The Curious Case of 1972 Harmon Killebrew...

[JollyElm]

There are quite a few 'In Action' cards from the 1972 Topps set that are just a nightmare to find anywhere near 'perfectly' centered (#40 Bob Barton IA and #50 Willie Mays IA immediately come to mind). Don't take this as scripture, but they are generally found cut correctly (no tilt), and just OC left to right or top to bottom. Once in a while, though, a centered version does pop up. Probably because Topps printed so many freakin' cards that year, that the blind squirrel found an occasional acorn, as the saying goes.

But it gets stranger. I don't have a pic of an uncut sheet of cards from that series, but all of the other series runs had the IA cards grouped together in the corner of the printing sheet (usually with 2 of each card in the layout). So here is a list of the 12 different cards that would have been neighbors during the first series print run:

32 Cleon Jones IA
34 Billy Martin IA
36 Jerry Johnson IA
38 Carl Yastrzemski IA
40 Bob Barton IA
42 Tommy Davis IA
44 Rick Wise IA
46 Glenn Beckert IA
48 John Ellis IA
50 Willie Mays IA
52 Harmon Killebrew IA
54 Bud Harrelson IA

Now, virtually all of these guys are hard to find perfectly centered, and I'm reasonably certain no one is aware of this, but it's apparent that the Harmon Killebrew IA card just exists in a whole other universe altogether. This card is one of the most ubiquitous cards out there (you probably have 5 of them within reach right now), but although there are untold bazillions of them wherever you look (ebay, COMC, card shops, etc.), I dare say you will never see one perfectly centered. Among other things, they are almost always found off-centered way to the left and 99% of them are noticeably tilted to the left, like so:

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Even when you think you have found one, a closer look will undoubtedly reveal the image to be slightly tilted to the left. In looking at the PSA page, I do see there have been a handful of cards graded a 10, but I'm wondering if they, too, actually have a slight tilt and/or are off-centered a bit more top to bottom than should be the case? I dunno.

So what’s the point of this thread, besides to simply point out this anomaly? Well, obviously, if anybody has one perfectly centered (with no tilt whatsoever) I’d love to see it or trade for it, but more importantly, if all of these cards were printed together, why in heck don’t the other ‘In Action’ cards (and the 'regular' cards, too) on that sheet show the same wicked ‘Killebrew tilt’ throughout the run?? It's not like the blade was running straight and then suddenly veered off when it reached card #52 and then corrected itself again. Some cards, like Cleon Jones IA (and perhaps others) have a lot of tilted versions, but not nearly at the same rate as the Killer’s card. And (assuming he wasn’t at the very top of the print sheet) if you follow the left edge of his card and treat it as a cropping line, wouldn’t a large percentage of the images on the cards above him be sheared off as the cut continued upward?? Why isn't that the case?? It makes no logical sense.

Anybody wanna bet that soon after this thread is posted someone is going to post a picture of a bunch of 1972 Harmon Killebrew IA cards they have that are perfectly centered?? Ha ha!!

[JollyElm]

I was asked what exactly was meant by, "And (assuming he wasn’t at the very top of the print sheet) if you follow the left edge of his card and treat it as a cropping line, wouldn’t a large percentage of the images on the cards above him be sheared off as the cut continued upward??"

So I randomly superimposed a Killebrew IA card (third column from right, fourth row from bottom) over a different IA card in a photo of an uncut sheet, and then drew a line (in white and it's easiest to see it by starting at the top of the image) along the edge of it and upward to show how the cut would've screwed up the cards (in this case) above it. In creating this graphic, it wasn't done to perfection (in fact, it's a bit of an overly conservative reading of the actual angle of the tilt), but this will give everyone a good idea of what I'm talking about…

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[bobsbbcards]

Mine's pretty nice, but there's still a bit of tilt.

http://www.bobsbbcards.com/images/baseball/1972/1972topps/72Topps052KillebrewIA.jpg

[ALR-bishop]

It looks very nice to me Bob. if you detect a tilt to the card, just tilt your head in the other direction when you look at it.

