Has the world gone mad!?

Fellow Forum Comment:-
U Grades are assigned to a process where a vintage item is removed from its packaging to then case it as 'Untouched' or 'Uncirculated'. Only one grading company (AFA) will still do this and will still assign this grade, God only knows why... it is essentially destroying a vintage item to then preserve it?!?! makes no sense!

What the f*ck is the point of even thinking of opening a vintage SW item that has been happy as larry for the past 40yrs inside its sealed bubble/boxed packaging? THat figure (for example) still has the atmosphere of 1978 inside that bubble so why would you release it to be lost in the eather forever? 101 reasons not to open a vintage item so why would you? Am I missing something here or has global GREED finally poisoned the minds of sane collectors and turned them into profit hungry emporors!?

unfortunately some collectors chase the u90s u85s. and wheres the money to be made people will destroy a moc to make a quick buck.im pleaseded to inform you that ukg no longer do ugraded as of last the 18 months for the good of the hobby

a new company called cas i think will now grade beater mocs with a p grade. p meaning preservation. do cracked dented warped or cut can be graded which is fantastic

ugrading i believe is on the decline and collectors who do collect or buy or sell ugrade are quickly shown the door on here and facebook groups in a flash

People / bell ends are simply selfish and think they are getting the perfect loose collection by doing it. They care not about the money, nor the community and probably don't really care about Star Wars at all.

I wouldn't mind but many of the U grade figures get low grades. A 90 grade and a 90 U grade is ultimately exactly the same. The U is totally false if you think it's never been touched as it's been handled by the sweaty unwashed hands of fat bearded AFA geek who's just beat off in the toilet over Sarah Michelle Geller. It's not untouched.

AFA should be pressured somehow to stop assigning the U grade as it ultimately gives someone something else to collect. There are many collectors pedantic enough to want every variant or some wouldn't tolerate a microdot of paint loss only visible under electron microscope. Can the OCD collector tolerate having some U grades and some not?


"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems." MKG

Why do collectors do this??, it's been bloody opened up into the fresh air and handled haha, doesn't matter to me if it's been out of the bubble for 5 seconds or for 15 years I see either one as circulated.

I'm all about preservation with my collection as much as possible, i'd prefer everything MOC however I do have a loose SW figure set i'm building up because of the cost of MOC being waaay to expensive to get every figure. But wherever I can, if it's affordable or easy enough to find i'll go for brand new & unopened to preserve exactly the way it was meant to be on shop shelves, I've got Manta Force, MOTU, TMNT, Micro Machines, Pokemon cards etc etc and then half of my ROTJ stuff all MOC, it's not just all simply 'packaging' it's actually artwork and it's part of the toy. I love the fact that a figure/item has gone into that packaging all those decades ago and has literally been frozen in time in that bubble/box, it hasn't even had a single limb move since that worker put it in there, it's been on a huge journey around the country/world and had many chances to be opened and played with or handled but it never happened, all this fascinates me!

It baffles me why collectors would want to destroy that history to have it opened up just for some 'bloke' to grade it and stick a stupid number on it, that piece of history should never be destroyed it should be preserved, I can maybe understand it if the card/bubble is in very poor shape?.. If you own something like this you have the right to open it if you want but if everyone thought that way then there would be nothing left one day for people to enjoy the original condition it used to be in.

Yes U grading the actual toy is a process that ultimately destroys a bit of history each time it is done :!:
The only U grading I condone is when an entire packaged piece is removed from a factory carton by the grading company and given an uncirculated grade which I believe UKG would do.

Yep... totally mental, something I'll never get my head around :evil:

I agree u grading isn't great and would never do it myself but if I can get a figure cheaper because of a u grade which has put people off then I will buy one, for instance there's a u grade r2 pop up on auction atm and hopefully I can get it a tad cheaper

Unfortunately there are some pretty horrible people out there who see an opportunity to make money so selfishly do it. I wouldn't go near AFA for the fact that they U grade. It's a toy for f*cks sake. If you want it in a case buy a GW acrylic case. AFA should be ashamed. Some see no value in other people's pleasure and simply want cash. Way of the world I'm afraid.

I don't really understand grading at all in any form. It's the added value that baffles me. Someone decrees that the figure has such a grade, places it in a sealed case and BOOM! a seller can charge a huge premium for it :? I do understand having nice pieces in a case for display, but not paying to have someone else tell you your item is in good nick.

x-pack said:

I don't really understand grading at all in any form. It's the added value that baffles me. Someone decrees that the figure has such a grade, places it in a sealed case and BOOM! a seller can charge a huge premium for it :? I do understand having nice pieces in a case for display, but not paying to have someone else tell you your item is in good nick.

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Precisely! That's my main problem with it as well. I also don't like the fact that I cannot actually hold / touch the item if I want to, but my main bafflement is the enormous and unjustified price hike that accompanies imprisoning your item in Perspex. Just yesterday I saw an AFA loose R2 with pop up saber for sale for ~£800! Why? Even with today's criminal prices, the exact same figure not encased in a way which hideously displays the saber separately from the main figure will go for a fraction of that. I do understand that Perspex cases can look good, and I don't have a problem with people who like or collect the unopenable AFA / UKG versions, but why is some self-appointed 'expert's' opinion of the condition of somebody else's item worth a doubling of the price? I just don't get it...

BTW, if anyone wants to send me a photo of their collectable, I will send you a certificate telling you what I think of it for just 20% of the item's current market value. Any takers?

A nice glass display case or perspex case is what it's all about, you can put in or take out whatever you want, handle and look at your figures, add/swap weapons & accessories, and they look amazing inside of a case. That's all you need, can't beat that!

