Quote:
Originally Posted by KD35Russ0
^^^ Exactly this - and it's anecdotes like this that made me want to dive in on individual cards. Do I think grading in some areas has gotten a little harder? Maybe marginally. But certainly not to the "I'm getting half the gems I would've gotten a year ago" levels that people are talking about.
These cards are definitely interesting. The images/data take a bit for me to create and don't have a baseball template built yet so just giving you Luka for now...
 Luka 8.25 by JB123 Cards, on Flickr |
There could be the aspect of "aging" of the cards. Means the older they get, the harder it will be to find some gems.
Another thing is, and i always state this in such discussions:
People with zero or minimum grading experience have send in tons of cards withou giving them a close review of condition. I do this always and i did not change my way of checking the cards. My gem rate did not change, in new cards it is slightly higher even now.
So for me it is already cards which are not gem getting are sent to grading companies in general and because people have no experience, they start to complain withou a reason.
But I agree with some earlier statements, that some unexperienced graders with harsh criteria have maybe caused some low gem rate submissions. In addition to this they did not have enough experienced people to review.
At BGS I had a grader which was very good a present and newer cards, but just tiny experience about 90ties or earlier as he graded perfekt metal surface as around 6.... this was ridicoulus. But as well this changed