With prewar cards I don't want "mint"
 

Maybe I'm an exception, but I collect a good bit of pre war cards and I truly prefer my cards like T206 or Goudey to have rounded corners and wear.

I've seen gem mint T206 cards and they just look.....wrong. Almost fake to me. Obviously I don't collect for an investment or I might feel different, but I would be very happy with a large group of beater T206 cards than one perfect mint card.

The same goes with later R cards. They just seem weird to me to have sharp corners.

Am I alone on this?

i agree with you...I think about the "lives" our cards have lived...if only they could talk!!!!! A pristine t206 maybe placed in a book and never touched for 100 years has a boring story...to me!

And yes...i'd presume altered in many cases a pristine 100+ year old card.

E100s etc..all have a story
 

I like them all, but can mostly afford more entry level type cards re: average condition.
IF only they could talk. This prolific "Alfred" written on the back of the type-2 was done many, many years ago.
As shown before, these E100s were used as the plate specimens in Lew's encyclopedia, 40 yrs ago. Our cards have so much history.

https://luckeycards.com/pe100comparison.jpg

Awesome that one of the cards spells out San Francisco, and t'other'n just "Frisco".

While I'm originally from far northern California, as a Californian refugee now, I take a rather sick delight in using "Frisco" whenever possible simply because I know how much the local denizens detest it.

I’m a collector and I prefer cards that came from collectors in “collector” grade. It’s cool to buy an 1887 Old Judge and think about how someone just like your child self set this card aside and now all these years later it’s found it’s way to you. I’m not sure I would feel that way if I had a PSA 9.

All my cards are well-worn, scratched, scraped, creased, trimmed...you name it, and, God forbid...RAW!

Yeah, me too. Plus, I can have more of them in lesser grade. Why have one pristine Mantle card when you can have 15 presentable ones for the same price?

Remember as a kid having that stack of cards or that run of a player that you painstakingly traded into with the other kids? Every bumped corner told a story. That 71 Clemente with a corner crease. got that off Michael for a stack of Welcome Back Kotters. 1965 Mays with scotch tape, discard from Henry's older brother. And so on.

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I agree with you.
I like my Cracker Jacks stained with caramel, I like my E98's handled/circulated for the last 110 years. When I look at BSF E98's they just don't look right, too sterile with no character. I do like my E94's in higher grade but they rarely get above 5.
_

I enjoy well printed cards , good centering , Good focus , color etc.
No dang print dots

The only mint I like to see in my prewar card collection are E254 Colgan's Mint Chips and E105 Mello-Mint cards.

Brian

:D I agree. These "mints" are OK too..

Mostly I agree with this statement. However, the rightg cards in top condition can still be awesome. What I don't care for is high grade pre-war with small borders.

This could be near mint in the wrong persons hands.

https://luckeycards.com/t206eversp.jpg

I don't have a big budget so I look for a nice looking card with a flaw. Maybe a pinhole, back damage, etc that causes it to grade lower and cost less. I have a t206 lajoie that I could never have bought without a pinhole, same for a centered jim brown rookie, and a bart starr rookie with paper loss on back. Have to be creative some times, and I'm willing to have a little damage to have a nice looking card.

I don't want mint cards, but I try to avoid beaters too. I am happy in the mid-grade range with a little honest wear and full sized.

yep...those are the best kind for me too!!!

Agreed more about eye appeal and what is the best card I can afford. I do not mind beaters if they are rare cards and I can only get what I can get

No doubt, give me a nicely centered card with wear and I'm a happy camper.

No creases/wrinkles or major scuffing over the main image of the card, that's my #1 thing for the low-end stuff. I don't mind as much on the corners/edges, especially if it's located totally on the border.

That said, I'll take one creased/wrinkled or moderately scuffed if that is the best I can get in my price range or availability.

I'm not stuck on centering as many. I'm not a fan of a 90/10 or miscut cards, but 70/30-ish range doesn't bother me as much as some people, well many people. Centering seems to be one of the biggest deal-breakers in the hobby. I get it, but it's not my collecting hangup.

I really like the main image of the card to be sharp, though.

This is a go-to card for me when I talk about great looking (to me) low-end. It's obviously off-center and there's corner/edge wear with a crease, but the image on the card is near immaculate.

With prewar cards I don't really care about anything outside of a decent front image and even that isn't an issue if the card is rare enough.

