Theproper grading of a baseball card is perhaps more difficult than the task ofsuccessfully hitting a small, round ball with a long, cylindrical piece of woodthree times out of ten. There are so many things that go into grading that ittakes time and experience to become an expert in determining the condition of acard. This skill is important because the price of a card is largely determinedby its grade. The problem is that there are so many different criteria, eachindependent of each other yet acting in concert, that small differences ofopinion can cause wide variations in the grade, and hence the price.
Thevery first, and most important consideration in card grading is that conditionis completely independent of age. It is also independent of other similarcards. For example, you may own an old card, say a 1957 Topps that is in prettygood shape considering it is almost 60 years old. With a piece of cardboardthat old you can expect some corner rounding and loss of surface gloss, maybesome browning of the edges. But the age matters not. If the corners are roundedand there is a wax stain on the back, the card is not mint -- even if thecondition of your specific card is far better than similar examples on themarket. In other words, grading is absolute, not relative to any other card oryear examples.
Thesecond most important consideration is that grading is intrinsic, notsentimental. Though sentimentality may affect the price you are willing to pay,or sell, a card, a crumpled corner is a crumpled corner. Granted, there aremany criteria which affect the price of a card, among them demand versussupply, year of issue, manufacturer, relative scarcity of a specific cardcompared to the others in the series (called short prints,) rookie or starstatus, and regional fan considerations, but grade has nothing to do with thoseissues. Or rather, the determination of condition is not affected by otherprice considerations, but rather the price is influenced by the grade. Cardgrade is one of the few absolutes that transcends personal whims, distributionpatterns, or print runs.
Finally,the last quality of grading involves the individual aspects of the parts beinggraded. Grading cards involves far more than just looking at a card as a wholeand stating that it is pretty clean and nice looking. That may be theimpression of an overall glance, but actual grading takes into considerationmany facets of the card. Here is a list of the individual items that areconsidered when grading a card. I will further discuss each item individually throughoutthis article.
Cornercondition
Edgecondition
Surfacecondition
Surfacegloss
Colorintensity
Imageregistration
Imagequality
Printingquality
Centering
Whiteintensity
Specialeffects
Beforewe delve into these items individually, let's first discuss what is a baseballcard, or rather the technical aspects of some ink applied to a piece of cardstock that becomes a collectable.
Just howis that card made?
Mostbaseball cards start out as a sheet of card stock. I say "most"because other materials have been used at times, most notably plastic andoccasionally metals. But for the most part, the card you hold in your hand is aform of paper derived from trees.
Baseballcards are not just thick sheets of paper, though. They are actually made up ofseveral layers of thin paper glued together. This process ends up with aproduct we commonly refer to as cardboard. In fact, if you were to take abaseball card and turn it so that the edge is facing you, you can actually takea sharp-edged pair of tweezers and pry those layers apart like an onion. If youdo so, look at the separated insides under magnification. You can clearly seethe fibers of the wood that went into making the paper. Sometimes the cardboardis brown when it is unbleached, or white when it has been bleached and dyed.But regardless of its color, it is cardboard -- layers of thin paper gluedtogether.
Mostoften that paper is coated on one or both sides. This coat, applied directly tothe cardboard, can be made of a number of different chemicals, binders, andcolor enhancers. The coat acts to provide a more stable surface to print uponand enhance the surface appearance of the card. It also acts to protect theunderlying paper so that the fibers do not fray over time. Think of it as asealant just like what one would put on a driveway -- a thin layer designed toprotect the underlying asphalt. The coat on a card is also sometimes referredto as enamel.
Onthe coat goes the ink. Though there are many different technical processesinvolved in applying ink to paper, they all boil down to laying down fourcolors -- cyan, magenta, yellow, and black -- to a piece of material so thatthe colors blend to form other colors which make up the intended image. The waythose colors are laid down within specific tolerances is called registration.For instance, if you have a black line that acts as a border for a red field,the black line needs to align exactly with the edge of the red ink. If it does,then the printing process is said to be in registration. If it is not, if thereis a gap or the black line is superimposed on the red field, the image is saidto be out of registration. (Note that out of registration issues are differentthan out of focus issues. I will discuss this further later.)