[murphy8276]

The PSA 10 last sold went for a steal for registry purposes, but it wasn't a PSA 10 IMO. Had tilt and several spots of PD around the outsides if you ask me. Should have been a PSA 9 pd.

http://i67.tinypic.com/259g0sh.jpg

[jmoran19]

here's the full 1972 first series sheet.

Killebrew IA is on right half, column 9 row 8 and 11

John

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q66/jmoran19/72series1full_zps8e1pnlxh.jpg

[JollyElm]

Hey, John, thanks for posting that! Been looking for one for quite some time. In the example I created (above), I was very close to getting the proper placement right. Pretty cool.


As stated, there is a huge percentage of Killebrew IA cards that are cut on an angle, but when you look at, say, #17, Dave Duncan, cards (two of which appear in the same column as the Killer cards), they are obviously O/C virtually across the board, but there is barely an angular cut to be found in the group.

Take a look here to see a whole bunch of Killebrews (with a ton of angle cuts):
https://www.comc.com/Cards,sl,=1972+52

And here to see a bevy of Duncans:
https://www.comc.com/Cards,sl,=1972+17

How does this make sense?? If the blade was straight and the sheet was cut on an angle, the offending angular cut of the Killebrews should appear on a similar percentage of all the other cards in the row and (most likely) on all the cards printed on the sheet.

What in high heck is going on?????

[steve B]

Since the masks would have been done by hand, it's possible the card is a bit crooked on the sheet. I expanded to 200% and still couldn't see any difference, but it would be pretty small.

[JollyElm]

Update:

I found one of the best centered Killer cards I have ever seen. Of course, if you measure the thickness of the white areas on the sides, I'm sure mathematically speaking the tiniest hair of a left-leaning tilt would be apparent, but it is very, very close to non-existent.

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[jb67]

Going to be hard to beat the centering on that one.

[JollyElm]

Hallelujah, time for an update!! I am thrilled to death to have grabbed up this virtually perfectly-centered card today...

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You have to imagine that the vast majority of people sending in cards to be graded are sending in the best versions they can find. In other words, the untold millions of way off-centered and tilted Killebrew cards were left at home and only the 'cream of the crop' were submitted, so the Killers sitting in high-grade slabs represent the 'best' there is out there. With that in mind, I searched for all the past PSA 8 sales I could find (there really aren't too many), and virtually every one of them is still hampered by 'weak' (obviously subject to opinion) centering and/or varying degrees of tilt. Perfectly centered ones seem to be non-existent...

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Same is true for many of the PSA 9's...
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Conclusion: The 1972 Topps #52 Harmon Killebrew 'In Action' card continues to be an OCD sufferer's worst nightmare!!!

[Mark17]

I was asked what exactly was meant by, "And (assuming he wasn’t at the very top of the print sheet) if you follow the left edge of his card and treat it as a cropping line, wouldn’t a large percentage of the images on the cards above him be sheared off as the cut continued upward??"



This assumes the sheets were cut vertically into long columns first, then cut into individual cards horizontally. Doesn't it seem more logical the sheets would have been cut horizontally first, then the rows cut vertically to make the individual cards?

But in either case, if the cards were miscut, in other words, not completely rectangular, then holding a stack of cards with a Killebrew included would make the Killebrew stick out. Since I don't believe that is the case, the answer must be what another poster said: the Killebrew image itself was tilted on the sheet, and the card was cut correctly.

[JollyElm]

This assumes the sheets were cut vertically into long columns first, then cut into individual cards horizontally. Doesn't it seem more logical the sheets would have been cut horizontally first, then the rows cut vertically to make the individual cards?

But in either case, if the cards were miscut, in other words, not completely rectangular, then holding a stack of cards with a Killebrew included would make the Killebrew stick out. Since I don't believe that is the case, the answer must be what another poster said: the Killebrew image itself was tilted on the sheet, and the card was cut correctly.

