Grading of Magic cards

[chosen_one]

Is there a site with guidelines on how to grade cards? Also, how is the condition ordered? I know that Mint is at the top followed by near mint but after that...

[hammr7]

Part 1 of 2

Good Luck!  Unlike other collectibles, which have more rigidly codified grading, Magic items can be all over the place.  Magic collecting does have somewhat standardized grades, but these are abused by much of the eBay (and to a lesser extent, dealer) community.  When transacting these items in forums (such as eBay) where a grade description, with or without a detail-deficient photo, is given, a buyer has a right to assume industry “normsâ€￾ for condition.  

I recently tried to find some consistency in the madness, especially for the Near Mint grade, which seems to be the most abused.  There is a consensus among collectors that Near Mint (or better) is the desired condition for all but the oldest or rarest cards.  There are a large number of collectors who will not purchase cards below near mint.  Players are a little more flexible, but they still want cards that look decent.  The problem is an often-substantial difference of opinion, pitting collectors (who tend to have conservative grading expectations) against many sellers (who want their cards to be graded as high as possible, to maximize sales value).

To complicate things further, there are large numbers of Magic buyers and sellers who have abandoned the use of the term “Mintâ€￾, because it is so hard to defend.  Virtually any card can be shown to have some sort of minor flaw under careful (i.e. microscopic) evaluation.  This is a contrast with sports card collectibles.  These cards are not used to play a game, so more of them are kept in pristine condition.

This means that at the high end, “Near Mintâ€￾ is defined as equivalent to pack-fresh cards without any of the manufacturing flaws (such as miscuts, off-center, ink drops or smears, chipping, etc.) that can occasionally occur.  Please note that some collectors desire these misprinted and miscut cards, and will often pay premiums for them.

The problem with a “Near Mintâ€￾ designation is at the low end.  How much variance from that normal pack-fresh, new card is allowed?  Virtually everyone will agree that a card that has been carefully handled once or twice, or even played once in a sleeve is probably still a “Near Mintâ€￾ card.  At some point, with further handling or play, the card stops being “Near Mintâ€￾.  The current “Normâ€￾ can be taken from the published grade scales of major dealers and industry publications:

1.  Scrye Magazine describes these grades as follows:

MINT: “A card that is perfect in every way.â€￾

NEAR MINT: “This (probably) unplayed card shows almost no wear.  It may have a few minor scratches or slight marks on the edges.â€￾

FINE: “This card has obviously been played, but not heavily. It lacks marks that would make it easily identifiable.  It has some minor scratches or slight marks and / or less than perfect edges.  It will show less than 1/16â€￾ depth of white along one or two edges of one face [side] of the card.  It may have a minor crease that is only visible up close.â€￾

[hammr7]

Part 2 of 2

2.      Brap’s Magic Stuff (brapsmagic on eBay) One of the largest Magic sellers on eBay, with a feedback rating of 10,000+, 21,000+ total positive feedbacks(including a few from me), and a 99.9% positive ratio.

MINT: perfect card (unplayed, good print, well-centered)-I only give this rating to a card that I personally took from a pack and put into a sleeve.

NEAR MINT (NM): looks the same as mint to the naked eye (unplayed, good print, well-centered), but I didn't personally put it from pack to sleeve.

VERY FINE TO NM: card has one or two very small nicks on one edge or a very small mark on a face.

VERY FINE: very light play evident.

FINE: card is played but not heavily.

In most grading schemes there are lower grades.  The consensus is usually

GOOD: card has seen heavy play, but no damage other than extensive wear.  This usually means whitening on most or all edges and corners, some rounding of the corners, and possibly a few minor creases.  These cards normally need to be sleeved for play.

FAIR or POOR: cards have some major damage, including rips or tears, holes, major creases and major stains.  These cards definitely need to be sleeved, and are normally not collected or sold unless they are extremely rare and valuable.

