Which Jackie would you buy?
 

Thinking about adding a 52 Jackie. Torn between these two. One PSA and the other SGC. Which do you like better?

REA SGC 8 (ends 9/22/24):
https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=188465 (https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=188465)

HERITAGE PSA 8 (ends 10/4/24)
https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c...ription-071515 (https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c...ription-071515)

If you want an 8, I'd surely wait. Both of those cards are irksome, both for the grade and how they present regardless.

What's going on with the bottom corner of the SGC? Unidentifiable detritus? Common printer's mark of which I wasn't aware?

More things going on with them?

For all the aspects which would trouble me with those two cards, I have to imagine there are countless examples even three grades lower which I would find much more aesthetically pleasing, but that's just me.

I would pass on both regardless of the price.

I prefer the one I already have. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...9b6df67b40.jpg

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...and there you go. That didn't take long! And it's a 5.

Just noticed the mark on the SGC. Maybe common printers mark? Noticed it on this PSA 8.5 as well.

Yep. Thought that was likely the case.

Choosing between the two options? The SGC all day long.

That is a very common print mark. It is present on Type 1 Jackies which are cut high enough. The SGC 8 is a Type 1, the PSA 8 is a Type 2.

Ya, I agree. I would pass on both of these copies. That said, the SGC 8 is the far superior card of the two above. I would wait for a centered copy to surface in a lower grade, personally. Although then you'd probably find yourself competing against me if you found one lol.

Here are a few of mine. I would much rather buy 3 of these than one of those.

Thanks. Yeah, it's coming back to me the more I stare at it. My hobby focus has been off (unsigned) cards for over 30 years, so a lot of that old knowledge I used to carry around was clearly pushed aside to make room for information more relevant to my side of things!

What's difference between type 1 and type 2? Wasn't aware of the different designations....

Between the two 8's listed I'd take the SGC. The centering kills it for me on the PSA card even though the registration is a little better on the PSA. Ultimately for the kind of money these will bring I'd probably wait for a better copy to come up.

There are numerous differences when you examine them closely, but here are a few that make it easy to detect right away, circled in yellow in the images below.

• The top left corner of the image box on a Type 1 is sharper and protrudes out to the left, whereas on the Type 2, it has more of a smooth rounded corner
• The stars on the left edge of the name box has a partial white star at the top of the box in the Type 1s that isn't present on the Type 2s
• The top border black line is more slanted on the Type 1 than on the Type 2
• There is often a small print mark on Type 1s at the bottom right corner in the border, as shown in the SGC 8 in the OP
• There is sometimes a small fisheye near Jackie's hat in the Type 2s that isn't present in the Type 1s (but isn't always present in Type 2s)
• On the back, the threads on the baseball face right in the Type 2s (top image shown below) and they face left in the Type 1s
• The right edge of the text box alignment extends further to the right on Type 1s than it does on Type 2s

SGC is clearly the better copy
PSA example has that printers mark/defect on top of hat and is not centered with slight skew to the right

Yes it's like the Mantle, which was double printed with slight differences between the versions.

Sadly, with my budget, this is completely out of my milieu, but if you need help choosing the better bargain between a PSA 5 and an SGC 5 1973 Topps Willie Montanez, I am definitely your man!!!! :D

I'd hold off and wait for a better looking 8 if I was set on an 8.

Thanks for all the info and laid out so nicely! Very informative. What version is the more desirable?

52 Jackie
 

AJ- I'd go with the SGC by a hair. Amazing the number of folks who reply
while ignoring your direct question. You can lead a horse to water...

Trent King

SGC crushes in my opinion

That said, I don’t like the picture tilt for that grade, and as others stated, I would pass and wait for a better centered one, especially in an 8

Sgc

Put me in with a vote for SGC

Was Jackie a known double print? On some of the cards in the thread the image rides up to the right in comparison to the top edge, yet at the bottom border the image and the edge are perfectly parallel. So the image just isn't square. On other pictures it's perfectly square, all sides of the image are parallel to each other. This CAN'T be a cut issue as it's the actual picture of Jackie that's not square, nothing to do with the shape of the card.

EDIT: I just looked more closely, all of the diagonal cut images also have the dot in the upper right corner of the tooling too. Must be a double print like the Mantle.

From my calculations there's only 51 total 8's graded PSA & SGC. Not a lot to choose from. And I'm always fascinated at previous grades by both as far as consistency goes. Here's some other 8's I was able to find. Seems the two up now are in line with these others....what do you think?