I was sort of using the vertical cuts as a stand-in for either vertical or horizontal cuts, but you're right, I should have specified both possibilities. It's funny, because the more and more I look at the card abutting Killebrew, Cleon Jones IA (one of my favorite Mets from childhood), it seems that a much higher percentage of them are tilted than I originally thought. But (and it's a big BUT), the card occupying the spot on the other side of Killer, Billy Martin IA, is always, always, always O/C, but 'rarely' ever found with any sort of tilt to it. That just deepens the mystery of whatever was going on back then even more. There could possibly be some other sort of basic explanation to all of this. For instance (highly unlikely), perhaps Topps' quality control people actually did their jobs and tossed out multitudes of overly-tilted cards, but an inordinate number of Cleons and Harmons squeaked through? I doubt it, but who knows? Personally, it's tough for me to imagine that Topps laid out the sheets and somehow misaligned the Killebrew card. Certainly something to consider, but I would think the chances of that being the case must be pretty remote.

[Mark17]

Personally, it's tough for me to imagine that Topps laid out the sheets and somehow misaligned the Killebrew card. Certainly something to consider, but I would think the chances of that being the case must be pretty remote.

Only 2 possibilities.

If the Killebrew card is on the sheet straight, then the cut is wrong and the card won't be in square. Easiest way to tell is take a stack of cards, put a "tilted" Killebrew in the middle, and feel with your fingers if it is perfectly aligned with all the other cards. If it is, the cut was square and the "tilt" would by necessity be attributed to its positioning angle on the sheet.

If the card is not cut with 4 square 90 degree angles, then cards adjacent on the sheet must have been impacted by the common miscut edges. In this case, if the cutting process involved cutting sheets into rows first, the impact to other cards would be greatly lessened, only affecting the cards to the immediate left and right.

My guess is that they are cut square, with 4 90-degree corners, and the card image is slightly tilted on the sheets. Maybe at some point they realigned it to account for the better examples you've found, or, since it was a double print, maybe one was aligned better than the other.

[JollyElm]

I don't want to argue minutiae here (as I got this thread started again to celebrate my acquisition of a centered Killebrew IA card, WOO HOO!!!), but if the sheets were printed correctly and then became slanted (placed incorrectly?) in the cutting machine/on the cutting table/whatever (not properly squared off prior to slicing), then as long as the second cut(s) were perpendicular to the original 'angled' cut(s), you would still end up with perfectly rectangular cards that had tilted images on them. (Obviously, not every card on the entire sheet would be usable, because at some point you would go off the page, so to speak, and you'd have to chuck some miscut/malformed cards out...unless maybe you had a large enough gutter to handle it...but all of the eventual keepers would be of the correct size and shape, just skewed.)

[Mark17]

I don't want to pursue this further so this will be my last on this topic.

If the card was correctly aligned on the sheet, and if the final card was perfectly rectangular, but tilted due to miscut, it would mean:

Whichever cut was made first, vertically down the whole sheet or horizontally across the whole sheet, the problem you initially described would result in quite a lot of significant miscuts. The second cut, likewise, would create the same tilting on every other card on the sheet.

If the initial cut was clean, so as not to negatively impact the other cards, but the other cut created the tilt, then the card would not be square.

Think of it this way. Impose a grid over an uncut sheet, make the Killebrew tilted, and, as your diagram shows, every other card on the sheet gets goofed up too, many resulting in bad miscuts. There is no way Topps would've cut that much scrap (waste) without correcting the problem, and quickly.

Best explanation is that the cutting equipment worked properly, every card on the sheet was cut square and the Killebrew image, at least one of them, was a little off.

[steve B]

Mark is correct.

The most likely thing is that the Killebrew in at least one position was laid out with a bit of tilt in relation to the other cards.
As bad as Topps QC was at the time, nobody wants to make loads of really bad cards. They had no problem shipping them once they were made, but a few thousand non- square cards would have been a problem.

[JollyElm]

The problem with the 'evidence' in this thread, even mine, is that it is all anecdotal, not actually factual. So like in political arguments, it gets laughably frustrating watching as the 'proof' moves in different directions to fit certain narratives. It's not a sleight against anybody, but here are quite a few angled Billy Martin IA cards (coupled with the well known multitude of angled Cleon Jones IA cards) that sorta 'disproves' certain points...

