Mystery 1978 Carlton
 

I was going through my 78 Topps cards and my eye caught something odd about this graded Carlton card. It has larger white borders compared to other 78s. Seems like the pic is slightly smaller with the borders larger. All the rest looks normal (looked at print and pic with magnifier).I am puzzled and have considered this was sheet cut but I don't think that explains it. Looking for comments.

Weird - the image looks identical from your graded sample to this image from the Card Cyber Museum - in other words no cropping differences. What this means (considering those borders ARE too wide) is that the image (including the artistic elements) was either printed smaller on this sample, or the card in the slab is larger than the standard size in both dimensions. Neither one seems plausible - I've never seen any other example of uniform image shrinking (though others here have far more experience than I), and if the card were that much bigger there would have been slabbing issues, to say nothing of the fact it would be a major miscut.

So the only thing I can conclude is that this is a reprint card and someone at BVG was really asleep at the switch. I have seen other Topps reprints over the years (1997 Willie Mays reprints in particular) that have a smaller image than the original.

Be interesting to see the reverse.

Beckett is well-known for grading sheet cut cards with number grades. It's the most likely answer IMO, since if it was packed out, it would have been larger than the other cards in the pack and therefore much more likely to get corner and edge wear. Occam's Razor.

On further inspection - the Carlton in the slab looks loose, like it doesn't make it to the frame edges. A smaller sample? Still would mean it's a reprint. Again the back image would be helpful.

I don't think it's counterfeit or the image is smaller. You can see easily that the are two versions of the slab being used on those two cards having much different space available for the card, like they had to increase to a 1952 Topps sized internal area to hold the card.

Back Scan
 

Dimensions are (hard to measure through case) appear to be 2 9/16 by 3 9/16. Don't be fooled by comparing the cases, Becketts cases and space have varied over the years. Does not appear to be a reprint.

Carlton Scans
 

Side by Side Psa 9 vs the Bvg 9.5

Update
 

Image on Both Carltons appear to be the same size. I am leaning towards a sheet cut card with a extra 1/16 on each side.

It's a sheet cut card.

Concur. Beckett's unfortunate lack of expertise weeding out sheet cut items strikes again.

I've never gotten a card graded, and unless I find a shoe box full of mint 52s probably never will, so others know far more about the grading process than I. But, even if they can't recognize a sheet cut card, wouldn't they have been expected to comment on the otherwise unexplainable size/border thickness differences?

Beckett
 

Yeah, I'm pretty upset. I bought the card on Ebay quite some time ago. Most dealers would not refund on a graded card anyway. If I sell it I would list that its sheet cut and would not expect to get anywhere near what I paid.

SHEET
CUT
CARD

:cool::cool::cool::cool:

Ok, I'm new to this so sorry for the question but whats the difference between a sheet cut card and a regular card? Aren't all cards printed and cut on big sheets to begin with? Thanks!

"Sheet cut" basically means a card that was specifically cut from a sheet, by the collector or dealer. For example:

A collector or dealer buys an uncut sheet of say, 1979 Topps baseball, that contains the Ozzie Smith RC. The Ozzie RC is notorious for centering problems. The collector/dealer knows this, so he bought the full 132-card sheet specifically to try to get a perfectly centered Ozzie RC. He takes it to a professional printer/paper cutter, and has them cut the Ozzie out of the sheet, hoping for that elusive perfect centering.

This is completely different from the normal sheets of cards that Topps (or any other card company) prints, cuts, and puts into packs.

Steve

Ah I see, that makes sense. So in theory it should be pretty easy to spot that someone did this and that a TPG service should catch this? That all makes sense. Thanks for the info!

If done properly, I would assume this would be hard to catch. That would include cutting the card to the correct size and to use the same technique that the card company uses to cut the card, ie - die cut, roller blade, straight blade cut, etc. I guess it depends on how hard the grader looks at the edges and how close the measurements are.

That Carlton is beautiful regardless. Sheet cut cards don't bother me much. I'd prefer a card be from packaging consistent with the year of issue, but the card is authentic.
I like how PSA grades the card and adds "Hand" or "Sheet" Cut

Carlton sheet cut
 

I'm pretty sure that PSA only does this for commonly sheet cut cards such as Hostess, Nestle and Post cereal. I would think a normal Topps would be returned that it did meet minimum size requirements.