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Judge Dred (Fred)Personally, just my opinion, I think any card that has to be hand cut should receive a designation of AUTH. I've seen cards that have had generous borders that were trimmed down to create a nicer looking card. Providing numerical grades to such cards only invites/tempts people to trim back cards with generous borders.
Also, I believe that a card (Zeenut, for example) that has had the coupon removed should at best receive an AUTH designation. I think it's ridiculous to give a grade of "SGC60" or "PSA5" to a card that has been grossly altered (coupon cut off). To me this is just basic common sense but the grading services seem to lack this common sense. Grading companies will not provide a card a numerical grade if they determine it was trimmed yet they'll assign a numerical grade to a card that they "should" know has been trimmed. I just don't get it.