Gary’s “Just A Thought” On What Affects The Hobby

Grading
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Just a thought: I think subgrades should have subgrades. For example.

SURFACE 9…
front 9
back 8.5

CORNERS 9.5…
front top left 9
front top rt 9.5
front bottom left 9.5
front bottom right 9.5
back top left 9
back top rt 9.5
back bottom left 9.5
back bottom right 9

EDGES 9.5…
front top 9
front bottom 9.5
front left side 9.5
front right side9.5
back top 9
back bottom 9.5
back left side 9.5
back right side 9.5

CENTERING 8.5
front left to right 8
front top to bottom 9
back left to right 8.5
back top to bottom 8

Plus, I think they should break the grades down to .1/4s. So a weak overall 8.5 should be an 8.25 and a strong 8.5 should be an 8.75,

Finally, every case should have sub-sub grades broken down to quarters too. So the plastic case could look like:

SURFACE 8.75…
front 9.5
back 8

CORNERS 9.5…
front top left 9
front top rt 9.5
front bottom left 9.5
front bottom right 9.5
back top left 9
back top rt 9.5
back bottom left 9.5
back bottom right 9

EDGES 9.75…
front top 9
front bottom 9.5
front left side 9.5
front right side9.5
back top 9.5
back bottom 9.5
back left side 9.5
back right side 9.5

CENTERING 8.25
front left to right 8
front top to bottom 9
back left to right 8.5
back top to bottom 7

CGC already has a ginormous blue label to accommodate the above specs but PSA and BGS would have to adjust their label measurements.

Now would everybody be happy? Those who think it’s excessive could eliminate the plastic case grades or the 1/4 breakdowns. Others may want subgrades for the sub sub grades.

Well, that’s it for my “just a thought”. Hope it was mind opening.

Greets,
Gary

(there’s a half hour I’ll never get back:(

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How would you design a grading company label?
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There’s nothing more satisfying than a complete set of gem mint 9.5s all with different subgrades! I think this would be even better to collect this way – great idea!

Seriously in my opinion grading is fine as it is with PSA. Just give me an integer and let me go home. Some people might prefer the more fine print distinctions but it just feels meaningless and too nit-picky to me. I was introduced to PSA first so I’m sure there’s bias there but I’ve never even given a .5 of a shit about all the .5 grades… PSA gets grades blatantly wrong a tiny minority of the time and makes close calls sometimes too, but I generally know what I’m getting with the grades. You can always just look at the card and decide if you want to pay for it or not without someone putting more numbers on it.

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WTB duovigintuple-10 graded card, paying big. :laughing:

Greetz,
Quuador

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There goes 2mins of my life too. jk XD

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On a more serious note, it does give a clear overview of all the flaws of the graded card, unlike the single number of PSA-graded cards. Only problem is we get graded cards in a T-shape, because the label has to be big enough to fit 27 numbers (22 small ones; 4 medium ones; 1 big one). :wink:

Greetz,
Quuador

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Lol

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Can you imagine how big the slabs would be with subgrades for subgrades???

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In my opinion even a BGS black label level of implied accuracy is wishful thinking once you get into the reality of it. More divisions of grades and sub-grades implies greater degree of grading accuracy and consistency, but the nature of grading is not up to those standards in my opinion. It’s why you can see a BGS black label sometimes with centering you can tell is not ‘perfect’ with the naked eye. That is not a knock at BGS by the way, I think any company that took grading down to that degree will open themselves up to this.

Having .5 grades means in theory if a 10/10 is perfect, you’ve split the possible grade outcomes into 19 different segments, and then you’re trying to say that even on some cards that you can visibly tell are slightly off-center, that it’s actually the 19th and best sub-grade. It doesn’t really fly.

I think this must be why PSA doesn’t do subgrades, you just cannot guarantee such levels of accuracy and be consistent with it. You just open your grading service up to looking worse. Maybe if grading fees were 5-10 times higher than they are now to pay for far more time and scrutiny spent on each card you can get closer to the accuracy required, but then you’re just losing more customers than you are gaining.

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Sub grades are already inconsistent enough. Here is 1 card, 4 submissions:

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The Giant Professional Grading Thread
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Rather than having them on the label itself (I MUCH prefer the PSA label) I think a detailed report should be included in the cert lookup online. So they just log them as they do the official grade and if you want sub-grades or specifics you just check the cert online and it has the full detailed breakthrough. Would also be nice to know ‘This card is the only one with all 4 corners perfect’ / etc., online DB would be cool to have

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Not good enough. IMO each card should be divided into a 15 x 10 grid with a separate grade assigned to each cell. What color label should a card with 150 subgrades of “10” get?

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Every submission only makes it stronger!!

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To the points made above:

This is an excellent video by pfm that does a good job of making the case that these grading companies with human eyes might not actually be able to consistently give you as precise a grade as you would like. Obviously the Juzam Djinn example is anecdotal (n=4) but it’s a legitimate concern in my eyes.

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First people want 4xxxxxx certs, then they want only the new case, and then only cases with the lighthouse on it, and now subgrades for the subgrades.

Let’s not make this more complicated. :pray:

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for the record that djinn card was submitted for review every time, not actually cracked and resubbed

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I want it in tenths, not 1/4 and I want this all for $7.50 per card with fast turnaround time.

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Okay but hear me out.

What if when you search the serial number of your slab on the grader’s website those sub-sub grades came up?

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