just barely misses for the "8" for instance, it my be within tolerance for a "7"

[cesarcap]

@ Darren, As the owner of that 61 pirates team PSA 4, I would be happy to trade you for your 8OC and pay you $1 more. Good deal on your side.

Now, look at the 55's (sorry about the bad/ small pix). But Mays (4MC) and Roberto (6OC) are IMHO closer that the technical grades suggest. But I was happy to purchase them for significant discounts to the straight grades. Same goes for Teddy Ball Game (2), which b/c of a tiny red dot gets knocked down to what in the PAST (2 holders ago) could have been a 3 or maybe 4.

[JollyElm]

Although the team picture doesn't have a dead horse in the shot, I thought I'd resuscitate this thread...

I wonder if either of these would've been a PSA 9 OC, but a box was checked:
s-l1600.jpg
1961pirates554psa7.jpg

[Empty77]

Looking technically, there could be a soft corner or two in those specific examples that would withhold 9 grades, but be that as it may, I concur with the point you're getting at, which is that those are the sorts of cards that may not be straight 9s only due to centering, and therefore are candidates for being slabbed however the submitter prefers, either straight or with the "OC"...

But my personal opinion is still that the "OC" label is more gimmicky and problem causing than it is useful. Maybe this is best illustrated by musing: why just OC, why stop there? They could have a "9DC", which would mean, 'this would be a 9 except for the several dinged corners', or worse is getting hit with the dreaded "9RC", which would be the same but accounts for having rounded corners!

To me if something doesn't meet the grade definition, then it doesn't meet it. There's no sense in having an endless serious of "this is the number we would give it, except for this [fill in the blank flaw] that makes it absolutely and definitely not that number". That's what those sorts of qualifiers are, and my opinion is that that's a goofy way to approach the issue of formal grading.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by avalanche2006

I do agree with the thread title.
It seems that everyone is so focused on getting their beautiful vintage cards in plastic and for someone, somewhere, to put a number on the card to say how nice it is. I always have and always will appreciate that feel of cardboard in my hand while enjoying my hobby and the memories from my childhood.

Preach, brother. I am about to crack open four T206's: Burns, Flick, Bresnahan and Dolly Miller. I like to smell my tobacco cards. Touch them. Connect to the people that owned the card so long ago.

Anyway, glad to read this thread.