It's a bit different for anything postwar up until about 1970, I really don't care about creases/wrinkles, or corners/edges, just decent image registration and CENTERING. If it's from 1948-1970 it needs to be centered, 60/40 at the absolute worst or I have no interest in it.

pre war "Mint"
 

Hmm, interesting topic. First, the number of "Mint" pre war cards is negligible.
Even "common" T206 at, say, an 8 are scarce- which makes them not
common. 9s are like white harts. My sweet spot there is a nice looking 5.
I have seen some great photos from commenters and, like them, own some
3s that have been poorly graded but which I think are great cards. That is
the real fun, finding a 3 that should be in a 5 holder. Trent King

Prefer cards with wear
 

These Mattys were from an original collection I had an opportunity selecting from awhile back. I choose the one on the left with the pinhole over his shoulder (I thought was the daytime moon). I still was elated with the card because of its provenance and affordability due to condition. My preference is for cards in this condition range and am just as happy with lower (and sometimes significantly so).

raw v/s graded
 

My 14 year nephew made the remark he doesn't buy any card if not graded .
This says to me the younger generations are looking at collecting and grades. When I was a his age only collecting was available.
I recently heard a younger buyer remark if its not graded somethings wrong with the card!

I get the raw thing If ones happy who cares about condition, etc., but for the future generation ( and majority) regardless of condition, grading is IN!

Yes this mindset is rampant on web/fb…if its not graded theres something wrong with it. I’ll tell u whats wrong with it! The cost/nuisance of getting a card graded!!

This card is an example to me of beauty is in the i of the beholder.

Many would not buy it for the condition the borders cut off the side and the big obvious issues on top but it is rare ( a 1923 a lot more rare than the 1921 version)

But I love it for its rarity, for its pose, for the player

Great rare card Jeff.

Here's how a lot of my cards look
 

Attachment 566854

I like them to present well, but they have issues - round corners, creasing, back damage, tape residue, trimming, backstamps, writing, etc. I try to avoid paperloss on the front, and I also avoid the real beaters - a crease here and there is fine, but not covered.

Sometimes the damage tells a story - I have a WaJo hands at chest that was ripped in two and taped back together that I bought from another board member - in my mind it was a little brother taunting a big brother - "you think I won't, but I will" and then he ripped it and big brother had to tape it back together - after giving little brother a proper thumping.

1931 H-Unc
 

90 ish year old cards with a little wear, are just fine with me....

https://luckeycards.com/bing.jpg

I don’t want mint as there is less risk they are doctored getting nice looking low grade. If I get a nice two, even if doctored the floor is only two grades lower. Less risk this way. Rounded corners doesn’t bother me just like junk silver doesn’t bother me though stains, creases across the player or paper loss front or back not a fan off (unless blank back)

For a lot of pre-war, even the more common stuff, this is an abstract matter.

How many actual, genuinely Mint cards are there in c. 1910 sets? Many of those graded as such are not Mint but are in fact trimmed cards that are a 0 but look very nice. There's the Black Swamp E98's and a tiny number of other cards that have survived in Mint condition. I am pretty sure the majority of my pre-war wantlist has 0 mint examples surviving to even be a possibility. Minty cards mostly don't exist for what I collect, and so they aren't an option for me. Even genuine, actual EX cards are rare for most sets (T206 there's a lot due to the huge numbers of extant cards). My priority is finishing sets, and oftentimes the card I get depends more on what comes up than the grade. Sometimes it's a poor beater, sometimes it's the top POP card that I then crack out. My preference is to the former, I don't care about creases and honest wear and so I'd rather have the worse card that I like just the same but costs me less, but oftentimes it's not a real factor because I don't have 12 available to choose from and price.

Hi Mark,

No you aren't alone on this. When I first read the title of your post, I immediately thought of the Black Swamp Find E98s and the original population of lower grade E98s. Many E98 collectors consider the BSF cards a separate set from the circulated examples. I can't stand the BSF cards because they are too nice and have no history attached to them. They just sat in a box for 100 years. Now, the circulated examples have been collected and handled and traded and dropped and thrown around and used and got damaged over the last 100+ years. They show wear that tells a story. The mint BSF examples (like you said about high grade T206s) don't look right. They are neat to see what the cards looked like when they were first given out, but that's it. Investors buy those cards and collectors buy the lower grade ones. The original circulated cards were tough to find before the BSF and that didn't change just because the market got flooded with high grade examples. Those cards are still just as tough to find now as they were then. I don't consider the BSF high grade cards to have ruined the population of the E98 set at all. I just disregard any examples that are graded 6 or higher to be a separate set than the ones graded lower. Enough rambling for me, I'm signing off now.




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These E98 cards were more likely to have been found in a black swamp than the actual Black Swamp E98 cards. And I like them better.

Brian

Not prewar (but a key older hobby card), here are two 49 Bowman Paige cards. A 9 “Mint” in a current auction, and my PSA 7 that i bought raw many years ago and got graded more recently. Sure seems like the “mint” one has smaller borders left and right, maybe all around (tried to line up best i could, mine is slightly tilted in the photo). I would never buy those historically, too worried about trimming…buyers (at least the ones that bid on these) don’t seem to care at all.

I know posting 'stupid-money' cards is usually the order of the day in these types of threads, but for us closer-to-the-Earth collectors, the 1972 'In Action' cards are a monstrous mountain to scale when it comes to locating nice looking, (even remotely) centered, non-tilted examples. These two guys, for instance...

Attachment 567458