Grading a postcard

Seeing the great postcard in the BST brought this to mind, should postcards be graded differently than regular baseball cards? Postcards were meant to be written, so why hammer the grade for the postcard being used as intended? Among postcard collectors, they generally only care if the card is postally used or not. Why not give a technical grade and then note on the flip used or unused?

Jay

sabrjay wrote:Among postcard collectors, they generally only care if the card is postally used or not.

That may be the case for some old school PC collectors, but personally I'd much prefer a PC with no writing on it at all. On the other hand, baseball related writing can be pretty cool, especially when it relates to a game or well known player.

sabrjay wrote:Why not give a technical grade and then note on the flip used or unused?

Nice suggestion Jay. That would make sense to me, but since when did the grading co's make logical changes to their labeling methods? I'm sure you're not holding your breath.

I actually prefer a postcard that is postally used. That way it is already authenticated and not by some young guy who has no idea of what it is.

I collect PC's and don't mind writing, but think the technical grade should be lower than a very similar PC w/o wiritng.

I also prefer that the grading companies use the same standards for cards and PC's. IMO, intent of the product is somewhat irrelevant when grading condition.

I don't have a porblem with the way PSA and SGC are currently grading postcards. Postally used postcards are great, but they should receive lower technical grades. Any card, including postcards, should grade no higher than SGC 1.5 or SGC 2 with extensive writing on the back.

Coupons were meant to be cut off cards and postcards were meant to be written on. If a Zeenut w/o coupon can have grades above 2, then used postcards certainly should...

so these should have the same grade?

You are in rare form today, Jeff.

They can both receive the same technical grade, but if you use my suggestion, one would grade, let say, 8 UNUSED, the other 8 POSTALLY USED.

Jay

kinda like a PSA MK?

also, what if the postcard has writing, but is postally unused? I have one with just a bunch of player names and notes written on the back, not the intent of postcards, so should it be graded lower than one that was actually mailed?