Tuesday, December 13, 2016

A New Grading Scale?

Grading cards can be a difficult task.  What looks like a Very Good card in your card shop will immediately turn into a Near Mint in the short time that it takes the shop owner to leaf through his favorite pricing guide.  Funny how that happens.

We have all heard the phrases: "Purchase the best quality card you can for your collection."  "Quality over quantity."  "Avoid dinged corners at all cost."

That last one reminded me that there are (or were) several card blogs that have condition / grading in their blog names.
So, what's in a grade?  First, it is important to know what the standards are.  I'm more concerned about the labels than the nuances that go into them.

The 2009 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards uses the following:
  • Mint (MT)
  • Near Mint/Mint (NM.M)
  • Near Mint (NR MT)
  • Excellent (EX)
  • Very Good (VG)
  • Good (G)
  • Fair (F or Fr.)
  • Poor (P)
The also suggest that the collectors may encounter intermediate grades, ie: VG-EX or EX-MT.   As seen in the following snippet, the SCBC mainly uses NM, EX, and VG for pricing.



PSA, one of the leaders in the card grading industry, uses both numbers and words to grade the condition of cards.
  • Gem Mint 10 (GEM-MT)
  • Mint 9 (MINT)
  • Near Mint - Mint 8 (NM-MT)
  • Near Mint 7 (NM)
  • Excellent - Mint 6 (EX-MT)
  • Excellent 5 (EX)
  • Very Good - Excellent 4 (VG-EX)
  • Very Good 3 (VG)
  • Good 2 (GOOD)
  • Fair 1.5 (FR)
  • Poor 1 (POOR)
Well, that's similar to the SCBC labels.

Beckett Grading Services have their own system, which is numerical (1-10).  The other minor grading companies have a combination.  Look them up on your own.

Since many of the card collectors that I interact with do it for their own enjoyment and pleasure, that they think of it still as a hobby and not an investment vehicle, I'm going to suggest a simpler grading scale.
  • Pristine 
  • Handled
  • Loved
  • Well Loved
  • Run Over By A Truck

I'll explain each of them and show you some examples from my own collection.

Pristine


I think this is the only graded card I have in my collection.  I bought it on ebay years ago.  PSA deemed it a NM 7.  The left/right centering is off.  Corners are sharp, as are the edges.  The surface is clean and good.  Looks like it came right out of the pack, despite the fact that it 56 years old.

I collect Earl Wilson cards because he was the first black player signed to the Boston Red Sox.  Pumpsie Green was the first black player to play for the Red Sox, but Earl was signed a few years before Pumpsie.  Do I have plans to upgrade this card to maybe an 8 or a 9?  Nope.  I'm perfectly fine having this.  I'm not planning on cracking it out of the slab.


Handled

This 1971 Topps Bill Melton has been handled.  The corners aren't crisp, but you can still see that they are corners.  Clearly not Pristine.  The '71 set, with black borders, show just about any edge imperfection.


Loved
This 1953 Bowman Color Joe Garagiola falls into the Loved category.  Rounded corners, a bit of scuffing.  Fully acceptable in my book.


Well Loved

A previous owner of this 1934 Batter-Up Cuccinello wrote their name on it.  No regard to the aesthetic of the card.

It could be worse.  Half of it could be missing.  Probably due to a kid folding it over, and over, and over, and over again.



Maybe this 1971 Jim Hickman is a good example of the Well Loved category.  Rounded corners.  And a pink Bic Banana goes to town on his face.



Run Over By A Truck

It is hard to determine which type of truck ran over this 1967 Hank Fischer, but clearly one did.  Almost like it was taken to shop class and dropped on the belt sander.  (Note: the Hank Fischer card is no longer in my collection.  It happily resides safely in Tony's binder.)

I like the cards for what they are.  I wonder what the story was behind them.  Who was Paul M. Longacre?  Who despised Hank Fischer enough to not treat him with some care?  Why pink clown tears for Jim Hickman?

I propose that the collecting world switch to my proposed grading scale.  The sooner, the better.

This blog post was spurred on by Jeff Katz's post on SABR's new Baseball Card blog.

5 comments:

  1. Hey - I know that Hank!

    I definitely like your grading system; it's much easier and obvious. Grading, as it is, is basically just a way of quantifying "hey, my card is better than yours."

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    Replies
    1. Tony, thanks for reminding me that Hank is in your possession. I've corrected my post to reflect that. And you're right about the "my card is better than yours".

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    2. Oh I didn't point that out to make you correct it - just makin' an observation :D

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  2. SABR may have finally figured out a way to suck me into membership.

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  3. YES, ALL VERY GOOD POINTS ... MUCH OF THE VARIOUS GRADING LEVELS ARE IN NEED OF DEEPER ANALYSIS ... HAVING COLLECTED /SAVED CARDS FOR ALMOST 65 YEARS HAVE FOUND EACH PERSON HAS WHAT THEY HAVE AS MANY ARE LIKE YOU, HAPPY THEY HAVE ANYTHING REMAINING FROM THE DAYS OF THEIR YOUTH OR HAVE PICKED UP IN THE INTERVENING YEARS, NO MATTER THE CONDITION ... WE KNEW EARL WILSON TO SPEAK WITH OVER TIME AND FEEL HE WOULD BE EXTREMELY PLEASED TO KNOW YOU HOLD HIM IN SUCH HIGH ESTEEM AS HE APPRECIATED THINGS LIKE THAT AND WAS A VERY DECENT FELLOW AND TREMENDOUS PITCHER ON MOSTLY MEDIOCRE TEAMS, EXCEPT 1967 - 1968 - 1969 TIGERS ... MYSELF, I ALWAYS WANTED ONLY ALL SPORTS CARDS TO APPEAR AS IF THEY WWRE FRESHLY OUT OF WAXPACKS SO GAVE AWAY / TRADED / SOLD / AUCTIONED ALL OTHERS WHICH SOMEONE ELSE THEN ENJOYED AND HOPEFULLY MIGHT STILL HAVE AFTER ALL THESE MANY DECADES ... EVERYTHING IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER IN THESE THINGS.

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