problems with BGS gradings

[Galarneau78]

Hi.

I just got back into collecting hockey cards and quickly found out how the market seem to revolve around gradings. After two weeks of shopping on Ebay and reading multiple forums on the subject i understand how BGS and PSA seem to hold the crown of graders. Many also seem to feel that BGS grades are thougher and will get you more on Ebay. After looking at both grading scales and requierments i understand that basicaly BGS added the "pristine" grade and numbered it at 10, which is basically a "perfect card" while PSA's 10 means "only" gem mint and allows a few imperfections. So a rough estimate of how each would grade the same card would be that BGS will grade it anywhere from .5 to 1 lower, a PSA 10 being 9 or 9.5, PSA 9 = 8 or 8.5 ect...

Now BGS breaks down their overall score into 4 sub scores which is a good idea on paper as its impossible for a buyer to realy know why the 9.5 card he is about the buy is .5 from pristine. Now to the point, i have a problem with BGS.

I bought a BGS 9 Ovechkin rookie card from UD a week ago, the card has a 10 in centering. To the naked eye the card seems perfect and i trust they have found deffects in other areas under magnification and im ok with that. When i shop on Ebay and i am shown a scan of a card the only thing i can really tell as far as deffects go is how well centered it is. 05-06 Young Guns rookie cards from UD have "Rookie" written at the bottom in bold letters which turned out to be a great tool to measure centering has my pristinely centered card showed me that, accroding to BGS, each letters should be fully visible within the frame of the card.

After looking at other BGS graded cards of the same set and same year, i have found other "10" centered rookie Young Guns cards, but most were not as well framed as mine. On some you could barely see the the bottom lines of the two O's, E and S of rookie, which are about 2 mm thick, which would mean that the centering of those cards is not exactly 50/50 as the BGS website claims a score of 10 to be. On others the right vertical line making the S was also much thinner, meaning the centering was off by about 1 mm to the right.

Young guns of that year are particularly unforgiving and centering problems are easy to spot because of that big bold Rookie print, which is meant to rest perfectly onto the bottom right corner. Search for "BGS 06 young guns" or "BGS UD 06 rookie" and compare "10" centered cards and you will see what i mean.

If any of you have had BGS grade cards of the same set and year and have gotten 10 centering on more than one id like to hear about it, see if both are the same, or even if you only have one BGS graded card with 10 centering, look it up on ebay and find a scan of the same card to compare.
It seems as if BGS graders are not using the same tools or reference cards of each set to grade the centering of a card.

Thanks

[meuandthelot]

This is one of the things that brought about the following phase...

"Buy the card, not the holder/grade"

While grading offers safety when dealing with authenticity and approx. condition there are still variances within each area corners, edges, centering & surface, even color & registration thus a card can have its variance off opposite to another card of the same grade. While there are standards...when push comes to shove, it's subjective, and there are several graders doling out their opinion.

Given the above summation..You picked up grading rather quickly ;)

[Galarneau78]

Im a quick learner ;) yes you are!!

I understand what your saying, in the end its not a computer who grades the cards, its a human being with its own set of refferences. I find that this new grading obsession as really taken the fun out of collecting. There is no visible difference bewteen my BGS 9.5 rookie Carey price and my regular non graded but still mint rookie Carey Price, yet the former fetches 3 times as much on Ebay than the later. Yesterday the same dealer sold one Malkin graded 9 for 71$, and one graded 9.5 for 170$, that 0.5 point of subjective and man made grade pushed someone to fork out an extra 100$ for the same card... im speechless.

Also, i found a "high end" 9.5 grade last night, because it had two 9.5, one 10 and one 9... so even in the already very precise half point grade, theres now the hish end .5 and the low end .5 ...

Conclusion: I will not purchse anymore graded cards and sell the ones i have, i just can't encourage this.

Thank you for your time.

[MEMPHIS MAFIA]

Grading cards has been the worst thing for cards ever (next to the ungodly amount of jersey cards and autos). I can take a psa 10 card and one of my regular cards and you can't tell the difference with the eye.

I really don't understand how Beckett can grade cards and then turn around and price them. Isn't that a conflict of interest. If they want to they can decide to never give a card a grade of 10 or only give 1 or 2 cards a 10 and send the price through the roof.

It's a load of crap and I feel sorry for a person that pays $200 for a $15 card. No I don't, there just stupid.

[doniceage]

Im a quick learner ;)

I understand what your saying, in the end its not a computer who grades the cards, its a human being with its own set of refferences. I find that this new grading obsession as really taken the fun out of collecting. There is no visible difference bewteen my BGS 9.5 rookie Carey price and my regular non graded but still mint rookie Carey Price, yet the former fetches 3 times as much on Ebay than the later. Yesterday the same dealer sold one Malkin graded 9 for 71$, and one graded 9.5 for 170$, that 0.5 point of subjective and man made grade pushed someone to fork out an extra 100$ for the same card... im speechless.

Also, i found a "high end" 9.5 grade last night, because it had two 9.5, one 10 and one 9... so even in the already very precise half point grade, theres now the hish end .5 and the low end .5 ...

Conclusion: I will not purchse anymore graded cards and sell the ones i have, i just can't encourage this.

Thank you for your time.

Well if more people where like you the BUSINESS would not be booming. Of course there more in the other camp that get stuff graded than those that don't. Personally, I think that is too bad.

DON