grading

Recently, I had lunch with a longtime collector friend, Gene. We met at Le Central, a little bistro near downtown Denver with its menu cheerily posted on a chalkboards and a youthful wait-staff that reminded me of my time on the rive gauche. I’ve know Gene for years. He’s one of those fellows, who over time, becomes more than just a customer but a good friend.

We settled in at our table. A dark-haired, blue-eyed young waitress, who introduced herself as Marcie, left a basket of bread and hurried off to fetch a couple of glasses of vin rouge. Gene buttered up a slice of bread and said, “Did you see the big buy ad in Linn’s for numerically graded stamps?”

I nodded.

“So what do you think?”

I shrugged. “Looks like someone’s trying to promote numerical grading.”

“Yeah,” he scoffed, “like the hobby really needs numerical grading. It’s just another gimmick.”

“What‘s wrong with it?” I asked. It seemed to me to be just the latest step in the evolution of grading. During my lifetime, I’d seen grading evolve from a fairly informal system in which collectors regarded a stamp as either well centered or poorly centered to one in which a stamp was classified according to one of several more precisely defined grades. Back in the 1950s and 1960s collectors were generally satisfied with any reasonably centered stamp. Yes, there were the so-called condition cranks that no degree of perfection seemed to satisfy, but they were regarded as harmless neurotics. The stamp investment craze of the 1970s ushered in with it the sudden, dramatic awareness of grade. The informal “well centered/poorly centered” standard fell by the wayside. Terminology describing the various grades had been around for years, but before the investment craze, no one paid too much attention to it. By the mid-1970s, however, things changed. The price spread between grades expanded, especially at the very top. Collectors became used to thinking to thinking in terms grades, which included: average (very poorly centered with perforations touching or into the design), fine (poorly centered), very fine (well centered), extremely fine (more or less perfectly centered), and superb (absolute perfection). The split grade of fine/very fine (minimally well centered) also came into wide use, along with creative terminology such as commercial VF (actually fine/very fine). The grades, although generally understood, remained subjective. Some dealers and auction houses graded conservatively, others more liberally. But for the most part, the market seemed satisfied with the system.

The wine arrived. Marcie took our order and bustled off. Gene raised his glass, said, “Cheers,” and took a sip. “Not bad,” he muttered. He set his wineglass down and reached for more bread. “When numerical coin grading first arrived on the scene, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. No more worry about getting stuck with an overgraded coin.” Gene had always liked both coins and stamps. He bought things that appealed to his eye and hoped that somewhere along the line he’d make a little money in the bargain.

“I bought this absolutely stunning MS-63 ten-dollar Indian,” he said, referring to a $10 Indian head gold piece. “It set me back thirteen hundred bucks. A stiff price back then. I paid the price because the coin was certified. A few years went by. When it hit twenty-four hundred in the gray sheet [at the time, a weekly pricing sheet published on grayish paper for coin dealers], I decided to cash out. I took the coin to …” He mentioned the name of a local coin dealer. “He told me that grading standards had changed since I bought the coin, that yesterday’s MS-63 was now today’s MS-60. But no problem, he said, he’d still buy the coin—for thirteen hundred, exactly what I paid for it. I thought maybe he was trying to chisel me, so I checked around. I got the same story everywhere. My MS-63 had somehow turned into an MS-60. That was the last slabbed coin I ever bought.”

Our lunch arrived. Gene leaned forward and inhaled the steamy fragrance of the onion soup he’d ordered. I’d ordered the same thing, but asked Marcie to hold the melted cheese on top.

“Like I said,” Gene said, “that little episode turned me off on coins—at least slabbed ones. I concluded that if you don’t know what you’re looking at, you shouldn’t buy it. I mean, when it takes high-power magnification to determine the fine line between one grade and the next, something‘s out of whack.” He scooped a couple of spoonfuls onion soup dripping with melted cheese into his mouth, then continued.

“You go to shows, you hear things. Like dealers cracking coins out of slabs and resubmitting them, hoping to push them a grade. And stories about dealers lobbying to have a particular coin come back a particular grade, like maybe higher than they think it might if they kept quiet. And then all the skinny about one service’s MS-65 being another’s MS-63. I mean, isn’t the whole idea of numerical grading supposed to be a consistent standard? The whole numerical grading thing was supposed to remove all the BS. So far as I can tell, it only made it more technical. And who comes out on the short end? Not the players, but the poor dumb schmucks like me. You watch and listen for a while and you end up feeling like a country hick at the carnival midway.” He scooped another spoonful of soup to his mouth.

“Well,” I said, “hobbies tend to refine their thinking and terminology over time.” It seemed to me that numerical grading (or scoring, as I prefer to think of it) was just latest in development in the way the hobby perceived and described stamps. “It’s more or less inevitable,” I said. “Coins, sports cards, comic books; they’re all numerically graded these days.”

“Nuttiness” Gene shot back, shaking his head in disgust. “Nothing but nuttiness. I always thought philately was a cut above. You know, the premier hobby. One composed of highly intelligent, thoughtful collectors. Not running around over-stimulated like those baseball card guys, and comic book guys . . . and coin guys. Maybe they need numerical grading and slabbing. We don’t.”

“Well, it’s hard to buck an idea whose time has come,” I said. “It gives buyers—especially sight-unseen buyers—a certain sense of security—” He didn’t give me a chance to finish.