Finally,a thin layer of shellac or other clear material (like UV resistant plastic) isapplied once the image has been printed on the coat. This is referred to as thegloss. The gloss protects the image from damage that may occur during normalhandling and acts to protect the integrity of the ink, maintaining itsintensity and preventing color fading. As is clear with older cards, glossdoesn't always work perfectly in preventing those problems.
Oneimportant thing to note here is that all the materials, the paper, bleaches,inks, dyes, binders, glues, plastics, coatings, and other materials which gointo creating a baseball card are made of chemicals. All chemicals aresusceptible to damage from an number of different sources. Paper absorbs waterand the glue which binds the fibers is water-soluble. Keeping a card in highhumidity will cause it to absorb water and fall apart bit by bit. Not only doesthe water absorption cause damage itself, but water will combine with chemicalsin the paper to create an acid. Paper does not like acid; acid will degradepaper over time. Inks are prone to fading in the presence of ultraviolet lightwhether from the sun or fluorescent tubes. That fading is actually a chemicalbreakdown (or modification) of the substances which provide the color to theink. Shellac coatings can decompose in heat or if exposed to oil such as theoil that occurs on your fingertips.
Sonow that you have an overview of how a baseball card is made, let's look at howit can be constructed with errors or damaged, and how those errors and damagedetermine the grade of a card.
Hereis the single most important thing to remember about grading baseball cards:
There isno perfect card.
Everybaseball card ever made has a problem. No printing process other than that usedby the United States Treasury can ever lay down ink in micrometer tolerances.No ink is ever laid down in perfect uniform density and color. No paper is evercreated absolutely uniformly. No image is ever perfectly in focus. No cuttingprocess ever exactly separates the individual cards from the sheets they areprinted on with perfect centering. No gloss is ever applied in a completelyeven coating without a single flaw. Ever.
Ifyou take what appears to be a perfect card and place it under high enoughmagnification all those flaws will stand out like mountains rising from adesert plain. It's kind of like looking at your face in a magnifying mirror;you look great in the bathroom four feet away from a flat mirror, but you are ahideous creature in one of those makeup mirrors like women use to intentionallyfind serious flaws so they can mope around feeling like Quasimodo on a bad hairday.
Ingrading cards, we use three different magnifications: naked eye, 4X, and 10X.We also use two three different inspections: cursory, close, and intensive.Let's look at the various types of inspections first.
Acursory inspection is one in which you hold the card 15 to 20 inches from youreyes and quickly look for flaws. At that distance, and with a quick scan, acard may appear perfect, but in reality may possess many flaws. The corners maylook perfectly square, but actually be a bit frayed or crumpled. Registrationmay look perfect, but actually be slightly out of alignment. The surface glossmay appear even and complete, but there may be a minor wax stain or ply dimpleon the surface. The color intensity may look great, but it has actually fadedslightly, though evenly, so that it looks just fine. There may be one or twotiny ink spots or dropouts that are not immediately noticeable since they areso small. Problems that show up under a cursory inspection generally limit themaximum grade a card can attain regardless of other issues that show up underclose or intensive inspection. A rounded corner is a rounded corner; the onlyother determination will be the degree to which it is rounded. Furtherinspection of cursory examination involving what presents as a naked eyeproblem can only downgrade the card, not raise its grade higher.
Aclose inspection involves literally bringing the card closer to your eyes,though still without artificial magnification (other than standard readingglasses used, if needed, to bring close objects into natural focus.) The cardis placed 4 to 6 inches from your eyes and each individual aspect of the cardis carefully looked at. That ply bubble that was not noticed under cursoryexamination is now clearly seen. That corner which appeared to be a perfect cutnow shows some very slight rounding or ply separation. That edge which at firstglance seemed to be intact shows some chattering, or little flakes of thecoating chipped off leaving a slightly uneven edge. The color in a team nameprinted inside of a black border may not perfectly line up leaving a slight gapnot initially noticeable. Turning the card so that overhead light reflects offthe coating may reveal not only scratches in the coat, but some of the coat maybe thinning out or missing altogether.
