Thanks Chris, I'll look that over to make sure it's not in another companies holder as a lot were crossed back and forth. Example my Plank has hit two once in PSa now in SGC.

Thanks for the pic and link.

Cheers,

John

Corey SGC did know. According to Goodwin's ad, SGC told Goodwin at first that the card was hand cut and could not have been factory cut.

“When learning Bill Goodwin had a T206 Piedmont Plank, we clearly informed him that the card had to be hand-cut from a scrapper sheet and similar to the other handful that exist, would receive an “Authentic” assessment. Only ironclad circumstances relating to no evidence of trimming, whatsoever, could possibly enable us to encapsulate the card with a numerical grade. After scouring the card for what appeared to be an infinite amount of time, our unwavering opinion was to assign the current SGC 70/5.5 grade since not a shred of evidence relating to trimming exists under our finest magnification process. We stand by this card’s factory cut origin and vouch with 100% certainty that it was not hand-cut”.

Well obviously I stand corrected. Guess I should have read the auction descripton. I'm a bit amazed they gave it a grade, regardless what their inspection showed. I know for a fact SGC graded certain Lionel Carter cards that he personally pulled from packs as Authentics for being undersized even though nobody reasonably thought Lionel Carter trimmed his cards. So if the normal-looking borders on those cards couldn't save them from an Authentic grade, it seems inconsistent that normal-looking borders on this Plank would suffice to give it a numerical grade.

I read that as them saying it could only get an A before even seing it based on all other piedmont Planks being hand cut. But after lots of inspection finding out that it did not appear handcut.

Steve Birmingham

Based on that bottom edge, they should have stuck with their decision before they saw it then. They would have been more accurate.

Great question Frank. :)

Jim,

All very plausible and not crazy in fact well thought and could have happened. As usual you make good solid points it would be hard to disagree with you and impossible to say you’re 100% wrong. Impossible because none of us will ever truly know unless we become clairvoyant and or have firsthand experience or knowledge of the factory floors in 1909.

What I will say for what that’s worth as I claim to be no expert here. I feel the above Plank does not warrant the numerical grade based upon the images and given what I have seen of the Plank cards to date and my limited hobby experience.

Can one disagree with me sure can in fact it appears SGC does. Just as I can make my up my mind to say better look at this thing as AUTH regardless of that flip.

I will say that one (me) doesn’t get the warm and fuzzies to go guns blazing open checkbook at a card with a super double seal of approval and then see that Cobb above only to look back at that bottom edge of the above Plank.

Also I would add I would be lying if I didn’t look over my shoulder at my other monitor with a screen saver full of my SGC graded cards cycling thru and say to myself man I hope I’m wrong here and they are 100% correct.

Cheers,

John

Great argument. Now I'm convinced the Cincinnati Wagner is real.

Card is a stunner, $350k all day !!

Which card is a stunner?

The Plank with the hand cut bottom edge?

The Magie with the trimmed top and bottom borders?

The Green Cobb that is the worst graded hack job I have ever seen?

Plank is gorgeous Unreal card! Might get half a mill !

I knew, that card is gorgeous and will bring major coin. It is wrongfully slabbed numerically which is a shame.

It is one of the best Planks I have ever seen and deserves a solid authentic grade.

It's the perfect counterpart to the gretzky Wagner ! Two peas in pod , solid gold pod covered with diamonds!

What about a rebacked SC, although that is a risky move?

REA auctioned off the Plank counterpart to the Wagner a couple of years ago

ok I get it, you don't care that it is hand cut, it is all about the money.

Is it the Wagner Gretzky? or the Gretzky Wagner?

Gretzky is much more to hockey than Wagner is to baseball so it's the Gretzky Wagner. It's not all about the money it's what people are going to spend and on this one they are gonna break the bank for the Plank!

Hello Dan & others . . .

Assigning a numerical grade to a card that the hobby concedes "should be" hand cut is risky (Piedmont Plank). SGC knew this would be met with criticism and disbelief so I completely understand the accompanying letter from head grader/president. I wouldn't expect the same support network with other cards.

Do we have proof that all Piedmont Plank cards are hand cut? No! The scenario outlined by Jim is plausible.

Do we have proof that this Piedmont Plank is factory cut? No!

However, after carefully studying this card with some of the best tools in the industry and "better than average" eyes, SGC felt confident in giving it a numerical grade. That will hold stock with many collectors in the hobby (apparently none on this board).

