I recently bought a number of same-sized stopper corks of each grade to assess ONLY their suitability for making fishing poppers. I bought sizes 00, 1, 2, and 4 in all grades. Size 0 Extra Select were out of stock so I only had Premium and Standard. In size 3, I only purchased Extra Select corks so I could compare them to the 150+ size 3 extremely high quality corks I already own. Rather than write a review under each size and grade, I will give a general review of the three grades across all the corks I ordered (105 in total) and post the exact same review under each size and grade. First off, the photos of each grade provided on the website are very accurate. By viewing them, you should have a good idea of what the pits and longer lenticels look like. In order to make my own assessment across grades as regards their suitability for use as poppers, I devised a five-point rating system based on how much, if any, filling of the pits are required to before painting. A rating of 5 means no filling was needed when applying between one and three coats of mid-quality paint (i.e., the paint typically filled any pits, sometimes completely, sometimes so that only dimples showed.) By mid-quality paint, I mean something on the order of Behr Premium Plus Ultra interior/exterior paint (I used Medium Yellow in my test). A rating of 4 signified that three coats did not cover the defects without minor filling of a cork filling product, but the finished product still looked good without filling. A rating of three signified that some filling was required for the finished product to look good. A rating of 2 signified that the cork had defects that required significant filling before painting. Finally, a rating of 1 indicated a cork that was unsatisfactory due to a defect near one end of the cork that could only be fixed by cutting the cork to form a flat base. The results of my assessment follow: 80% of the Extra Select corks were rated as quality 5 and 20% as quality 4. For the Premium corks, 15% were quality 5, 60% were quality 4, and 25% were quality 3. For the Standard corks, 15% were quality 5, 30% were quality 4, 45% were quality 3, and 10% were quality 1 (in these cases needing to be cut to form a flat base). If you tie commercially, choose Extra Select to minimize your filling work. For my personal use, I’d use all grades, and I would not fill any corks in quality levels 3-5 (I had no quality level 2 corks, so I can’t speak about them). I used to spend the necessary time to produce commercial-quality cork poppers, but in 60 years of fishing poppers, I found the fish do not care whether there are pits or not! Service is excellent; shipping is fast.
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