Foran intensive inspection, I drag out the magnifiers. I use three differentmagnifying lenses. The first is the magnifying light. These are what you see onworkbenches and consist of a largish lens surrounded by a fluorescent tube forlight. The assembly is mounted on an articulating arm allowing you to swing itaround or out of the way. The magnifying power of the lens is about 2X. (And Iam not going to get into a physics discussion regarding diopters, opticalmagnification, and other arcane aspects of classical optics here. Let issuffice to say that a 2X lens makes the card look twice as big at any givendistance.) The relatively low magnification along with the light allows you toeasily view the entire card as a whole.
Thesecond magnifier I use is called a dome magnifier. It is 2.5 inches around withone flat side and one rounded side. It is made of a lucite plastic. The domemagnifier runs about 2X to 4X, or again, making the card and its componentsappear two to four times as large as they do to the naked eye. For a 2X view,it is placed flat on the card (or the card contained in a protective sleeve)and gently moved across the surface to look for problems. Always keep it cleanand never drag it around; gently lift it and replace it on the area you areinterested in looking at. Just be careful that any flaw you detect in a sleevedcard is actually on the card itself and not the sleeve. By raising the dome aninch or so from the card, you obtain a 4X view. Using a dome magnifier allowsyou to closely inspect about one-tenth of the card surface at a time.
Thethird magnifier is called a jeweler's loupe. This is a multi-lens opticalmagnifier that enlarges what you are looking at by 10X. (By comparison, theaverage makeup mirror noted previously has a magnification in the 4X to 5Xrange.) A loupe is relatively small, able to fit inside a one-inch cube holder,and is manufactured with greater optical precision than the other two types ofmagnifiers. You hold the loupe about one inch from your eye and the card aboutone inch beyond the loupe. This allows you to magnify enough to actually seeclearly the paper fibers and the individual dots of ink which go into making upthe image. A loupe inspection looks at about 1/80th of the card surface witheach view. As you can see, when I say "intensive," I mean intensive.Every aspect of the card is given close scrutiny. All four corners, the edges,surfaces (both front and back) the registration of finer details, and theapplication of the inks across the surface. Placing a card under successivelygreater magnification and detecting no flaws as one runs up the magnificationscale only increases the grade of the card.
Sonow that we have discussed the basics of how a baseball card is constructed andhow to look for flaws, just what are these grades everyone talks about?
Gradesare nothing more than an artificial scale by which one can denote the conditionof a card. It is important to note here that it is not legitimate to simplydelineate specific aspects of a card, assign a number to them corresponding tothe level of degradation, then add up the numbers to assign a grade. Thougheach individual type of problem can be assessed and placed on a scale, thegrade is determined not only by the specific numerical scales, but by the overallpresentation of the card. Assigning numbers to specific issues only allows oneto communicate in text the issues that went into assigning the final cardgrade. Confusion arises in grading by companies placing a numerical value onthe grade of a card as if that number is some sort of composite. It is not.That number is (or should be) merely a shorthand method of announcing a grade,generally on a scale of 1 to 10, or 1 to 100, with 100 being thatquintessential "perfect" card and 1 being something suitable for useas kindling in a fireplace. As such, the numerical scale is relative to"perfection" as a standard. I have to add, though, that if I owned aT206 Honus Wagner in poor condition, I would not use it as kindling. Some cardshave significant value independent of their grade. A 1991 Fleer common would,however, be starting some fires in the wood stove. (I'm convinced that someone,somewhere, is still printing them.)
Butthe scale is also roughly logarithmic. At the upper end of the scale, minute changesin the presence and severity of flaws create huge differences in the grade.While at the lower end of the scale, large differences may only move a card onegrade downward. Also the finer the grade distinctions, the more subjective thegrading process becomes when trying to determine which exact grade level a cardbelongs in. With all that in mind, remember that a grade is just a generalindication of what the condition of a card is, and only then when all partiesare on the exact same page as to what each specific grade represents.
So whatare these grades?
Theyare as follows, with their abbreviations in parentheses along with thenumerical grade generally assigned on both the 1-10 and 1-100 scale.