It doesn't look trimmed, from the scan, to this untrained eye. That being said this is my one and only post in this thread. I am just not going to get into a debate about it. I will let ya'll. I am merely saying it doesn't look trimmed to me, from the scan posted.

On the other Plank P150s, all four sides appear to be hand cut. So wouldn't one expect that, if the Goodwin/SGC Plank were hand cut, it would be evident on all four borders?

Just curious, if the card were hand-cut from a sheet, wouldn't all the edges be hand-cut, not just the bottom edge that some say is suspicious? As for the green Cobb, that one is a problem.
JimB

I respect that Leon on another note since it looks good to you I have handfull EXMT-NM cards for the next B&L. :)

Jim--I think one of us is supposed to say "jinx". Scot

Depends I guess this would depend where on the sheet the card was located...which we will never know nor could we even really begin to guess as no known sheet is out there to compare to.

It could have been on a panel and on the end of said panel. I only say that because not only does the bottom look odd but the back right side does as well. But as I said that's my thoughts SGC has given theirs. If you want to break the bank as was stated above get to breaking it's all good and it's open for debate.

I guess we could sort of solve this if it was on a panel where the card was. We could always ask Mastro where the Plank sheet mate was on that panel before it and the hobby’s most expensive card were trimmed down off their original stock as hobby lore goes. :)

Cheers,

John

Interesting thread, thanks for putting your thoughts out there Dan and thanks for our recent trade.

As far as the cards, I am in Jims camp, I just feel that because of how few Plank P150 that exist the chance that a few could have been inserted into the product or factory cut is a possibilty. I also had another thought because of how nice this card is, what happened if this card was on a sheet that was cut at the factory and set to be inserted into a pack but it was pulled at the last moment and say an employee took it home instead of throwing it away, I think possible (If someone can do this with the US Mint and 1933 Double Eagle coins why not cards). I do feel like from scans it looks good but without the raw card in hand too hard to really judge.

:)

can someone please explain to this newb, what you see from that picture/scan that so convinces many that it's trimmed. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't have the experiance to tell.

Rich

Rich,

Planks are found with 2 backs. So far we perceive that all Piedmont 150 Planks show signs of being hand cut. This Plank that is offered is a Piedmont 150.

Frank,

I think Rich is asking WHAT signs do you see that show it is trimmed???

There are no physical signs - just historical knowledge.

There are a lot of scenarios where a few (or even ONE) of these get factory cut and then the presses/cutters get stopped. Nobody will ever REALLY know... so I, for one, am going to trust SGC.

I'm glass-half full.

Totally understood! However, Frank states "So far we perceive that all Piedmont 150 Planks show signs of being hand cut. This Plank that is offered is a Piedmont 150." So I think Rich was just looking for "signs" as Frank put it for this one in particular.

FWIW, I think it is a gorgeous card!!

It is a great looking card, I think it would be revered in any of our collections.

I understand the "what signs", for me it was easy, that blue "Piedmont 150" on the back clued me in. That was the sign.

The Plank - It is the bottom edge to me and very noticable where it meets the left front corner. I see rounding at the corner not matching the bottom edge. Trimmed, hand-cut, whatever, that doesn't look factory to me.

I probably didn't explain that very well.

"where one would expect the corner wear to be a complete arc starting at the left edge and going to the bottom edge, the arc appears to be cut off and hits the bottom edge at a weird angle. "

This is what I was trying to say! Thanks to another member for helping me express myself!






This is an excellent debate!

and Leon your thoughts are always welcome in any of my threads whether we agree or not.

JimB, thanks for mentioning the green Cobb, I appreciate that.

Helen Keller would have slabbed that Cobb authentic!

"It's not all about the money, it's what people are going to spend"

ah ok, are you related to Yogi Berra?

Hey Leon, what are your thoughts on the Green Cobb?

thanks
dan

All from the same collection?
 

Are all of the cards in the auction from the same collection? And were they all graded "together"? I'm going to assume, for the moment, that the answer to both of those questions is yes.

There are 38 cards in the auction that are slabbed Authentic. From a quick glance, this includes at least four HOF (including a Cobb) and five Southern League players.

For those who believe that the Plank, Magie, Cobb and/or others are trimmed yet received numerical grades:
Is it your opinion that the TPG intentionally ignored signs of trimming on these cards (but not the 38 they slabbed "A")... or that they simply missed the evidence of trimming when examining these particular raw cards?