“Sight-unseen!?” I thought he was going to go into orbit. “That’s just what I’m talking about. You start bandying about numbers and that’s all you end up caring about. You don’t look at the stamp anymore, you look at the number. You let someone else tell you what your eyes should be telling you.” He sounded exasperated. “You know when you watch the Olympics, the ice dancing and gymnastics, how you know right away who ought to win. Then about half the time you see the judges’ scores, groan, and say, ‘What the hell were they thinking?’ Well, that’s what I’m talking about. Nothing replaces the eye. The good old eye.”

He sighed, ate a couple more spoonfuls of soup, and took a sip of wine. I didn’t say anything. I wanted to give him a chance to calm down.

“I love to get those big, color auction catalogues,” he said after a moment. "Page after page of stunning stamps. Yeah, they go for multiples of catalogue, but you buy the stamp and pay the price because you like what you see—not because of some number. You don’t need a number to tell you how good it is. It speaks for itself. And that’s how it ought to be.” He leaned slightly forward and jabbed the air with a piece of bread. “Back when I was into coins, I’d go to shows and shop the booths. Dealers cases were loaded with slabs. One time, I wanted a gem Walker [Walking Liberty half dollar]. I scoped out slab after slab. And the weird thing is, half the time a higher-graded item didn’t look half as appealing as a lower graded item. The numerical grading thing was completely technical. Somewhere along the line the aesthetics got lost.

“The stamp scene always seemed more sensible,” he said. “More down to earth than the coin market. That’s why I was glad when stamp slabbing fell flat. It was a silly idea, and I hope the stamp market doesn’t end up hustled into numerical foolishness.”

“Well, it might not be all that bad,” I offered.

“Jeez,” he sighed as if I were a dull child. “Okay then, answer me this. Would two different stamps—same Scott number—each scoring the same look exactly the same placed side by side? How about three stamps? Or would each retain its individuality? And if you had to choose one of the three, which would he choose? You’d choose the one that stood out, the one with more eye-appeal. If ten different people had to choose one, would they each choose the same stamp? Probably not. And what about an item assigned a lower technical score, but superior in appearance to one with a higher score? What would be more important, the score or the aesthetics? And if the answer is the score, then why?

“And how would ten different ‘experts’ grade the same stamp? Would the numerical score invariably be the same? And if not, why not? Would an item submitted ten different times over the period of a year or two, invariably be assigned the same grade, and I’m talking about being assessed on its merits and not by recourse to its file compiled during a previous submission. And what effect would the entry of several competing grading services have on standards? Would they be invariably consistent? Would dealers honor the numerical scores, or insist on visually inspecting graded stamps before making a purchase?”

Without waiting for me to answer, he answered his own question. “They’d want to eyeball the item before cutting a check, you can bet your sweet bippy on that. And I’ll bet that at some point, they’ll insist that items with older certificates be resubmitted to verify grade. I can smell it coming.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about it.

“So it all comes down to this,” he said, looking me in the eye to make the point. “How will numerical grading actually improve the quality of the collecting experience for most who participate in hobby?” He let in hang for a moment. “Oh, yes, it will benefit those in the business of selling grading services. No doubt about that. It’s in their financial interest to hump the hell out of it and hope that it catches on big time. Yessiree, the greater the traffic, the greater the profit. It will benefit those who tout stamps as investments. But do we really need another speculative mania?”

I recalled the stamp investment craze of the late 1970s. A lot of people lost a lot of money. A generation has passed. The painful lessons learned by those who rode the speculative wave and got caught in the undertow have faded.

“So, I ask you,” he repeated, “how will it benefit the typical collector?”

I shrugged. I didn’t have an answer.

“Well,” he said, “at least if it comes, it won’t taint everything. It shouldn’t affect covers. That’s still one area where you appreciate an item based on eye-appeal and philatelic significance. Where you rely on your intuition and experience, not some third-party numerical opinion. I like that certain, I don‘t know to describe it, quality of innocence you get when things aren’t too complicated.” He paused for a moment. The storm seemed to have passed. “I guess I just miss the days when stamps were stamps and we went about our collecting in blissful ignorance.” He smiled and finished up the last of his soup. “Kind of like Eden . . . before the serpent came a-calling.”

We passed on dessert. We chatted about some of our latest cover acquisitions. About the Liberty series, which we both enjoy. About how online selling had begun to change the market. Things like that. After a time, Marcie left our check. It was my turn to pick up the tab. Gene left the tip as was our custom.

On the way home, I though about what Gene had said. I wondered if numerical grading would catch on or whether philately would ignore it, as it had stamp slabbing. If it caught on in the U.S., I wondered, would it catch on elsewhere. Maybe in Germany, with its culture of precision. But what about France? I smiled and recalled my youthful days on the rive gauche. Recalled those two-hour lunch breaks and general laissez faire attitude toward life, and thought not. The French know how to enjoy life, all right. And then it struck me that I know well how to enjoy philately. Numbers wouldn’t increase my enjoyment one iota. Maybe Gene had a point.

Author’s note. Numerical scoring should not be confused with authentication. Authentication confirms that a stamp is genuine. Expertizing services routinely note defects encountered in the examination of a submission, but do not necessarily assign a grade.