Why are corners clipped? T206 and others??

[marvymelvin]

Dumb question maybe, but in consideration of my earlier post about cards in our collection that we hate to look at, I have a few T206's with clipped corners. I picked them up for a song, but just can't seem to enjoy them. I have seen many cards from different sets with one clipped corner, including the recent big collection being sold here over the last month or so. Maybe someone can fill me in on why someone would clip the corner of a perfectly good card.

[slipk1068]

my guess is some type of local promotion. corners clipped as a redemption. i guess we will never know for sure.

[ethicsprof]

gets rid of the creases once they've been taken out of those ancient black photo albums?

all the best,
barry

[drcy]

Kids and scissors probably.

If you look at old Victorian albums, they're filled with real and hand-made die cuts, cut up trade cards. I think part of making a kid's scrap album involved cutting stuff. If you give a kid a pair of scissors, he or she's going to cut stuff. You'll also find cards with punch holes. Give kids a hole puncher and they'll punch holes into stuff. Give a kid a rubber stamp of his initials and he'll rubber stamp his cards. Nature's law.

[Jobu]

I like the kid angle. Growing up with a brother 13 months apart in age I can see a kid clipping the corner of his cards to keep his sibling/friend from being able to claim them. As a kid my dad ended up engraving different marks on the tools in our child's tool boxes to end the arguing over them.

[oaks1912]

In the San Francisco region during the mid-teens to mid 30's a craze called "zeenut shooting" was part of the culture growing up, almost like pitching pennines but with baseball cards. Different techniques were used by different kids ranging from clipping corners (smooth edges do not bounce back from the walls as much as a pointed edge) to dipping the card in wax (adds weight to the paper, better control and brakes). A high percentage of Bay Area collections assembled during that era will contain cards with clipped corners. Not all of the cards will necessarily be clipped, but there are usually some. A recently acquired (Bay Area assembled) collection contained examples of E-120, E-135, E-136, T-206 and T-212 cards which had been subjected to this modification.

[mrvster]

a collector/collectors marked their cards this way???:confused: as ownership?? had no rubber stamps:confused:

[Jaybird]

In the San Francisco region during the mid-teens to mid 30's a craze called "zeenut shooting" was part of the culture growing up, almost like pitching pennines but with baseball cards. Different techniques were used by different kids ranging from clipping corners (smooth edges do not bounce back from the walls as much as a pointed edge) to dipping the card in wax (adds weight to the paper, better control and brakes). A high percentage of Bay Area collections assembled during that era will contain cards with clipped corners. Not all of the cards will necessarily be clipped, but there are usually some. A recently acquired (Bay Area assembled) collection contained examples of E-120, E-135, E-136, T-206 and T-212 cards which had been subjected to this modification.

Mark's got it (as usual). Likely for the card shooting game. Show us the image of the card, if you would.

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/af353/jasonleemiller/1919ZeenutDriscoll_zps3b505c07.jpg

[Bigdaddy]

Many photo albums of the day had mounting corners that were used to hold the photos in place. If you were to clip the corners of the cards, they would have the look of photos in a more formal photo album.

Just a guess.

[EvilKing00]

Corners get soft, sometimes fray, even creaced. They get beat up alot, id say dome people who arent collectors clip them so they look more clean.

[dbrown]

Clipped corners were very common on CDVs, I believe they were clipped to fit into photo albums. I have no idea if this is related -- there's a 30-year gap between the height of CDVs' popularity and t-206 -- but it seems too similar to be a coincidence.

relevant examples:
http://legendaryauctions.com/1863_jordan___co_cdv__st__george_s_cricket__sgc_as-lot154257.aspx

http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/auction/2010/1143.html