Many sellers and collectors try to “upgradeâ€￾ cards that are between two grades.  For cards that are no longer “Near Mintâ€￾ but exceed (in the seller’s assessment) the “Fineâ€￾ grading.  You often see “Very Fine to Near Mintâ€￾ (in Brap’s grading scale above), “Excellent to Near Mintâ€￾, or the more recent “Near Mint minus (NrMt-)â€￾ grades.  All would fit in between Near Mint and Fine on the Scrye scale.

Some sellers use an “Excellentâ€￾ grade between Fine and Near Mint.  This comes from collectors who have experience with sports cards, since historically such collectibles have included it. Such grade scales include Poor, Good, Very Good, Fine, Very Fine, Excellent, Excellent to Near Mint, Near Mint, Mint, and Gem Mint.  If PSA-type grading becomes popular with Magic cards, and if PSA’s Magic grading is consistent with Sports card grading, then this will likely become the standard grading scale.  The PSA site or any of the numerous baseball card sites (like Beckett) have details of these grading scales.

Please note that many sellers explicitly provide alternate grading schemes that they follow.   If they clearly state the specifics of their own grades, then those grades apply to any purchase.  So if buying from someone new, it pays to ask first.  Otherwise you might not be able to argue condition if what you receive isn’t what you expected.

[Tha_Gunslinga]

What we should do is put together a definitive grading system, complete with links to scans.  Some sort of full scale, ranging like this maybe:

M (mint, perfect, PSA 8+)
NM
NM-
EX+
EX
EX-
F+
F
F-
G+
G
G-
P
B


Something like that.  Wouldn't this be a useful project?

[edit] Or we could just use numbers, which would probably be the easiest, as there's no language barrier and no confusion with other grading scales.  1-100, maybe?

[Muldoon]

Drop the +/- things with grading, if the card doesnt deserve the higher grade, it just should be graded the one below ;) That way noone gets disappointed...
I think 1-100 would be too hard to start using, as most people probably would grade their cards around 90 even in EX condition, unsure of what the "real" grade should be.
1-10 sounds more reasonable to me, with 9-10 being really pack fresh, 8 being a minor flaw, 7 being a tiny bit worn, 6 being like the current EX, 5 being a bit worse, 4 being very worn, 3 and 2 for the really worn/poor cards and all cards with a tear or crease would be 1 ;D

[Tha_Gunslinga]

1-10 could definitely be workable.  Or maybe 1-11, with 11 being PSA 8 and up, and 10 being normal NM.

[mintcollector]

I also wanted to point out something that the existing grading system and all those proposed do not address.  First off there are actually 2 conditions that should be address.  One is the card's condition from handling/use.  The other is manufacturing issues.  Let me illustrate an example that shows this.  Let's say we are talking about a Beta Mox Sapphire.  The card has no whitening, scratches, or any handling marks whatsoever.  The card is however 30% off-center to the right and has a small print dot near the 0 casting cost.  How would everyone grade a card like this?  Is it mint due to not having any usage damage?  Do people consider this a misprint?  If not, what condition is it in due to the manufacturing flaws?  NM/EX?  Does everyone see the problem with the existing grading scales due to this issue?    The problem basically is there should be almost 2 grades assigned to a card, one based on manufacturing defects and one on damage due to handling/play.  I guarantee that this is one issue that there will be a lot of disagreement on.  Who is right and who is wrong?  I actually commend sellers who list their own personal grading scales when listing a card's condition.  At least here you have a better chance of knowing what you are getting.  So what does everyone else think?

[normalbrains]

an off-center card will never get a psa10. in sports cards, it has always taken away from the value of a card. personally, i hate off-center cards....i got a "mint" candelabra of tawnos from ebay recently that was off-center and i was pissed. the card is in perfect condition but its annoying to look at.

[hammr7]

By most grading schemes, major print defects lower the grade just like wear and mishandling.  In sportscards, a miscut would automatically be "poor" condition, a crease would limit a card to "very good" or less, and edge chipping (depending upon the extent) would limit a card to a maximim grade of "excellent" or "excellent to near mint".  Inking problems would depend upon whether or not all similar cards were identical.  Grading services have fairly rigid rules on off-centering, so a card off-center by more than 10% in either direction (determined by the relative widths of the borders) is no longer mint.