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[Mark17]

The problem with the 'evidence' in this thread, even mine, is that it is all anecdotal, not actually factual. So like in political arguments, it gets laughably frustrating watching as the 'proof' moves in different directions to fit certain narratives. It's not a sleight against anybody, but here are quite a few angled Billy Martin IA cards (coupled with the well known multitude of angled Cleon Jones IA cards) that sorta 'disproves' certain points...


The proof has not moved. All of the examples you have provided, and for that matter all of the 1972 Topps cards I have ever seen, were cut square. If you can find a bunch of examples of cards that are cut out of square, then that would be evidence of an alternate scenario. Absent that evidence, I contend the problem was not in the cutting process.

All of your examples are easily explained by Steve's initial observation, that some cards could easily be slightly tilted when printed on the sheets. Just as variations are created, and errors are corrected, the sheets can easily be altered at any time throughout the print run. For that matter, considering the volume of cards being printed, and the fact that in 1972 Topps was still printing cards a series at a time (meaning, a large number of cards from a single sheet needed to be manufactured in a tight time frame,) it is very possible there was more than one printing plate being used.

Any conversation, even political ones, can result in agreement when all participants fundamentally rely on logic and evidence. If a large percentage of Killebrew cards have the tilt you have observed, while a miniscule percentage of 1972 Topps cards are not cut square, then, again, it is not a problem created by the cutting process.

That leaves only one explanation: some cards were not aligned straight on the sheets, on some printing plates, during at least part of their print runs.

[steve B]

One of the non- card items I collect was laid out by hand, and in a rush Out of a sheet of 100 of the same object every instance was put on the plate tilted. Every single one. Outside of the rare bit of sloppy cutting (where yes, they had some awful miscuts) there are none that are centered properly.


While the exact details of the entire process were probably treated as trade secrets by Topps, they wouldn't vary all that much from industry standards.


The masks (Large sheet sized composite negatives) used to make the plates were assembled by hand. I don't recall the shop I worked for making any mistakes in that department that made it to the pressroom. But we did high quality lower production work and Topps printed millions of cards regularly.

Getting one card, or even a group of cards crooked compared to the rest of the sheet wouldn't be all that hard, especially with a design that has a rounded upper border.


If we had a decent scan of that part of the sheet, maybe the lower few rows, we could probably measure the tilt.


Looking at uncut sheets, another thing I notice is that in 72 the dashed lines along the sides and bottom of the sheet appear. Earlier sheets don't have them.

Those lines to me indicate they switched to an automated cutting system, one that probably cut the cards essentially as they came off the press. Similar dotted lines were used on other things as a guide for the "electric eye" that guided the sheet through the cutter. A system like that may have cut vertical strips. The 79s with 78 backs I got when they were originally found came as a vertical strip. (It's also totally possible the people who found them found intact sheets and cut them as strips themselves, although strips instead of panels is an odd choice. )


That system may have drifted a bit, making the tilt worse. - In other words, a card slightly tilted on a sheet was then cut even more tilted, but still with all corners at 90 degrees by an automated system the factory wasn't quite used to.

[JollyElm]

Sorry, I just don't buy that the cards were improperly laid out causing them to be tilted on the sheets. Every time you see an old Topps uncut sheet, it is mathematically perfect. The one in this thread with the Killebrew card is such. A perfectly symmetrical layout in every sense. Someone could claim it looks like that because it was 'corrected,' but come on, that's a reach. I have never in my life even heard someone posit that theory until this thread.

At some point logic and simple common sense have to come into play when talking about miscut cards. What is the one thing we absolutely know about Topps? Their centering sucked!!! An outsider would say they didn't care what the cards looked like, they just wanted to get them out of the factory, into packs and shipped to the stores that sold them. There weren't problems with the alignment and lay out of the sheets, no, the problems came from the actual cutting process. Anyone can do a search on ebay for "1972 Topps" and see what an absolute joke that year was for quality control. Ignore the sellers who are only auctioning off nicely centered cards, and what you are left with is a very wide spectrum of off-centered and tilted cards. Choose whatever silly trope you want, Occam's Razor or "Think horses not zebras" and you reach the simple conclusion that the tilted and off centered cards are solely the result of the poor cutting processes Topps utilized. It couldn't possibly be any clearer.