I have a very slight preference for the type 2, but the market values them equivalently and I'd never pass on a type 1 that fits my centering and condition criteria

Yes, cards 311 (Mantle), 312 (Jackie), and 313 (Bobby Thompson) were all double printed. Everyone knows about the Mantle, but not many know about the Jackie. See my post above showing the differences between the Type 1 and Type 2 Jackies. The central images (black borders) are out of square, as you mentioned, but it is more pronounced on the Type 1. This is actually one of the easiest ways to spot a trimmed 52 Topps Jackie. Some of the trimmers didn't know that the image itself was out of square, so they would trim the top edge parallel to the black border thinking they were correcting a diamond cut, when in actuality, they were creating one.

The only copy that would have a snowball's chance in hell at receiving an 8 again today is cert 24675072. All of the others would regrade as Altered or come back in lower grades.

In fact one of these copies you posted was recently purchased by one of Brady Hill's friends. I told the buyer that it was most certainly trimmed and that he should reach out to PSA and file a claim because if that slab were to get damaged somehow, he'd be out the money and that it was risky to hold onto it. Brady then lashed out at me, calling me an idiot, telling me I didn't know what I was talking about, etc. Told me how he had over 100 of these in the past and that he knows the card so well and that I'm an idiot. I told his friend to believe whoever he wanted but that I wasn't guessing on this card and that I was 100% confident and that Brady doesn't know what he's talking about (as clearly evidenced by the countless trimmed cards in his own collection). Fortunately, his buddy did reach out to PSA and had them review the card. They agreed with me and are now cutting him a check. Crickets from Brady though, of course.

The SGC and it’s not even close.

The SGC looks nice to me.

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The SGC 8 is better.

Both are weak for the grade.
With these, My inclination is to the SGC but the image is better on the PSA! I’m guessing the SGC may be significantly less $ so that would be the one I would make a play for.

SGC 8 out of these two. No question.

Im not OK with the dramatic tilt on the top of the sgc card and not as much at the bottom.

That would irk me until I sold it

That psa 8 looks like an old flip that was cleansed into a new flip.

Hard pass on both here, more so at the precipice of the market IMO

That's how the card is printed though lol. All type 1 Jackies have that tilt on the top border. If it doesn't, it's trimmed

I actually noticed one of those in the thread. They trimmed the top edge square to the image, but left the bottom edge so now it's an irregular trapezoid. Of course it's in a slab so I guess it doesn't matter:rolleyes:

Jackiesandjordans claim is every one is crooked on the top. Guessing he would know

They SHOULD be, but 02023137 the card edge and the image edge are perfectly parallel, and the bottom edge of the card is parallel to the case, however the top edge is NOT parallel to the case. Seems a clear case of someone squaring up the cut to the image not realizing that they now have an impossible shape. Bottom is square to the sides but the top edge runs up hill (to match the image) in comparison to the bottom edge (and the PSA Slab)

Yes, that is the one I was referring to when I said I informed the owner that his card was trimmed. He had PSA review it and if you look up the cert, it now shows it in an AA holder.

Cards 311, 312 and 313 are all known double prints. To be best of my recollection, the sheets were 100 cards and since there were only 97 cards printed in the final series, they just started with 311-3 to finish off the sheet. So yes this is fairly well known amongst 52 collectors

Rich

Good to know I haven't lost my mind (or my eye)

Yikes that card once sold for $145,294.80

Starting to get uncomfortably close to the $250k cap on PSA’s guarantee!

If you want to see some dreamers, ebay sort 1952 Jackies by highest price

Deleted

Ya, it's a $250k cap per card, but there's also a lifetime cap of $500k per individual. So you don't get many chances to cash in when something goes wrong if you're a high end collector. Some of these guys like Marshall Fogel, Ken Kendrick, and Brady Hill have millions of dollars worth of trimmed cards in their collections and they don't even know it. It's a significant risk to carry. Fogel's 52 Mantle is sheet cut.

Which Jackie would you buy?
 

100% agree. I honestly think over well 70% of high end pre-1970 cards are either trimmed or cleaned w/ who knows what chemicals. Back in the day, people soaked cards with all kinds of crap w/o knowing exactly the consequences. However, trimming is the #1 problem w/ vintage cuts.


So many older graded high end PSA cards are so obviously trimmed. If the owners of these took against PSA even if the max $ cap didn’t exist, their egos would be hurt w/ the reduced PSA set registry rankings.


E.g. I think the following card was trimmed. Might be wrong but don’t think I am.
Take this extremely high grade 1952 Topps Ed Mathews. Can’t believe this card passed grading even decades ago. Talk about a bad hair cut. Whoever this moron is, trimmed & destroyed an important card in the hobby. Everyone knows many 52 Topps have top borders that are slanted (that’s how the printer plate was made). So this person just trimmed the top to match the slanted border. Left side also looks short to me.

