Stamp Grading - Of Value To You Or A Marketing Ploy?

Lets not forget that part of grading is objective and part is subjective and it is thus not merely a technical/ mathematical endeavor.

Revcollector:
I am curious as to the source of your statement that Nick Kirke lost $3,000,000 on graded stamps when he sold his collection. His sale contained 703 lots and a $3,000,000 loss would mean that he lost $4,260 per lot. I am not saying he could not have lost money when he sold his collection, but your figure seems somewhat high. His cost per item would also include having a PF certificate and a PSE certificate on many stamps in his collection.

This is what I heard from several people with serious connections in the industry (people I prefer not to name but who you certainly know). At the time they mentioned certain items which sold for far less then he paid for them. Alas, since I did not make a list I cannot give you specifics. Clearly he did not lose anything like $4,000 per item, but some he lost more. Remember he was often setting the market when he bought and much of it was at the height of the bull market.

We have many threads and many pages of posts which describe the evils of grading. But there would be value in having a standardized grading system including…

The underlying issue is us, the collector. Collectors have always sought out stamps which look 'good' to our eye. What looks 'good' to most collectors? Symmetry, balance, wide margins. But like anything subjective, people yearn to try to quantify the subjectivity. Selling and marketing puffery also contributes to this desire. Without any quantification, sellers will continue to freely use any adjective they desire to describe the stamp.

My own opinion is that I do not like or want a numerical grading system for most of the reasons that have been posted ad nauseam. But the engineer in me loves limiting the subjectivity and applying a standard to this aspect of philately. Let's face it, every guy thinks his wife is beautiful and his kids smart. Likewise, we also tend to think the copy of a stamp we own is graded higher than it really is.
Don

Some of us prefer to collect items where grading is immaterial. In some cases it is actually harmful; for example the 569 double transfer. A graded example would probably not show the part of the variety in the bottom margin. The same with one position of the six cent State Dept foreign entry.

Perfect symmetry on a stamp, yeah it's pretty, but it doesn't trip my trigger nearly as much as a well-placed, well-struck cancel, especially in contrasting ink, or a fancy/typeset cancel... or a dramatic plate variety... or an ornately engraved/vignetted document... or an obscure illegal usage.

All things that "grading" will be meaningless for.

Yes, those are my personal preferences, and not representative of the collector base as a whole, but I would suspect there are many out there that appreciate the nongradeable attributes of philatelic items over the gradeable.

Assigning numerical ratings to any given component which constitutes a total grade is a sticky wicket primarily due to weighting. Should a bent perf tip be a one point deduction and a gum skip two or visa versa. Or is it something else entirely. Or should a stamp be utterly problem free physically and the grade is a centering centric number. Is the color/imprint what it should be and what should it be. The possibilities.

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mootermutt987 suggests component scoring, so that a stamp might be graded N.N.N.N - rather too much like an IP address for my taste, but I digress.

We already have a transparent set of rules for component grading in, for example, exhibits.

We also have earnest disagreements over the number of points that should be awarded to an exhibit for rarity, for example.

In the end, the judges scribble whatever they scribble about the component scores, and total those points, and tell us the gold, silver, participation trophy, etc.

Only a tiny percentage of collectors - namely, exhibitors & would-be exhibitors - would want to visit that sausage factory, and see the components on those scoring sheets.

As for individual stamps, one would hope that the grading agencies are also systematic, with so many points for centering, color, freshness, perfs, gum, etc ... but I suspect not, as some stamps do not have perfs, and some stamps do not have gum, etc.

My own guess is that as many people as are doing the grading each votes a single composite value, and then somebody finalizes a decision.

Q/ Are we to hope that, some day, each graded stamp will come with 4 or 6 or 8 component grades? So that we can ignore the component score and do our own handicapping?

Be careful what you wish for ;)

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Here is my proposed grading equation:

Don't forget to multiply by pi. Everybody loves pi.

I thought the above was the actual proof of the existence of monocolor inverted centers after 4 hours in a bar.

I prefaced my component grading statement with "tongue-in-cheek". I was 100% kidding, but I have no doubt there are people that would like to see such a system, or similar. As soon as you try to enumerate subjective attributes, you are building on a slippery slope. DO you give equal weight to color, freshness, centering, impression, cancel, etc, or weight them some other way? And who decides what that weighting is? I watch NASCAR occasionally, and they have criteria that are spelled out at the beginning of the season on how to get to the 'playoffs' and what it takes to win said playoff. Yet, every year, there are ALWAYS a TON of people that argue that it is an unfair system. What is more important: wins, or consistency? As soon as you try to assign importance to unrelated attributes, you are coloring the objectivity. Which means, objectivity is no longer objective.

"Don't forget to multiply by pi. Everybody loves pi."

I guess that makes this a 'circular' argument!!

No grading formula could be complete without a division by zero somewhere.

All this talk of "pi" made me chime in. Many of you know your stamps very well. When you speak of pi, many math majors think of Pir2 or pie are squared. Sorry, pies are round and cakes are square. An old math joke I thought I could share.