Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Sign grading accuracy

I just bought a couple of signs that I am planning on selling and like most things for sale, condition is everything and it got me wondering how do I accurately grade these signs? Are there any guidelines to follow or do you ask 3 or 4 peoples opinion and then take the average and go with that or what? What one person thinks is a 10 might only be an 8 to someone else. Or is it just a matter of taking good pics of everything and letting the buyers assign their own grade or condition so to speak. Just curious!

As a buyer I have never paid attention to an arbitrary grading number for the reasons you listed.

Good pics with an accurate description is ample.

My son is heavily involved in the baseball card world ... what separates that field of collecting is you can send a card in for objective grading using a standardized set of guidelines. Not sure we have that in our hobby, at least I've never heard of it.

I agree that grading can be subjective, and that it's best to provide good pictures of the signs that you are trying to sell. Then let the potential buyers make their own assessments regarding condition.

But if you're purchasing signs for investment purposes, or with plans to resell, you really should have at least a basic understanding of the grading system and how it affects value. Here's a link that describes sign grading, using illustrated examples of a porcelain coke sign at various grades/conditions. I've found that it's pretty consistent with the grading used by the more well-known auction companies that specialize in antique advertising.

https://www.earlycoke.com/porcelain-enamel-signs-condition

I agree good pictures then you can be the judge

Boy, looking at those pics of the Coke sign grades, it sure looks to me like the 9.5 and 9.0 signs are backwards!!
It could also illustrate that grading as we all know is quite subjective, but that grade 9 sign sure looks better/cleaner to my eyes than the 9.5!
Darin

Darin, you are correct. It looks like the images used to illustrate grades 9.5 and 8.5 are the same, and the images for grades 10 and 9 are also identical. I have emailed the webmaster of the site, pointing out this issue.

Thanks for the link, very informative. According to these pics, my Authorized Nash Service sign is a strong 9 and maybe even a 9.5!!!