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???? ;)

I don't know what tools/techniques/technologies are used by a TPG to determine if trimming has occurred. Hell, unless someone took safety scissors to a card, I can't tell. But regarding the Green Cobb, can you truly say simply by looking at the scan that it's trimmed? That top left corner gives me some pause, but maybe it's just a slight diamond cut?

Note that there was another Cobb (Bat Off) in the same submission that was deemed Authentic (likely due to trimming). What did they see in the Bat Off that they missed in the Green?

<img src="http://www.goodwinandco.com/LotImages/30/6a_lg.jpeg" height="800" /><img src="http://www.goodwinandco.com/LotImages/30/8a_lg.jpeg" height="800" />

'Three' isn't actually a sample size - it's 3/4 of the total known population. If there were known to be twenty and we could only see four, and they were all hand-cut, THEN you could use the 'sample size' argument, although 20% is a large sample, even in a population that small.

If we assume that there WERE twenty, but only these four survived, then we are assuming that ALL of the factory-cut ones are either undiscovered, or did not survive. Isn't it more likely that factory-issued cards would have survived, than 'scraps' such as these three? (plus the one in question).

That isn't an angle cut at the top left corner, that is a blatant dog ear'd cut.

And yes an angle cut would be fine but the bottom edge would need a matching opposite angle cut. This wavey bottom edge on the Green Cobb is flat across.

Actually, I could see these 2 being swapped! I could live with the bat off numerically and the Green Cobb is just mind boggling.

Not always true. As far as I can tell, there's nothing wrong with the bottom of this one:

i agree with you dan...with the top left and lower rt on that cobby as they appear...I believe it's trimmed.

Bottom may be ok Scott, maybe top got hacked down funky as it looks like it should be significantly larger all of the way across.

Maybe Ted Z or Jim Rivera or Tim Cathey the T206 experts could chime in here but I don't think what you are showing can happen in the factory with what we know of the cutting process?

dan

SGC graded T206's
 

I believe SGC should be given the benefit of the doubt on these questionably graded T206's, not just because of their distinction among most pre war collectors of being the most consistent graders of pre war cards, but because they have seen the cards raw, in hand and have carefully examined the edges with the best available lighting, magnification and expertise...I dont see how anyone can be as sure as SGC with regards to the authenticity of the card by just viewing an enlarged scan, the assumed historical production facts not withstanding....Bruce Perry

6000+ views and rocking!

This is a kick-ass thread!

I see what Bill told me with the Cobb Bat off, that card looks good from the scan and looks like it would have warranted a numerical grade. Very interesting, has anyone looked at the other Authentics? How many look good?

As long as we are at it, comments on this one?

This is fairly stated Bruce, a good point.

Though I think SGC's consistency has changed after Derek left

and I will beg to differ on the Green Cobb

You could place that one on the moon and give me a telescope and I could see it is hacked.

Bruce there is certainly an appeal to that argument, but ultimately the logic of it is that SGC is infallible: SGC is the expert, SGC examined it and graded it, therefore SGC must be right. Do you believe that?

my opinion, top and bottom are hacked. But I welcome other opinions and I think we need the larger raw scan so that the holder insert doesn't deceive us at the corners.

John Wonka can you add the raw Magie for us?

Thank you

Scott,

I don't agree with with this.

For the record there is nothing of substance I can offer regarding any of these cards being trimmed or not. I've never held the cards in hand and don't feel I have enough information to form a definitive opinion. I also can't afford them so any possibility of owning these cards exists solely in my mind. That being said, the Green Cobby gives me reason to pause.

As to the issue of factory cut cards being more likely to survive than hand cut scraps...

