How Does BGS Come Up With A Final Grade?

[duane1969]

I ask because I was looking thru some of my BGS graded cards and one grade seems to be off as compared to others. I thought the final grade was an average of the four sub-grades.

Examples:

My Randy Moss CE Odyssey Hologold RC
Centering 9
Corners 9
Edges 9
Surface 7.5
Total 34.5 divided by 4 = 8.625. It received an 8.5 which makes sense.

My Hines Ward R&S True Blue RC
Centering 10
Corners 9
Edges 8.5
Surface 9.5
Total 37 divided by 4 = 9.25. It received a 9 which makes sense.

Then I look at my Joe Montana RC
Centering 4.5 (yeah it's bad)
Corners 8
Edges 9
Surface 9
Total 30.5 divided by 4 = 7.625. It received a 5.5 which makes no sense. Rounding down the average would mean that it should have gotten a 7.5, not a 5.5.

Am I missing something or did BGS do their math wrong?

[Kickstand54]

It doesn't work like we'd want it to as it would make too much sense. The highest you can get is 2 grades (.5) higher than the lowest individual grade. Most of the time you will get only .5 higher than the lowest grade, but in some cases it can be one full point higher. It's dumb IMO, but you have to consider the source.

So a card with subgrades of: 10, 10, 10, 5.5 will receive a 6.5 overall.

[27tinman]

Kickstand 54 is right on- the final grade can never be more than 1 grade higher than the lowest subgrade. If you submitted the same card to PSA, they'd probably grade it at least a 7 or 8 but they would put an OC qualifier on it because of the centering.

[duane1969]

Well that makes a lot of sense (not). So an essentially Mint card gets a 5.5 because centering is off? Without the centering this card gets an 8.5 and gets penalized 3 points for centering.

Time to break out the grinder and pop this sucker out of the case. It is worth less graded than ungraded.

[bearfield]

they used a dart board, and their aim was bad. amatuers. :-)

[dfr52]

It doesn't work like we'd want it to as it would make too much sense. The highest you can get is 2 grades (.5) higher than the lowest individual grade. Most of the time you will get only .5 higher than the lowest grade, but in some cases it can be one full point higher. It's dumb IMO, but you have to consider the source.

So a card with subgrades of: 10, 10, 10, 5.5 will receive a 6.5 overall.

I just wanted to add that not all the sub grades are weighted equally. I also believe there might be a special consideration when a card has 3 x 10's.

[Kickstand54]

I just wanted to add that not all the sub grades are weighted equally. I also believe there might be a special consideration when a card has 3 x 10's.

Even if all subgrades aren't weighted equally, it wouldn't change the fact that you can only (sometimes) receive as high as 1.0 above the lowest subgrade. Also, I'm curious why you believe there would be a special consideration for a card with 3 x 10's? Have you ever seen BGS deviate from the rule? I've never sent a card in to be graded, so I'm just going by what they have on their website.

[dfr52]

Even if all subgrades aren't weighted equally, it wouldn't change the fact that you can only (sometimes) receive as high as 1.0 above the lowest subgrade. Also, I'm curious why you believe there would be a special consideration for a card with 3 x 10's? Have you ever seen BGS deviate from the rule? I've never sent a card in to be graded, so I'm just going by what they have on their website.

I want to say I saw something on the old BGS board. Some older beckett guys (dizzle and promodeltodd) might know if this is true or not.

[Rabs]

I never knew about this. Seems pretty dumb to have that rule.