PristineMint (PM, 10, 100)
Gem Mint(GM, 9.5 or 10, 98)
Mint (M,9, 96)
NearMint/Mint (NM/M, 8, 92)
Near Mint+(NM+, 7.5, 88)
Near Mint(NM, 7, 84)
Excellent/NearMint (EX/NM, 6, 80)
Excellent+(EX+, 5.5, 70)
Excellent(EX, 5, 60)
VeryGood/Excellent (VG/EX, 4, 50)
Very Good(VG, 3, 40)
Good (G,2, 30)
Fair (F,1.5, 20)
Poor(Poor, 1, 10)
Asyou can see, a two point difference at the top of the scale drops the card onefull grade. The next grade drop is also two points. Then it changes to fourpoints for the following four grades, and finally ten points for the lowergrade differentials. Again, tiny differences make big differences at the top ofthe scale. Though different grading services have slight variations in theirscales, they all cluster around those general grades and numbers.
Let'snow go back and look at the areas of a card which are subject to grading.Again, they are:
Cornercondition
Edgecondition
Surfacecondition
Surfacegloss
Colorintensity
Imageregistration
Imagequality
Printingquality
Centering
Whiteintensity
Specialeffects
I'llnow define and review them one-by-one indicating what they would look like onthat perfect, non-existent card. Remember, these characteristics are what youwould find in a card that is truly perfect, grading at a 10 or 100 depending onthe scale. Also remember that such a card does not actually exist regardless ofwhat number a grading service may put on the slab encasing the card.
Corners: A corneris the spot where two adjacent sides of a rectangle or square meet. There aregenerally four of them per card, though some cards may have three (when shapedin a triangle,) many corners (such as the Topps Laser issue,) or anythingin-between. A few issues were even round. Perfect corners are just that --perfect. They meet at an exact 90 degree angle. They have absolutely norounding, fraying, ply separation, enamel separation, compression, or dings.
Thecondition of the corners, along with the centering of the image, are the twomost important things an average collector will look at, even though all the otherfactors go into properly grading a card.
Edges: Thestraight portions of the card connecting two corners. Again, some cards may nothave straight edges by design such as the round issues or cards withintentionally curved sides or corners. But if it is supposed to be straight, itbetter be dead straight. No chattering, no tearing of the enamel, nofeathering, no rubber band puckers, and no nicks.
Surface: There aretwo surfaces on each card -- the front and the back. The front of the card isgenerally where the image of the player is located, while the back is where youfind the player statistics. When discussing surface condition, you are onlyconsidering the underlying materials that make up the card and not the printingcontained on or under those materials. The surface must be completely even withno ply bubbles, scratches, tears, enamel wrinkles, or imperfections caused bysubstances such as water, wax package deposits, or gum residue. There will beno dimples, or pinholes as some people call them. Those are tiny depressions asif someone took a sharp pin and gently poked the surface. Creasing is also aproblem with the surface. Creases are simply bends in the card. Some creasesare so fine that you have to squint to see them. Others are huge and resemblethe Grand Canyon. A perfect card doesn't even have an inconspicuous creasecaused by two layers not meshing properly, let alone an actual bend.
Gloss: Recallthat the gloss on a card is a thin layer of shellac designed to protect theunderlying image from environmental damage as well as to give the card areflective sheen. A perfect card has a completely even application of glosswithout apparent thickness variation across the face of the card. There are nobubbles, minute debris entrapped in the gloss, or abrasive thinning. The entiregloss on a perfect card is still completely clear and shiny, not havingundergone any chemical degradation that would alter the color in any way,generally resulting in a yellowing or browning of the shellac. Another thing toconsider is little flecks of missing gloss that may even extend to the ink ofthe image. In the 1990s, baseball card manufacturers changed the gloss theywere using. When that new gloss got warm as it might in a warehouse, it gottacky. Then the cards stuck together. When you try to separate the cards, thetension causes damage to the front and back surfaces of both adjacent cards. Ihave seen 1998 Topps sets that come out of a factory box looking like a solidbrick and can not be separated no matter what you do.
Color: This iswhere things can get tough. What was the original intent of the card designerand printer as to what the exact color should be and the density of that color?The 1986 Topps is a perfect example of this. The intent was that the blackbackground that bleeds to the edges be intense and deep black. There issignificant variation, though, in just how black the black actually is. Manycards have a slight grayish cast to them, while others look washed out. Huematters as well. Exactly what shade of red was intended? Does the card you holdreproduce that red faithfully, or is there a tinge of orange or purple,sometimes almost imperceptible? Is the blue intense, or does it almost resemblea pastel? The only way to answer many of these questions is to know what thecolors are supposed to be in the first place.