[steve B]

Ok, don't listen to some one who has worked making things since the 70's. including time in print and machine shops. And who studies the process, since in my other hobbies it matters a LOT. Plus fixing machinery of many types was my job for 11 years. Guess I don't know anything.


Lets go with the simple thing.
If the sheet is cut into vertical strips at an angle, then into singles, the angle of that second cutting has to be just right for the card to end up square and not diamond cut. If they cut the sheet into horizontal strips at an angle, then the vertical cuts would have to be at just the right angle to have the card come out square and not diamond cut. The same is true whether they worked from full sheets or cut the sheet down to panels like 1/4 sheets first.

I can agree that Topps centering sucked.

So to have it being as you think, we have to believe some things.
1)That Topps cut a huge proportion of that series of 72s crooked on the first pass.
2) That the same people who couldn't cut straight all of a sudden discovered how, and cut the next cuts just right to have the cards end up square.
3) That the cards were laid out perfectly using a manual process, when they had issues getting the team names all colored the same.


Not buying that.

1) Ok they certainly could have cut all or most of an entire print run crooked. But that crookedness would show up to a similar degree on every other card in the print run. It does not.
2) Given the overall quality of Topps cutting at the time, I don't see this happening. Lots of tilt, but very few diamond cuts. * An automated cutter like the one I mentioned would produce square cards, but again, it would cut the rest of the sheet crooked as well. So the entire series would be crooked to some degree. They are not
3) Ok, getting the cards laid out perfectly straight is possible. The stripping room at the place I worked did that sort of stuff all the time. But in addition to messing up stuff like team names pretty regularly, Topps also got the markings in the sheet margins too close to the card image a few times. I'll call this one a coin toss, since Topps did also get the cards lined up right almost all the time.

The picture of the sheet doesn't show it close enough to make any conclusions about spacing or tilt. It's just too small of an image.

The degree of tilt is I believe close to the limit of what would be regularly possible with an automatic cutter, and the evidence points towards such a system. A bit of tilt to the image on the sheet plus some tilt from the automated system probably gets there easily. I will say that that's just an opinion based on other equipment and other printed goods that are known to be cut automatically, not on any personal experience with an automatic cutter.

So are we to believe that Topps miscut only one or a few cards from each sheet, as described above? It's possible if they cut the sheet into panels, but that would still mean that that degree of miscut would be equally common for all the cards from that corner of the sheet.

Or the simpler explanation that Topps got one card on one sheet crooked?

[SMPEP]

I've studied the layout of Topps sheets for years. And one CERTAIN conclusion I have about the Topps printing process - Steve B. has forgotten more about the printing process than I have ever learned!

Cheers,
Patrick

[clydepepper]

The level of knowledge and expertise shared on the site never fails to amaze me! Truly impressive!



as always, thanks for sharing.
.

[toppcat]

Interesting year, 1972. Topps was trying to cut back and save money everywhere as they were launching their IPO in March that year. Could card cutting also be affected by cost cutting?

[JollyElm]

Again, it's all SUPPOSITION. Without question, the vast majority of 1972 Killebrew IA cards (it would have to be waaaaay north of 95%, but again, that's just supposition) left the Topps factory off-centered and/or tilted. The only extant (don't you love people who use that particular word) picture of an uncut sheet available shows the two #52 cards on it properly aligned. You can argue about it as much as you want, neither of them appear tilted to the left. They are straight. So (whoops, I think it's bad form to start a sentence with "So") whatever caused the output of Killers that year to be horrible doesn't change the fact that I finally found one that is absolutely beautiful. In the end, I am as happy as a clam to have one. Nothing else about it really matters.

[Killebrewfan]

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[Fuddjcal]

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Nicely trimmed example...so small in that holder it's funny. :D

[ALR-bishop]

I have no expertise on trimming but welcome to board Killebrewfan. Are you mostly a Killebrew collector ?