Condition grades, and why yours is probably one lower

Every published price guide quotes values by condition, on a numbered scale from one to six. The scale is the single biggest source of honest disagreement in a collector car transaction, because the seller and the buyer are usually both sincere and one grade apart.

A grade apart is not a rounding error. On many cars the gap between #2 and #3 money is thirty to forty per cent of the value.

The six grades

#1 — Concours. Better than new. Correct in every detail, including the details nobody sees: the finish on the underside, the right marks on the fasteners, the correct date codes on the glass. It is trailered to shows and it is not driven. Perhaps one car in several hundred is genuinely this.

#2 — Excellent. Looks superb and shows no defect at conversational distance. Will take a trophy at a local show. A knowledgeable eye finds something at arm's length — a slight orange peel in the repaint, a seam that is not quite factory, a replaced trim piece. It can be driven and sometimes is.

#3 — Good. The driver. Honest, presentable, mechanically sound, and visibly used. Paint may be original and tired or an older respray. Interior shows wear that is wear, not damage. Everything works, or close enough that the list is short and known. Most cars advertised as "excellent" are this.

#4 — Fair. A running, driving car that needs cosmetic work, or needs mechanical work and looks fine. Visible rust bubbling, cracked dash, worn-through seat bolsters, a tired engine that runs. Perfectly usable; not something you show.

#5 — Restorable. Complete or nearly complete, not currently usable, and worth restoring. The distinction from #6 is economic, not physical: a #5 is a car where the restoration makes sense.

#6 — Parts. The shell and the contents are worth more separated than together.

What actually separates #2 from #3

This is the boundary where money is lost, so it deserves specifics. The question is not "does it look good in photographs" — a #3 car photographs as a #2 nearly every time, especially in low sun.

Look for:

• Panel fit and gap consistency, side to side. Factory gaps are even and repeatable. A car that has been apart often is not, and the door shut lines are where it shows first.
• Paint depth and overspray. A respray leaves evidence in the door jambs, under the weatherstrip, on the rubber, on fastener heads. A #2 respray is invisible on the panel and still visible in the jamb.
• Originality of the interior. Reproduction carpet and seat covers are easy; correct grain, correct stitching and correct plastics are not. Hard interior plastics are the hardest thing to make right and the first thing a careful buyer checks.
• The underside. A #2 has a clean, correct, undamaged floor and suspension. A #3 has surface corrosion, a patched area, or an undercoating that was applied to stop a question being asked.
• Glass and brightwork. Date-coded glass, undelaminated, unpitted chrome. Replating is expensive enough that tired brightwork is a reliable grade indicator.

How to use this before you bid

Grade the car yourself, in writing, before you look at a single price. Then look up the value for that grade, not for the grade in the advertisement. If the two differ, the gap is the negotiation — or the reason to stop.

Two practical rules:

1. When torn between two grades, take the lower one. You will be right more often than not, and the cost of being wrong in that direction is that you bought well.
2. A grade is not an average. A car with #2 paint and a #4 interior is not a #3. It is a #4 interior you will pay to fix, on a car whose paint you cannot bank. Price the worst component you cannot live with.

The honest caveat

The scale is a convention, not a measurement, and reasonable appraisers disagree by a grade. Different guides describe the bands slightly differently, and marque specialists apply them more harshly than generalists. Use it as a common language for a conversation, not as a number that settles one.