Somedeterminations are easy -- what orange is used in the official Mets logo and isit faithfully reproduced on the card? What color is a player's skin tone anddoes the image on the card look like it matches that skin tone reliably? It ismore difficult regarding arbitrary colors such a backgrounds. Sometimes youjust have to wing it, but always presume that the designer intended the colorto be appropriately perfect for the graphic layout of the card. If you reallywant to lose you mind, try grading color on the 1990 Topps base set. I thinkthe graphic artist had way too much fun with recreational drugs back in the1960s.
Registration: Is allthe ink exactly where it is supposed to be? A perfect card has each of the fourcolors imprinted in the exact location they were intended. In an orange spot,the red and yellow align exactly as intended such that there is no slight redor yellow rim on the image. A hairline is placed exactly on the border of thesection it is supposed to delineate. Are each one of those colored dots laiddown in the exactly right spot so that the eye perceives an intermediate coloras intended, or do the dots of one particular color obscure another set of dotscausing a color shift?
Imagequality:And no, I'm not talking about how good the picture is, whether it captures theessence of the player or the moment. I'm talking about things such as focus. Isthe focus of the image sharp and clean? One would presume that any photographintended to be used on a card was in-focus on the negative itself. Anout-of-focus issue arises in the actual compositing of the image intended to beprinted on the card. Are the details sharp and clear? Can you see individualhairs in a player's mustache?
Remember,proper focus deals only with the object of the picture, not the background.Many photographs are taken so that the background is intentionally out-of-focusto create an effect of depth. Also consider that some images are intentionallyblurred to give the effect of motion. Again, go to the intent of thephotographer and try to determine if that intent was properly transmitted tothe final product by the graphic layout and printing process.
Printing: Theperfect card has an even application of ink in exactly the areas that ink issupposed to be located. There will be no drop outs (or missing spots where inkwas not deposited,) no blobs (spots where ink was deposited and was notsupposed to,) printing lines (streaks of ink caused by trailing ink in theprinting process,) smears, flecks, spatterings, or white pips (little specks ofwhite ink.)
Centering: Centeringis measured as a percentage and expressed as 50/50 on a perfect card. In otherwords, when you look at the top border with respect to the bottom border, andthe side borders with respect to each other, the image is perfectly centeredsuch that both pairs of borders are the exact same width around the centralimage. A 65/35 means that one border is twice the width of the other. A 75/25border means that one side is three times the width as the other. A 90/10 meansthat one side is nine times the width.
Onmany cards, this determination is very easy; the image of focus is itselfsurrounded by a box composed of hairlines. Just look at the distance betweenthe hairlines and the edges. If both opposing borders are the same, then thecard is 50/50. Many cards, though, are notoriously difficult to determinecentering. Generally, those cards are made up of scenic images where the imagebleeds to all the edges and contains no internal borders or referencehairlines. In those instances, you have two choices. One, compare hundreds ofexamples of the same card, trying to determine which of those cards looksappropriately centered. Then use that one card as your reference example bywhich all the others are judged. Or two, wing it.
Manytimes the additional printing superimposed on the image will give you somehelpful clues. Study the team logos, player's name, position indicator, andother aspects of the graphic design to see how well those aspects are centered.You also have to be aware of a diamond effect. That involves the card not beingcut properly, leaving the image slightly askew, or twisted with respect to theedges of the cardboard it is printed on.
Oneimportant aspect of centering you need to understand is that a card which isconsidered near mint has a centering of 70/30 or 65/35 on the front. That cardwill actually look noticeably off-center especially when compared directly toone which has perfect 50/50 centering. Yet it is still near mint.
Whiteintensity:This is a measure of how white is the white. Unlike colors which have aspecific hue that changes depending on the ink mix, white is white. It is theabsence of all color. Perfect white reflects 100 percent of all wavelengthswhich strike it. By reflecting all colors, no color is dominant and we perceivethe area as white. But there are different whites like ivory, cream, and otherslight tinges of color that shift the white to a point where it is no longertrue white. In reality, no white is ever really true white since no substancewill ever perfectly reflect all colors equally. However, there is also aquality called brightness. Do not confuse the two.
