Grading Post Cereal cards
 

I was wondering if anyone here have sent any of their Post Cereal cards in for grading.If so what type of standards do they have for the trimming of the cards.Since they are removed from boxes there must be some sort of guidelines for sizing.I am considering sending in about 20 of the SP from the baseball and football sets and I do not want to bother if I cannot not meet minimum requirements for size.Any help/guidance would be greatly appreciated.Thanks.

ADDED:I just went through most of the post cards that I have and I notice in the 1963 baseball set I have cards that are completely different sizes.By as much as a full quarter of an inch difference in length.Would this be that they were from a different promotion.Say jello as compared to cereal.I have no clue so I am sure some person with a ton more knowledge than I can hopefully answer this question. I also notice I have one card from 1962 set that has no color boarder around the box or around the card number.Is this sort of an odd thing.Again I have no idea.

PS: I hope I have posted this in the right area.

Yep, that's the right place. Here's their definition for hand-cut cards to get a number grade: "In order for PSA to actually assign a grade to any of the cards that possess visible/defined borders on all four sides, evidence of that border must be present or the card must exhibit virtually-full borders based on the design of the specific issue. If the cut exceeds the visible border for the card in question, PSA will encapsulate the card as "Authentic" only. If the card is severely undersized and suffers in overall eye appeal, the graders may deem the card not suitable for authentication or reject the card as minimum-sized altogether."

Basically, you need to have all the black borders showing on cards that have them. This may mean cutting into a less valuable card to get a full sized more valuable card.

http://www.psacard.com/resources/gra...andards/#cards

http://img.comc.com/i/Baseball/1961/...&size=original
1961 Post Cereal #180.1 - Hal Smith (Hand Cut) [PSA*5]
Courtesy of COMC.com
Here's one that was probably borderline for getting a grade, but every side has a sliver of the black border. But you're probably better off cutting it like this:
http://img.comc.com/i/Baseball/1962/...&size=original
1962 Post #6.1 - Roger Maris (Post logo on back) [PSA*9]
Courtesy of COMC.com

John is spot on.

Post
 

Thank you very much.The cards that I have are already cut and just require some trimming.So the option of maybe using part of another card to give the more valuable card a nicer boarder has already been lost.Likely the most I can do is trim them ever so slightly to make the existing boarder more eye appealing and more straight.Thanks again for the help.:)

Just added an observation to my original thread.I hope someone can help

The shorter 1963 cards were issued on the back of Jell-O packages. Quoting from the SCD Standard Catalog of Baseball cards, "The easiest way to distinguish 1963 Jell-O cards from Post cards is by the red line that separates the 1962 stats from the lifetime states. On Post cards, the line extends almost all the way to the side borders, on the Jell-O cards, the line begins and ends much closer to the stats."

It also sounds like the 1962 card you described is a 1962 Jell-O card. The Jell-O packages with these cards on them were only distributed in the midwest.

Thank you very much.That sure clarifies things for me.

Post Cereal Grading
 

This is a subject that has caused much consternation with Post Cereal and Jell-O collectors that I know. Most of the cards can have a complete black border if they are carefully cut from the boxes. However.....on some sheets they share borders and it presents a number of problems when grading. So, for one the grader would need to know what box the card is from and whether or not it had a shared border. Dan Mabey has written a set of terrific books on all of the Post Cereal baseball sets and has pointed out some of these points for grading purposes. I don't believe that PSA or any of the graders are as knowledgeable.
I have posted three cards that are cut outside the black borders. Anyone care to guess what the grades would be?