This card should have been left alone & still would have been a handsome card

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...b9e8b251e0.jpg

It’s been deactivated from PSA certification

Travis -- basis for your claim about Fogel's Mantle?

Back to the original posting - I think both cards are absolutely magnificent. Think about how hard it is for a card of that magnitude to survive 72 years remaining in such amazing condition. We all get so bogged down in debating and in comparing that we sometimes lose sight of just how amazing it is that cards like these can still exist today.

The PSA example AND the SGC example would each be a true highlight for almost any collection.

With that being said, I think the SGC example is superior.

The percentage of very high grade vintage cards that "survived in that condition" as opposed to having some help in getting them into those holders is very near zero. If that fact doesn't bother you, then by all means, buy what you love. But if that does bother you, you should reevaluate which cards you choose to buy.

Interesting

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...badf56a615.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...af9f46aef6.jpg

If the max is $500K per collector and these guys have millions of dollars of trimmed cards, they are not sending any back to PSA.

At some point in time in the future, they will be sold in a major auction to someone else who believes they are legitimate so they are not going anywhere.

I cannot imagine anyone high on the registry on a particular set suddenly saying, "Oh, most of my high grade cards are trimmed according to a guy on Net54 so let me get them all into authentic holders and get $500K of my millions of dollars back."

You may well be correct about the authenticity of most high grade cards but the population of them is not going down significantly in our lifetime. One occasionally, maybe, but not thousands of them.

The major auction houses will not be rejecting high graded cards nor will they be advising the buyers that cards may be trimmed although in holders. At least not IMO.

In this day and age, the flip, not the card, is what matters. PSA will be just fine, thank you, and it now has no competition. You can put the most obviously hacked up card up for auction and it will set records. Hell, people post cards here that are obviously not right, but the vast majority just ooh and aah.

I had a conversation with someone who claims to know the person that cut the sheet. This person would know too. I won't say his name, but everyone here would recognize it. The reason I believe him is because it also looks like a sheet-cut card. The edges and corners are not natural looking for a 52 Topps. They're way too perfect. And it's not small.

When was this cutting allegedly done? If I recall the farthest back this card traces is to Mark Murphy, is that right?

No, of course they're not going to do that. Not for the million dollar cards. But they are carrying a significant risk just by owning them. If the slabs ever get damaged or cracked somehow, PSA isn't going to honor those grades.

Also, when some of these cards get sold and the new buyers learn that they just purchased a trimmed card, some do send them in for review. At least for cards worth $250k or less where they're "protected". That's what happened with the 52 Jackie PSA 8 from earlier in this thread.

Something else worth pointing out is that the more PSA chooses to shine a light on this aspect of the hobby, the more people will be motivated to send their cards in for review so they can cash in on the insurance policy.

I don't know how many years it will take, but in the long run, I think PSA abandons their guarantee.

In the 1980s. I also heard rumors about Rosen finding ‘52 Topps High sheets & oversized cards. A number of dealers who are collecting them are also aware but probably won’t talk.

There’s a reason we can find at least one uncut sheet for pretty much every 50s Topps series (in general) except for the last two 52 Topps series. Note: We did have uncut Topps higher #’d series sheets brought to an early 80s National that is documented in a Beckett annual (will post pics later as I have it).

I can't tell if it's sheet cut.

Holy moly look at that card!! JUST LOOK AT IT!!

Reminds me of this classic 3 minute video:

https://youtu.be/EF8GhC-T_Mo?si=z9YFmwF-tl86bjaW

It is hard to tell from a pic unless it was horribly bad cut. I would bet in hand it wouldn't be that hard to have a way better opinion. I can't imagine how many full sheets I have cut up. Each way I have done it looks slightly to way different than factory cuts. Before anyone asked I have never tried to have any graded and I have disclosed when selling those cards that I personally sheet cut them.

There are precisely zero 1952 Topps cards that look like this naturally. It's not like they paused production to replace all the rotorary blades and the guillotine blades for the one sheet and then paused production again to put the old blades back in for the rest of them lol.

This card is "sheet-cut" without question, IMO. It's also slightly oversized in every direction. Oversized cards always have imperfect corners because they stick out in packs. There's just no way this card is natural. And the borders are way too white too. But it sure is pretty.

Does mine look trimmed?

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Robinson.jpg

;)

Agree it's more than likely sheet cut. Still wow great card

I like the SGC more by quite a wide margin. The centering is so much better. I do think that it’s also a decent choice to wait for a better overall copy - that you may be able to find in a lower than 8 grade as well.

And now, for the rest of the story.

The SGC 8 sold for $75,000
The PSA 8 sold for $72,000

I’ll be damned.

Which Jackie would you buy?
 

This one:

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...kie_Parker.jpg

;)

To the original question, the SGC 8 is much stronger.
.