Thursday, September 10, 2009

Global Authority Grading?

Today I received a couple of 1948 Leaf baseball cards that I bought on eBay. I plan on sending these out for autographs (Roy Smalley and Gene Hermanski).

The odd thing is that these are both graded by a company called Global Authority (www.globalauth.com). I had never heard of them before. It appears they are part of the previous company called Global Authentication, Inc. (GAI) which had a mixed reputation as an autograph authentication service from what I've read. They "slab" the cards they grade simply by placing them in an ultra pro semi rigid case, and putting a printed "tamper evident" sticker over the opening.

Nothing wrong with that. And they appear to be cheaper than other services. However, the Smalley card I bought, graded as a 4.5, is listed on the sticker as a 1952 Topps, when it is really a 1948 Leaf. I have to wonder if they were also grading a '52 Topps of Smalley and got the stickers mixed up (which would mean the grade is probably wrong too), or if they just got the card type and year wrong.
So far, I'm not impressed. I don't have cards graded, so I won't be using their service anyway.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I purchased a box at Walmart tonight - "Find The Gems/Gems of the Game" Inside it were miscellaneous baseball card packs and as promised - one graded card. The card was a Griffey card and was labeled by the same Global Authority grading company - only problem is that this is a 2008 UD National Baseball Card Day card - they have it labeled as a 2006 card and thier registry certification also has it listed as a 2006 card.