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SI Compare is a tool for comparing graded magazine covers offered by Goldin, Heritage Auctions and other auction houses.
The images here are taken from those auction listings. They are not an in-hand review. Every defect marked on a cover is only what a photograph shows — lighting, camera & lens, resolution and framing all vary between houses, and a photo can conceal as much as it reveals. The defect overlay is a reference tool, not a precise pixel-to-pixel call-out of each cover. The plastic grading slab may itself produce visual defects in the auction house photo that are not actually part of the SI cover, and can equally conceal real ones the photo never shows.
Grading is subjective. The same cover can grade differently depending on the company, the individual grader, and when it was submitted. Standards have also tightened over time: grades awarded five years ago were frequently more generous than what the same item would earn today. As the industry has become backlogged with high volumes of submissions, concerns about the quality of grader training have grown.
A grade also accounts for the rear cover, the interior pages and any inserts. SI Compare looks only at the front — how clean the cover is, and the face and body of the athlete. A copy can grade lower for reasons that never appear here.