Brightnessis the percentage of light a piece of paper reflects. A page can be very closeto pure white, but not reflect much white thereby appearing somewhat dullish.Or it can be very bright and almost be blinding when viewed in full sun. On acard, degradation of the whiteness and brightness of the white areas can becaused by any number of conditions, among them dirt and grime coatings,chemical changes in the ink, breakdown of the gloss creating a yellow cast, ora mis-formulation of the ink itself. The most common expression of a whiteproblem is the appearance of browning along the edges of the card, making itlook aged through exposure. A perfect card retains the original white in theoriginal intensity across the entire card face.
Specialeffects:That is the term I use for any graphic design or printing application that doesnot involve the actual deposition of ink. This category includes things such asembossing, chroming, refractor effects, holograms, the application of metallicborder effects, gold leaf hairlines or emblems, and other marketing gimmicks,er, graphic design applications. Many of these effects are obvious when theyhave errors. For instance, when a gold hairline is broken because some of thegold has flaked off. Others are very difficult such as some refractor effectson a one-of-one card. When you only have one example, just what is it supposedto look like. The only real clue you would have is to catch the graphicdesigner holding the card up to the heavens and shouting, "It is good!"
Nowthat you have some background on the physical nature of a baseball card, thecomponents which make it up, and the areas of concern when it come to grading,we now get to the ultimate question...
How do yougrade a card?
Theanswer is...who knows?
Wait,let me clarify that a bit.
Whengrading, you have to have a standard by which to measure all other cards. Youcan not really use Pristine Mint or even Gem Mint as that standard because veryfew cards would successfully measure up to that in comparison. When you startgetting into the lower grades like Excellent or even Near Mint, flaws startbecoming readily apparent and widely varied. I prefer using the definition ofNear Mint/Mint (an 8 or 92) as that standard. The definition of Near Mint/MintI use is:
Acard that on cursory inspection appears to be Mint, but upon closer inspectionreveals minor flaws not immediately apparent in a cursory look. The corners aregoing to appear to be clean and sharp. The edges will look straight withoutimperfections. The image will be centered 65/35 or better on both axes. Thecolor looks good as well as the actual printing. There is a nice sheen on thesurface that appears continuous. Once you have made that determination, youthen perform that close inspection.
Ifunder close inspection, you still find no discernable flaws (or they are sominor so as not to appreciably affect the card's appearance or presentation,)the card becomes Mint. Then you go to intensive inspection under 4X. If youstill can not find any discernable flaws, the card in Gem Mint. Then you pullout all the stops and use 10X. If you STILL can not find any flaws, the cardbecomes Pristine Mint and, depending on the specific card in review, you maycommence making retirement plans.
Ithink the best definition of what constitutes a minor flaw was written by KitKeifer and is found in the Sports Collectors Digest book, "Getting StartedIn Card Collecting" issued in 1993. It states:
"Toa buyer, a minor flaw is a teensy-weensey irregularity in the dot pattern yousee when you put the card under an electron microscope. To a seller, a NearMint card with a minor flaw is the minor penetration and slight powder burnsleft by a blast from a 12-gauge shotgun."
Forme, I'm going to call all cards that appear to be Mint on cursory inspection asNear Mint/Mint. I really don't care if they are Mint, Gem Mint, or PristineMint unless the particular card is so valuable (or potentially valuable) thatintensive inspection will be worth my time and an extended vacation to Fijiupon its sale.
Butwhat about the other direction?
Poor,Fair and Good are easy. A Good card is one which you can use as a filler untilyou find a better card. A Fair card is one which reminds you of an 85-year oldnative Floridian who has spend way too much time in the sun and operating room.A Poor card is one in which you have difficulty discerning what it may haveoriginally looked like.
Theonly other grades I consistently use to describe an individual card are NearMint, Excellent, and Very Good.
