Kutcher55
08-24-2023, 12:00 PM
I have been grinding on this set for a couple of years, been a lot of fun. If you have gone down the rabbit hole on this set as I have, you're aware that the green/yellow (top to bottom) and red/yellow border cards have a strong propensity to be factory cut short. Some of the higher profile examples of these are Mike Schmidt, Bob Gibson, and then Claudell Washington and Frank Tanana, which are widely considered the two toughest cards in the set. Those cards also suffer from ink bleed issues, but anyway.
There's a long time thread on the Collectors forum that has kind of died out. I read though it and it was full of good information although much of the conversation centered around the PSA 9s and 10s that guys were collecting. I am more curious about these miscuts and the history/story behind the creation of the set in general. Some observations/questions:
1. My sense is that greater than 50% of these red/yellow, green/yellow cards were short cut. Maybe greater than 80%, though that's more conjecture based on the cards I seen and owned.
2. The short cuts are not uniform in length. Some are barely short and others are very short.
3. It's only the above color combos that are short cut. You are highly unlikely to find a different type that is short cut. In fact, I don't think I ever have seen one and I've handled 1,000s of these little cards.
4. I believe it has something to do with their position on the printing sheet, but not sure. If anyone has the 132 card print sheets handy (there should be 5 of them) I'd love to see it.
5. Occasionally you will find some "long cut" cards but these are relatively unusual, compared to the short cuts certainly.
6. Given #5, it suggest that somehow the top of the sheet got cut too low on most of these cards and that caused it.
If anyone has any other info on this, or this set in general I would appreciate it. Curious for the hard core collectors thoughts as well as anyone who has inside info as to the making of this set and what was going on behind the scenes. This has been an obsession. Still also looking for upgrades of course. Thank you!
There's a long time thread on the Collectors forum that has kind of died out. I read though it and it was full of good information although much of the conversation centered around the PSA 9s and 10s that guys were collecting. I am more curious about these miscuts and the history/story behind the creation of the set in general. Some observations/questions:
1. My sense is that greater than 50% of these red/yellow, green/yellow cards were short cut. Maybe greater than 80%, though that's more conjecture based on the cards I seen and owned.
2. The short cuts are not uniform in length. Some are barely short and others are very short.
3. It's only the above color combos that are short cut. You are highly unlikely to find a different type that is short cut. In fact, I don't think I ever have seen one and I've handled 1,000s of these little cards.
4. I believe it has something to do with their position on the printing sheet, but not sure. If anyone has the 132 card print sheets handy (there should be 5 of them) I'd love to see it.
5. Occasionally you will find some "long cut" cards but these are relatively unusual, compared to the short cuts certainly.
6. Given #5, it suggest that somehow the top of the sheet got cut too low on most of these cards and that caused it.
If anyone has any other info on this, or this set in general I would appreciate it. Curious for the hard core collectors thoughts as well as anyone who has inside info as to the making of this set and what was going on behind the scenes. This has been an obsession. Still also looking for upgrades of course. Thank you!