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I know Pat's box guide is a wonderful area for all sorts of box information and she gives a pretty good assessment of grading boxes but has anyone ever put together a pictorial of the box conditions. I know one man's mint is another man's very good but if there was a pictorial then we could have something to compare it too. When I was collecting comic books many years ago I put together a run of 20 books (all the same book) showing the different grades of comics. It was very helpful when grading out my books. I would be interested to see what others use as a scale of grading and what suggestions you may have concerning grading of boxes. Here is what Pat shows on her site for grading boxes.

"MINT" means perfect, with absolutaly no fault. For a box, it is even more impossible than for a model. A perfect box would have to be freshly cut and put together, with not even a shadow of imperfection. No wear to corners, end flaps or sides. No mark, with perfect lettering.

"NEAR MINT" would be used for boxes with minimal wear to corners and flaps. Absolutaly no marking, hole or tear. Of course, all end closer flaps and large end flaps are present.

"EXCELLENT" refers to boxes with normal wear, with rounded corners, slight tears, small marks. All flaps still preesent.

"GOOD" applies to boxes with heavy wear, some more important tears. Marks on box could also be found, such as writings. Flaps may be detached.

"FAIR" means a box with heavy wear, several tears, holes and parts detached. Model is still recognizible on fronts.

"POOR" is a hardly recongnizible box. Parts are missing.

''Pat'' by the way is a He, but I welcome with open arms any lady collectors who want to join us!!

Ghosty.

Thank you Ghosty for correcting this undisputable fact!!

Indeed we need more ladies in the hobby!

I don't believe cardstock can ever be truly "mint," but Pat's grading system works pretty well. While looking at baseball cards a while back, I discovered that professional graders also look at how well everything is centered...though I don't recall having seen a Lesney box with anything noticeably off-centered. Both of the Lesney boxes I have would be considered "fair."

on the subject of ladies in the hobby, there was one who was active here a couple of years ago. I wonder what ever happened to her?

You are probably refering to ''numi''. She had a really good collection comprising of some really hard to find models.

Come back ''numi'', all is forgiven...

Ghosty.

GHOSTHUNTER wrote:You are probably refering to ''numi."

Yes. I enjoyed reading her posts.