If AFA stopped U Grading do you think that would stop people from destroying MOC's or would people continue to do it in the hope of getting a higher grade on the loose figure.

Wreck-It Ralph said:

If AFA stopped U Grading do you think that would stop people from destroying MOC's or would people continue to do it in the hope of getting a higher grade on the loose figure.

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Good point, those people are already in that mindset now of grading the perfect figure, I reckon they'd still do it just to try and get a gold grade or something so they can charge the moon for it.

Basically some greedy Capitalist comes along and thinks "how can I invent a new angle to this hobby which will maximise profit margins?".
(Encase sellers figures, give a certificate, promote value of rating to naive collectors).
This grading system stinks for me. I don't need a so called 'expert' telling me what a 9 out of 10 looks like. I've been collecting SW on & off since 1978 and I know when a figure looks played with or like it's just come off the production line! Ratings are perceptual to the individual so as a collector or as one of the many AFA ratings guys, everyone is different with different opinions? As a test, has anyone sent a figure for grading then had it returned with say 85% rating? I bet if you sent the same figure back 5 more times it would be rated by varying degrees by many rating blokes. ie: 85%, 90%, 80%. Does anyone else agree? As for opening sealed items, no true fan would ever do this. Profit or no profit :evil: LEAVE OPENING VINTAGE TO THIS LUCKY CHAP FROM THE 80's!!!

what I don't get is where all these people who do support U grading are? I guess they don't speak out on forums because they know they'd get grief. Grading of any kind isn't for me although I do understand why it's appealing for delicate things like proof cards but I would like to hear the point of view of someone who is pro U grading just to try to understand why

Will said:

what I don't get is where all these people who do support U grading are? I guess they don't speak out on forums because they know they'd get grief. Grading of any kind isn't for me although I do understand why it's appealing for delicate things like proof cards but I would like to hear the point of view of someone who is pro U grading just to try to understand why

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Yes I'm curious too. Is there a genuine reason for destroying these beautiful items or is it just pure PROFIT/GREED!? Any U grade collectors wanna comment from under there rock?

I remember when I first discovered eBay and getting the collecting bug. I couldn't believe I could still buy these figures in mint condition I was amazed.
Thinking back it was only once I joined here I really started to get educated on Vintage Star wars and understanding grading. I do remember seeing these mint figures graded and had no idea that the U graded figures were opened mocs. Thankfully I never bought any loose graded figures and I would have been horrified now if I had and found out how they became graded. I think possibly there are people out there that have know idea what they are buying and the damage they are doing to the hobby. I could never bring myself to buy any U Graded figure now knowing how it came to be there no matter how badly I needed it. I would rather do without it than owning it. It has to be money motivated for someone to bust open an moc to get it graded I can see no other reason.

Awl Skulkerkey said:

Will said:

what I don't get is where all these people who do support U grading are? I guess they don't speak out on forums because they know they'd get grief. Grading of any kind isn't for me although I do understand why it's appealing for delicate things like proof cards but I would like to hear the point of view of someone who is pro U grading just to try to understand why

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Yes I'm curious too. Is there a genuine reason for destroying these beautiful items or is it just pure PROFIT/GREED!? Any U grade collectors wanna comment from under there rock?

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I have a few U graded items, I personally wouldn't send items to be graded that way but I will buy them, I have had u graded vehicles and tbh I think it is better being able to see the item rather than a brown cardboard box, as for moc's I can kind of understand why people do it if the card and bubble are absolutely mangled, lets be honest a nice carded figure is worth a lot more than a loose graded figure anyway so you have to ask yourself is it just mangled moc's being graded that way

Just completely guessing here, but apart from it being money motivated and also grading them due to the packaging being very poor, i'm thinking maybe some collectors who have that 'collectors OCD' in having a perfect looking collection have them U graded so they're more displayable next to all their other loose graded figures?

They obviously can't get their loose figures put back in MOC condition and graded to match their other MOC's, so could some of them be having their MOC figures U graded to display perfectly next to all their other loose graded figures, so they have a perfect looking matching collection? :?

Lindo said:

Awl Skulkerkey said:

Will said:

what I don't get is where all these people who do support U grading are? I guess they don't speak out on forums because they know they'd get grief. Grading of any kind isn't for me although I do understand why it's appealing for delicate things like proof cards but I would like to hear the point of view of someone who is pro U grading just to try to understand why

Click to expand...

Yes I'm curious too. Is there a genuine reason for destroying these beautiful items or is it just pure PROFIT/GREED!? Any U grade collectors wanna comment from under there rock?

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I have a few U graded items, I personally wouldn't send items to be graded that way but I will buy them, I have had u graded vehicles and tbh I think it is better being able to see the item rather than a brown cardboard box, as for moc's I can kind of understand why people do it if the card and bubble are absolutely mangled, lets be honest a nice carded figure is worth a lot more than a loose graded figure anyway so you have to ask yourself is it just mangled moc's being graded that way

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No it's not just beat up cards being U graded unfortunately. It was only on here that I learned of the U grading and realised I had in my collection what are probably the by-products of the process - cut bubbles!

To me they are/were just a nice cheap way of collecting carded figures for display. I'm not a perfectionist, so hey ho! But then you look at these cards and wonder why they were cut in the first place. I have some stunning cut bubbles and reseals. The most tidy looking examples are the ones where the bubble has been slit and the figure taken out. I suspect some of these were done during U grading.

I don't agree with cutting open any MOC no matter how beat up it is. If the bubble is smashed then fair enough. I have a Wicket like that. The bubble has cracked and fallen to bits. He still sits in there but can be easily taken out. So yes, in that case, fine. Worn MOCs, water damaged MOCs, crushed bubbles - just leave 'em in there. They made it this far!