[misterpid]

Sports cards are a little different than M:tG cards.  Sports cards have no functionality other than people just wanting to look at them.  Their only value is collector value.  M:tG (and all other CCG) cards have a functional use within the game they are designed for.  Collectors aren't the only people looking for the cards.  

If you're looking for cards to build a particular deck, there is less of a chance that you care if the card is perfectly centered or slightly offcut.  The fact that the prices on most M:tG cards are controlled players as opposed to collecters means that, in general, people are not going to be quite as concerned about centering.   If you ar at a store/tourney/con and you try to talk a dealer down in price on a MOX (or any other hot card that people actually want to buy) because it's noticably off-center, he'll probably just laugh at you you and wait for someone who isn't concerned about centering to come by and buy the card.

Pid

[hammr7]

I think you are confusing "grading" with "valuation".

Grading tends to be based upon factual, verifiable, and repeatable characteristics.  These characteristics likely transcend the specific collectible group.  So a "mint" baseball card has approximately the same characteristics as a "mint" magic card.  

Valuation involves what a player (or collector) is willing to pay for a given card at a given grade.

Because Magic cards are played as well as collected, the current price differential of any card across different grades is not huge.  An extremely played Unlimited Mox is still worth more than 50% of the mint Mox.  A fine condition Mox is 70% -  80% of the mint card.  This squeezing of valuation is a direct impact of "players" on the marketplace.  They are willing to pay almost as much for any copy of a card as they are willing to pay for the mint copy.  Note that many "players" still look for nice looking versions of the cards they use.  Some errors (like crimps and miscuts), which are shunned in many collectible areas, are prized by many in the Magic community.

There are many other collectible markets with similarly "squeezed" valuations across grades.  This, however, is not the case in most mature collectible markets.  One of my stated concerns regarding PSA grading involves its impact on any collectible group.  In most hobbies where third-party grading becomes the norm, the spread in the range of prices across grades becomes extreme.  This has happened in coins, stamps, and sports collectibles, to name a few.  In these hobbies a good condition card (or collectible) is often priced at less than 10% - 20% of a true mint example, in fine condition at less than 30% of the mint example, etc.

And while magic has both players and collectors, PSA graded cards are only for the collectors, since I haven't yet seen decks of them at tournaments.  Hopefully third-party grading won't lead to collector and speculator control over pricing.  If so, it won't be a drop in lower condition prices.  Rather, it will be a dramatic increase (probably to unsustainable prices) in the valuation of high grade cards.  It will likely be accompanied by an increase in grade-related scams.

[misterpid]

I think you are confusing "grading" with "valuation".

Indeeed I did,  sorry for the misunderstanding.

I didn't earn the name Mr Pid for nothing.

Stu

[gzeiger]

I think I would describe the Mox Sapphire above as NM and then detail the manufacturing defects. As you said, they are fairly distinct issues, and although sports grading companies attempt to combine them into a single grade there is no accepted standard anywhere for grading manufacturing defencts alone, and most Magic collectors are going to want to know that information as precisely as possible.

[sylvanstu]

I have a Illusionary mask that is pack mint but it has a rolling mark across it from the factory what would you grade that it came from the pack that way but it is physically mared

[hammr7]

Since those rolling marks were common in the set, I would likely grade it "Near Mint" and describe the mark.  

PSA, if they graded in the same manner as they do for Baseball cards, would likely give it an "excellent" grade unless they were real familiar with Magic production idiosynchresis.  However, it seems that PSA is getting sloppy lately (see my PSA rant in off-topic), and since they completely missed the dirty top border on the Lotus the might miss the press mark on the Mask.

To give you an example of how harsh grading can be, I have a beautiful 1953 Bowman Color Warren Spahn baseball card.  It has a small crease in the lower right corner.  Because of the crease, by PSA and Beckett definition it cannot grade higher than "Very Good".