Well, that is a tough call.

Can you miss something on a Plank and Magie when you should be giving them the most attention?

Can you miss a very obvious hack job on the Green Cobb which is also one of the main cards in the most popular T206 set?

I have my own opinions

Regarding your second question, can't you just look at the slab i.d. numbers?

I don't think it matters much - we all know that the grading companies slab altered cards with numbers, and we all know the reasons. None of this should be surprising since the problem started when a slabbing company was birthed solely for the purpose of giving legitimacy to an illegitimate card. That was sort of a huge clue as to what was to come.

The only thing that's important here is whether or not there are, in fact, factory Plank Piedmont 150's. I think this particular card is going to get tossed into the same 'slabs of infamy' pile as the Gretzky Wagner, even if it doesn't deserve to be. The slabbing companies have only themselves to blame - slabbing trimmed cards in the past, and slabbing that green Cobb in the same auction as this questionable Plank, is not helping their case.

I believe SGC thinks they got the Plank right. Maybe they did.

I am willing to give SGC the benefit of the doubt because they reviewed the card in hand, went over it very carefully, and were aware of the risk of labeling it with a numerical grade if they missed something. I do not believe that the management of the company would have gone forward without being as certain as possible of the qualities of the card. Do they miss things from time to time? Of course. But it is quite a stretch to say that they missed it on something as significant as the Plank card, at this time, in this age of scrutiny, with the money and reputation at stake as it is.

Jim also makes a very good point. Extrapolating from a few known examples to all examples in existence is an inclusion error that relies on an assumption that has not been validated. I have been proven wrong enough times in my collecting experiences that I won't classify something unusual unequivocally unless I have first-hand knowledge [like a 1971 partial blank back card that someone asked me about recently as perhaps being scrap rather than original--I pulled the card from a pack myself in 1971 so I know it was issued]. None of us were involved in the T206 printing process and we simply do not know what really happened. The fact that the few P150 Plank cards to emerge so far were handcut does not pre-empt the possibility that a card might have slipped into the actual mix of issued cards. Look at the error card threads of late; the crap that actually did get out is way more visibly wrong than a properly printed card, but it made it through quality control and into the packages. Wagner wasn't supposed to go out but a bunch did. I prefer to base my conclusions on what I see, not what I think I should see, and I do not have enough information to make a determination on the subject card. I'd need to see it in person and go over it the way SGC did.

"But it is quite a stretch to say that they missed it on something as significant as the Plank card"

Hi Adam! Welcome to the battle!

Does this imply that the Green Cobb is insignificant?
or that it is properly numerically graded in your opinion?



thanks
dan

ಠ_ಠ

How is putting the number on the Plank card any different than putting a number on strip cards, Bazookas, Oklahoma Today, or Esskay cards? According to Ted all of the Plank Piedmont 150s are hand cut, so this is just another case of a grading company putting a number on a handcut card.

Personally I think all handcut cards should be Authentic, but grading companies have decided to disagree with me.

I agree Dan, no hand cut cards should have numbers.

The difference here is that the companies admit the strip cards and such are hand cut because that is the only way they could be cut and were supposed to be cut.

The T206 issue is supposed to be factory cut and the company is implying that this one is NOT hand cut.

A significant difference I think

More than implying, they have stated with 100 percent certainty it is factory cut.

Sgc 70 plank
 

It would really be nice to have psa's opinion on this as well.....

For those who are sure it is trimmed:

SGC is standing behind their grading of this card as much as is humanly possible. So if you are sure it is trimmed, SGC must also realize that. Given that scenario, why would they stick their necks out like that? To date, they have allowed PSA to stand alone on a pedestal with their Wagner 8 debacle. Why would SGC take a chance at climbing up (down?) on that pedestal with them?

Just curious what your thoughts are.

Not that I am 100% convinced that it is trimmed...nor do I really care as it's not a card I can afford...BUT...has PSA ever really been punished...or taken any kind of hit in any way as a result of their many many bungled grades?

The answer is...NO!!!!!

Does anyone here think the Green Cobb is legit?

Peter is absolutely right! Thank god someone finally said that. I am for sure not going to be a buyer for the plank, way out of my league, so life goes on....the one that i am interested in is the sgc 84 joe doyle.

100% legit and authentic.

There isn't a soul in the hobby that will state that Green Cobb warrants a numerical grade.

But what does that Green Cobb have to do with anything anyway???? ;)