Fora Near Mint designation, take a Near Mint/Mint card and slightly fuzz thecorners, not appreciably, but make it noticeable if you glance at the card. Itlooks a bit off-center. The surface is starting to show some wear and loss ofthat shiny gloss. There may be some printing issues like blobs or dropouts orlines that are noticeable, but do not really detract from the overallpresentation of the card. There may be a tiny registration problem, but it isnot really noticeable unless you are specifically checking the registration ofthe images, borders, and hairlines.
AnExcellent card has rounded corners that are obvious, but just affect the tipsof the corners, and is most definitely off center. The edges may be dinged justa bit or have some chattering that is evident. The image is a bit out of focusand there are some printing defects that are starting to impinge on thepresentation of the card. It looks like it may actually have most of its glossleft, though some of that gloss may actually be a wax stain. You're starting tosee some yellowing of the edges and maybe some color shifting caused byexposure and not a printing problem. It may have a small crease, but it doesnot break the surface, nor does it extend more than about an inch or so.
AVery Good card is one in which you can actually see the roundness of thecorner, but it doesn't yet look like the arc of a penny. The surface may bescratched or scuffed with spots on the gloss missing entirely. Though it mayhave a crease, the integrity of the cardboard is intact and the surface is notbroken. The card does not feel floppy or mushy when you handle it. It isseriously off-center, but not cropped on either axis. The person responsiblefor proper printing registration had a couple of beers during lunch beforecalibrating the press for the afternoon run.
Theonly time I use an intermediate grade is when I am selling complete sets of cards or lots whose conditionvaries across the offering. I may have a set of 1973 Topps where a large numberof cards are Very Good, most are Excellent, and a handful are Near Mint. Iwould call that a set ranging from Very Good to Near Mint, centered on VeryGood+. If there were more Near Mint cards than Very Good, I would call it a setranging from Very Good to Near Mint, centered on Excellent+. When I sell a setwith only one grade applied, you can be assured that every card in the entireset is at least that grade listed.
So how dothe individual components affect grade?
AsI alluded to earlier, the ultimate grade of a card is not the absolutecomposite of its constituent parts. You don’t assign a number to each of thecriteria then add them up to get a final grade. A card may be virtually perfectin all aspects except centering which is, say, 85/15 on the front. That cardcan grade no higher than Excellent simply because the centering is bad. Itcould have corners as sharp as razors, but that doesn’t matter. Or a card couldbe perfect except for a bent corner. That card is also no greater thanExcellent even though without that corner issue it may be a Gem Mint.
Keepin mind that problems with the different criteria involving cards aresubtractive from the ideal. The are not additive. A card can grade no higherthan the weakest aspect of its composite.
Incases where a card had multiple problems, it involves subjectivity indetermining just how significant each individual problem is with respect to theoverall look of the card as to where you place it on the grading scale. Forthat reason, many grading companies will append a grade with a qualifier. Forinstance, they may state that a card is near mint/mint but off-center (denotedby OC.) That means the card has clean corners, edges, gloss, is in registrationand in good focus, but it is skewed to one side. Personally, I do not thinkthat is valid. It would be far better to represent the card with a gradeof Excellent (OC,) but otherwise nearmint/mint with the emphasis placed on the problem.
So whygrade?
Wegrade to establish a standard by which we can communicate remotely the absolutecondition of a card. With a proper grade, I can be assured that something Ipurchase is what the seller intended to offer. I have had many people call meto offer collections for sale. I ask them what condition the cards are in andthey say “great.” That means nothing to me since “great” is not a proper gradeand their idea of “great” is most likely relative to the age of the cards.Don’t ever forget, grades are absolute, not relative.
Gradesare also used to protect your investment. Unless you are dealing with aparticularly rare or old card, a drop in even one grade can affect not only theprice you should pay, but also the probability of that card increasing in valueover time. I will gladly take a 1933 Goudy Babe Ruth in fair condition. But fora 1989 Topps anything less than near mint/mint is garbage. We literally throwthem out. They will never be worth anything let alone appreciate in value.
See,I told you this wouldn’t be easy. But I do hope that you now have a greaterunderstanding of how cards are graded and generally what the different gradesrepresent. Just keep in mind that much of the finer differentiation is a matterof subjectivity and don’t take the splitting of hairs between a card graded ata 91 versus one at a 92 too seriously.