As unbelievable as it may sound to many of us on this board, a large proportion of the originally issued T206 cards were quickly discarded by the original purchaser who had no interest in owning the card. If a small number of factory cut Planks were issued they would only have survived had they been originally removed from the packaging by somebody who cared to save them either for themselves or gave them to somebody who wanted them. We can argue what percentage of cards pulled from packs became collectibles and what percentage went directly into the trash but I think we can all agree that the percentage which became collectibles is less than 100%. Probably far less. Scott Reader does a nice job of estimating original T206 production numbers and current populations in his Inside T206 opus. Using baseline numbers he estimates only 1/2% of the original production survived to today. Even if we doubled that number to 1% we would only expect that 1 of every 100 Planks which were issued in packs to still exist. However, I believe every non-factory "scrap" was taken from the factory to keep. Certainly they all didn't survive to this day but I don't believe too many were secreted out of the factory for trivial reasons.

That's a long way of saying that I disagree that factory cut examples were more likely to have survived than non-factory cut scraps.

I guess we must remember as Bruce stated, SGC has had these in their hands and we haven't. Working off of scans is much different than in person. They are nice expensive cards and will be treasured by whoever purchases them.

T206 Cobb Green Portrait - This is a PSA 5?????
 

So, I am not going to out a current auction, but there is this card that is currently up for auction, it is a T206 Cobb Green portrait, and this is the back. The flip says PSA5 Ex, how in the heck can the back damage on this card warrant an Ex!!!!! :eek::eek:

We have discussed this one I think. I think this one is just as mind boggling. Paperloss and glue. If it is a legit flip, it almost looks like they only looked at the front? I guess if you are rushed, it could happen.

that psa 5 cobb has been on ebay for months....that's one that psa missed badly, or the card was swapped out. hard to believe psa would miss that.

I agree, I would bet on the swap job before a miss like that.

yes, i would too. no way psa misses that, let alone on a green cobb!

Quite honestly, I would shocked if they missed that on a common even!

Very good argument.

Plank
 

Dan, great thread...

I have one point to make in this huge debate. You state above that you don't think what is showing can happen in the factory with what we know of the cutting process.

The big point is that you are only drawing assumptions about the cut and not known facts. We have never had access to the factory that actually separated these cards, so how can we ever be sure about Plank, Cobb and Magie?

Not trying to stir the pot, just thought I'd ask :D

mike.ca.ve

I would like to hear opinions about the sgc 84 joe doyle...that's the one i have a genuine interest in.

Scott

I recall very well that approx. 12 years ago SGC...."was standing behind their grading"....of the T206 Matty (portrait) card with the Red HINDU back, despite the fact
that SGC was told it was an impossible front/back combo....and therefore, a FAKE.

Subsequently, SGC relented and removed this "re-fronted" Matty card from circulation.


Yes, I'm one of those who is very skeptical of this PIEDMONT Plank having been an original factory cut T206.


TED Z

Hi Mike and thanks for posting.

Yes you are correct, I don't know any of this for certain. I do know that handling tobacco cards for years and buying many raw collections that a legit angle cut has always had the opposite angle cut on the other border.

That is why I was hoping Jim R or Tim C or Ted Z could comment on what they know of the cutting practice. I may be mistaking but I thought 1 or all of them did some research on that part. Tim C maybe?

thanks again for the interesting comments
dan

They've missed worse. I've posted this before, but here's a PSA 6 with paper loss on the front. It belonged to a fellow board member and I know the card wasn't swapped.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...l/Bigchief.jpg

Maybe psa thought that was an earring!

Dan, I think Steve Birmingham is our man. Theories are great, but having someone who's handled the machinery and studied the history of it, is even better.

Ted, thanks for responding, but this is bigger, even though a mistake in this case would be much more acceptable (103-yr old hand-cut partially disguised via ravages of time, as opposed to modern re-backing). Evidence of the enormity of this Plank decision (at least in the minds of SGC) is their additional explanation.

sgc grading
 

SGC is not infallible but I still trust them or PSA more to get the Authenticity right (maybe not the grade though) than for me to just be able to see the card through the holder....now if I could view the card raw, and see the edges clearly etc.......then I would trust my expertise or any collector/seller who has handled and viewed closely a lot of these cards and knows what to look for....if you are a novice, I would say you have to trust the grading company for authenticity, even though they not infallible...when I buy any graded card, ideally, I just want to be concerned about the grade along with the price, and not to have to be concerned if the card is 100% authentic..Bruce Perry

Bruce, you are the man they are looking for - they should thank you for the ear-to-ear smiles you just gave them.

