T206 trimmed or not?

[mrdacheek]

Little help here fellas. Does this card look trimmed to you? Does to me.

[Bpm0014]

Yes. Especially top right. However, so hard to tell from scans.

[mrdacheek]

Yeah I couldn't tell so much either. It's tougher on this one because it's mis-centered as well. But you see that top right corner? It looks just like that in 'real-life' and thats a little piece of card shaving sticking up not something in the scan.

[Luke]

Very tough to tell. The bottom looks a little concave to me, but I can't tell. I'd bid or offer an amount based on it being trimmed. It's a nice card regardless.

[yankees23]

I presume any tobacco card with sharp corners is trimmed...graded or not. After the PSA Wagner incident I now seek rounded corners.

[Econteachert205]

Can't message the seller and ask for a measurement?

[freakhappy]

I vote no, but it's impossible to know for sure over the 'puter.

[Luke]

I presume any tobacco card with sharp corners is trimmed...graded or not. After the PSA Wagner incident I now seek rounded corners.

This is a good way to operate in my opinion. I would never pay "5" money for a raw t206 that looks like a "5" unless I knew and trusted the seller and he had had it his collection for a long time.

[mrdacheek]

That's good advice. I'm working on a 150 only set and this is the 649 overprint which I need hence not simply moving on. I like the advice on not buying sharp corners in raw. Thanks for your help I'll try to get the measurements.

[irishdenny]

Got a Scan of the Back?

[mrdacheek]

Here's the back.

[sb1]

Not trimmed in my opinion

[Sean]

I don't think that it's trimmed. I also wouldn't pay much for a card with such heavy creasing.

[Bpm0014]

Trimmed.

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Very tough to tell. The bottom looks a little concave to me, but I can't tell. I'd bid or offer an amount based on it being trimmed. It's a nice card regardless.

The bottom looks off to me as well. Good use of the word concave.

[steve B]

Can you see it in person? It's impossible to tell much of anything from those small scans.

I've bought a few raw T206s with nice corners. A couple came back undersize, and one trimmed, but most have done well.

In person what you're looking for is a slight rounding of the edge on the front and a bit of a ridge on the back. That's from the cutter blade being pushed through the stack. Similar to a die cut edge. For a very visible example of the sort of edge have a look at most jigsaw puzzles (Newer mass produced ones, the high quality ones or the old wood ones are sometimes sawn even today)

There should be a very tiny bit of chipping along all the edges on the back. Not freshly torn or spots that look pulled.
And an edge that's very sharp top and bottom with no rounding or chipping is almost certainly trimmed.
(It's possible with a freshly sharpened blade, but that almost never would have been the case. The blades on a cutter might only need sharpening once every year or two. )

Steve B

[Bridwell]

Looks fine to me.

[mrvster]

I have a gift:o card is short top/bottom.....ask for measurements.....it's about a 1/16 " short barely.......

[MW1]

Not trimmed. Cut is consistent with other T206s.

[mrvster]

was it short??? had to be 1/16 or 1/32 " short.....:confused:

please get dimensions!:)

[mrdacheek]

Measurements coming tonight...

[mrdacheek]

So the plot thickens....

I did the measurements in mm instead of inches.

Here are the measurements on a raw T206 Piedmont - 66mm top to bottom & 37mm side to side. No matter where I put the ruler they're the exact same. Meaning on the left side or right side.

The card in question which is a Sweet Cap back - 66mm top to bottom on the far LEFT side of the card & 66.5mm on the right hand side. 37mm from side to side no matter where.

So yeah. That's confusing. Also, for you guys that are sure to ask about ridges and rolls on the edges... YES, if you run your fingers over the back of the card you can feel a ridge around the outside.

PS I went ahead and just bought the card figuring worst case scenario I'll just send it back and get a refund. If I lay it on top of or on the bottom of another card they look to be the same size EXCEPT the right hand side is a bit bigger than others.

[steve B]

If the edge quality is right I wouldn't worry about .5mm. The old cutters weren't fast enough and didn't grip tight enough to always make a perfect cut. And as we see with diamond cuts either the operators or the machines weren't always accurate.

Steve B