eMoviePoster.com

Some dealers and auctions that sell movie posters use the "C-scale" of grading movie posters devised by hobby pioneer Jon Warren. It has ten grades (from C-10 down to C-1), but no one ever uses most of the bottom 6 of them, and that makes little sense to us. Besides, unlike coins, movie posters are not "minted" so there are almost no "perfect" examples. so there is little use for "C-10".

We instead used a "word based" scale, with the best being "fine" and then "very good", "good", "fair" and "poor", with grades in between each ("very good to fine", etc). This system works out great for us, but NOT because it is vastly superior to the C-scale, but because we ALWAYS grade super honestly, NEVER glossing over any condition defects, hoping the buyer won't see them (or won't be willing to put up with the hassle of returning that item).

But there is another even more important issue. Normally when we sell movie paper, we grade the posters on a scale that allows for some defects typical of similar movie posters of the same general age as the posters we are currently auctioning, and ones that were actually used in theaters.

Posters that are 50 to 70 years old (typical of most posters in our folded one-sheet auctions) almost always have some minor wear at the very least, and it is next to impossible to find posters of that age that have no wear at all, so we are convinced that it would be silly to have a grading scale for such posters where no posters would qualify for "very good to fine" (or better grades).

So for those posters, we use a more "relaxed" scale that allows for very minor defects in our "very good to fine" grade. But when we auction mostly only posters from the last 20 years, where those posters CAN be found in excellent condition, because there were dealers and collectors who purchased these posters unused, and kept them in wonderful condition, then we grade on a MUCH stricter scale.

For those "newer" posters, we downgrade the condition grade to "very good to fine" for very minor defects (things like a single tiny tear in the border, or faint scuff marks in the edges). We further downgrade to "very good" posters that have several of these types of defects, even though the poster might well qualify as "fine" or "very good to fine", if it were from the 1940s!

And we are more forgiving of defects in posters that are over 50 years old, or ones that are printed on a type of paper that ages poorly, etc. We use this "sliding scale" grading because it allows us to better convey the poster's true condition to our buyers. If we used the exact same scale for all posters, then most 1920s posters would be graded as "fair" or "poor", and most 1990s posters would be graded as "fine", and we realize that that benefits nobody!

But the most important thing all bidders need to know about our grading is that we grade way more harshly than every other dealer or auction we know of, and we keep getting told this by our buyers! We regularly get emails from bidders who say they were surprised to see that an item we graded as "very good" would have received a "near mint" or "C-9" at other auctions! Does that mean we grade too "harshly" or that everyone else grades too "leniently"? We only know that once you have bought a few items from us, you will love dealing with us, because you will quickly learn that every item is honestly graded, and that you will get no unpleasant surprises when you receive your purchases!

See Also:
Did you know... that grading posters is incredibly hard and requires lots of experience and extreme honesty?
Did you know... that collectors of movie paper put far less emphasis on condition than collectors of other collectibles?
Did you know... that unlike other hobbies, there are no widely accepted grading services in movie paper collecting (Part II of II)
Did you know... that unlike other hobbies, there are no widely accepted grading services in movie paper collecting (Part I of II)
Did you know... that our condition grading system is different from that used by all other auctions?

Tags (?): #AuctionRelated, #ConditionRelated