Look for my forthcoming article: "Through a Slab Darkly"

Really:eek: I think the Wagner 206 is way overrated but Gretzky is a fish in the meer ocean compared to Wagners ability and provenance.

You must not watch or know anything about hockey to say that. In the sports card world yes you are correct but in the real world nothing compares to Gretzky on the ice, not even close. Wagner was good but far from the greatest in my opinion.

Scott

Yes, this PIEDMONT Plank is of greater significance than the Matty example I gave. But, my point is not with respect to this Plank vs that Matty. It is that SGC in both
cases staked their reputation on the integity of their grading of these cards. And, with the former situation, SGC eventually had to "eat crow".

Only time will tell if this Plank stands as is, or will history repeat.


TED Z

Do we know whether these cards were submitted to PSA first and rejected, and if so is there any way to find out...

T206 Plank
 

Ted, I hear what you and others are saying about being skeptical with regard to the Plank...but if we cant trust them to at least get the authenticity right (no matter how difficult that is), why is anyone "taking chances" grading with them? I still say, since no one can see the whole card out of the holder, to see if the card has been rebacked or if the edges are original, then you either have to trust them or dont buy cards of this nature....yes I know I am stating the obvious here...Bruce Perry

Hi Dan,
I see what you are talking about and noticed it in the much-enlarged blowup of the card. It is almost unnoticeable and 1:1 levels. To me that is a very minor red flag (that can be explained in other ways) absent other evidence. If we could examine the card in person, we could examine the roll of that edge compared with the roll of the other edges on that card and other T206s in general. If this were a hand-cut card in 1909, that red flag could only be indicative of something other than trimming. Those types of indicators are evidence of trimming when a card had developed worn corners over the decades AND THEN was trimmed more recently to upgrade the appearance of the card. But that is not what most are arguing here. Most question the card because they think it must have been hand-cut because the other Piedmont scrap Planks were. If the argument is that it was trimmed recently to improve its grade, then is the presumption that it was factory cut and only the bottom edge was trimmed for that purpose? If that is the case, it is an entirely different argument and people should be thrilled to have found a factory cut Piedmont Plank, even if trimmed on one edge for grade improvement. But that is not the argument people are making. It just seems to me like there is an inconsistency in the arguments being made. If all four sides were trimmed, it must have been seriously oversized.
JimB

funny, Chris - that's the same Tris before I cracked him out. I didn't realize there were still any of his mugshot scans on the web.

Are there any Wagner Piedmont 150s whose factory cut status is undisputed?

Need a fix
 

I wish somebody would stop talking about T cards and put some up on the BST.

Good one. :)

Let's not forget the fake National Game card that was SGC graded nor the couple postcard fakes that were SGC graded!

Very sad work in my opinion no matter what Leon says!

NOT Consistant at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

+1

Not that outrageous of a grade on the T206 Speaker. The top of the card is miscut although SGC does not put qualifiers on its flips like PSA. Therefore, the only reasonable "grades" were either "Poor/Fair" or "Authentic". It was simply a judgment call on the part of SGC. I'm not sure what the issue is here since "Poor/Fair" has been used interchangeably with "Authentic" on a number of graded cards over the past decade and the respective values are roughly similar.

There wasn't an issue. Dan made a comment that a diamond cut on one end required a diamond cut on the other. I was just saying that with the card in hand, both top and bottom borders looked good (not hand-cut) to me. The card also has kind of a surface tear (vertical) that is hard to see behind plastic, and still not too visually detrimental when raw. I don't know if that contributed to the 'poor/fair' grade - maybe it would have been higher without it, even with the diamond-cut top border.

Great thread, Dan.

Interesting thread....
 

I can't add anything that hasn't been said already, except that (unless I missed it) it seems like a year or two ago SGC would've posted in this thread by now to give a little more insight to us about these cards. Did I miss it? Or do they not follow the board the way they used to?:confused:

Sincerely, Clayton

I agree with Scott. I have seen many, many caramel cards which were factory cut and had a big diamond cut on the top or bottom border without a matching diamond cut on the other top or bottom. I haven't seen as many of these weird cuts on tobacco cards but I have seen some like the Speaker which was displayed above.
I'm not weighing in on whether the Magie, Plank or Cobb are trimmed, although I do have an opinion, but rather just pointing out that not all diamond/diagonal cuts which don't have a matching opposite border, are hand cut or altered. I might mention I have also seen (and once owned) a very nice orange background Tinker E98 which had a wicked diamond cut left border and a straight right border and it sailed through grading with an SGC 40grade as SGC recognized it was a factory miscut.

Bringing this one back from the past.

http://i.imgur.com/YH5ON.jpg

Chris, I didn't realize that it had been roughed up in order to get the numerical grade. That's something that would not have happened prior to the birth of slabbing :(

I just took the Speaker out and looped the borders very carefully - no problems at all. It's amazing how much better these old cards look without any plastic in the way.

Ahhh the factory cut Hunt Plank (roll eyes)...to slab PSA 3 to Ebay to profit land... :)

Dan, you got me thinking about how Mike's question and your comment about the other border. What if this card was the bottom card on the sheet and all the cuttins was from the top down. Were there bottom borders on the sheets that had to be cut off like the Topps cards or did the bottom edge of the sheet become the bottom edge of the card?
Marty

"It's amazing how much better these old cards look without any plastic in the way." Sounds to me like Scott has his eyes open, looking at cards, instead of looking at slip numbers. A few years ago I started saving those little slips. Maybe one day some collectors will zero in on the slips, and forgo the cards that some of us collect.

Yes, the sheet would have had a margin on all 4 sides.

Steve B

Dan: I don't know about the Cobb; I haven't seen it in person. I am not comfortable definitively opining on a card from a scan in a slab.

Chris: by "crap" I meant from a quality control standpoint, my point in context being that we've all seen T206s that were so badly miscut or misprinted that they can only be viewed as failures of quality control, and if those got out why is it impossible to conceive of a properly printed P150 Plank getting out.

As for a non-parallel cut, it could happen if the sheet slipped in the cutter, depending on the cutting device used. I have a number of Topps cards that are not quite parallelograms in shape.

Eventually people will collect the holders, and the cards won't be inside.

It will be like gold, they will be in an off-site location, and the holders with the grade can be proudly and prominently displayed in people's homes, but with no cards in the holders.

It will be just a receipt of ownership per se that you own the card and the card is stored somewhere else for you, in a central repository. But the holder with the name of the card and grade on it will make one's chest swell with pride, because that's what matters.

People will say, "Did you see my latest acquisition? Isn't it a beaut? Cobb holder - bat off shoulder.

I always de-slab the cards I 'think' are a permanent part of the collection, but save the slips, just in case. I find that buying a beauty like this Matty in a 1.5 holder, then de-slabbing, is quite a bargain. They sold me the slip, I bought the card :)

Slabbers & Crackers - The Perfect Business Model
 

If I was going to start a packaging company and knew that 0% of the population would want my product, then I would go broke.

If I was going to start a packaging company and knew that 100% of the population would want my product, then I would package each item once.

But if I was going to start a packaging company and knew that 50% of the population would want my product and 50% wouldn't want it, and if I knew there was a resale market for what I was packaging, and if I made the packaging in such a way that it could be removed so that I could repackage the same item time and time again, I would be far better off in the long run.

Just a thought hopefully not too far off topic.