Trimming experts: your time to shine. Opinion?
 

Just got this and it measures a little short L/R of my '56 ex-mt commons. It's also the same size as my raw '56 Jackie Robinson of similar condition.

So if they were both trimmed, it was done basically the exact same way by different people. Naturally that doesn't seem to make sense, but the fact that both of them are a shade smaller L/R than any similar commons has me wondering.

Opinions on possible evidence of trimming here?

https://i.imgur.com/iQ7Cn47.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/pacZRzl.jpg

I can tell you in the late 60’s and early 70’s, I pulled cards from packs and they were sometimes different sizes in the same packs. I remember pulling the same card from different packs and they were slightly different sizes too. Still have some.
I would imagine the 50’s were the same.

Looks pretty natural to me. Biggest reasons for trimming cards are to eliminate edge/corner wear or to improve centering. Doesn't look like trimming would notably improve the centering, and the centering holds back the technical grade enough to not make trimming for condition as useful.

Some cards are just factory cut short based on the location on the sheet (closer to edges).

Thanks guys.

Bob, I've seen that happen too, especially with '67 high numbers.

John, I thought it looked fine as well. But when half a dozen commons all measure longer than your two HOFers, that always causes a double-take!

The Jackie R. is going off to PSA soon, so that one will be answered for certain soon enough. Well, unless they are still giving too many number grades to short cards there ;)

It is their opinion, not certain.

I can’t answer specifically about this card, but I have many ‘75’s that are short.

It may be a sort of 'only time will tell' scenario. If you continue to find other cards (hopefully non-stars) that match the short size, it may simply be a production anomaly. Unfortunately, having just two is too small a sample size. Maybe post the exact size your cards are and see if anyone here has matching shorties that also don't appear to have been trimmed??

I believe the '55 Bowman TV Sets are the worst for inconsistent sizing...

Factory normal differences of 1/32 to 1/16 are more common that many collectors think for vintage cards. I understand we are all paranoid / hyper-sensitive to trimming scandals lately, but it is true that cards coming out of the packs slightly different sizes back then was a thing. I have some '58 Topps cards that are too big, and will not fit in One Touch holders. Also recall that cards from vending (maybe not as far back as the 50's...but certainly in the 60's and later) notoriously can be found slightly short a large percentage of the time as well.

That card might get a straight grade from PSA, or it might get a Min Size. To me the latter is preposterous; PSA is saying they believe the card is factory cut and not trimmed, but is short. If there is no evidence of trimming and they cannot say it's not factory, why not just grade it? That seems to be an approach that SGC is much more lenient with. To me that just makes more sense.

True. Both PSA and SGC will give them number grades in a variety of sizes. They were a weird size fully cut to begin with from Bowman anyway - stand them up like a portrait oriented card next to a '55 or '56 Topps - and the Bowman card will generally be as tall, but not quite as wide. Weird.

They won't because of the trimming paranoia you mention in the first part of the post.

Most people here get that quality control was variable on older cards, and that it's how the edge compares to other factory cut edges.

But most collectors would see it short in the holder and assume that different size=trimmed=graders have no clue.
(Many of them don't, but the short card or the one with weird cuts isn't always trimmed. )

Maybe more so in the last 2 years, but Min Size has been a PSA standard practice for far longer than that. To me, it's just another way to encourage "Please Submit Again" in an attempt to increase revenue. Everyone knows folks who can show you a card in a graded slab now or with a Min Size rejection that used to be the other way around and it's the same damn card. This to me is where TPG's cease to be useful and just add to the noise of paranoia and modern hobby BS.

Actually what I just said makes no sense - (Sorry, I don't submit myself to PSA, though I do own a lot of PSA graded cards...) - since I checked and if you get an N6 Min Size, they do NOT charge the grading fee. So I revise my above statement - it's not in an attempt to gain more revenue by encouraging multiple submittals there in that specific case. It's just dumb, and frustrates submitters. If a card is 1/8 or 1/16 of an inch short and is suspect of being trimmed, fine - don't grade it. If it has uniform edges, does not bear any overt evidence of trimming - and is 1/32 short - slab it with a number grade and move on with life.

Since I've never sent anything in, I wasn't even aware that PSA will reject "min size' vintage that they don't think is trimmed.

Will be curious to see if that happens to my '56 Jackie R.

.........
 

Don't know for sure, but I have seen a lot of cards like that in the 1956 set.

I see you corrected yourself.

Yes. As I see you edited your comment which appears in my email. I post with conviction, but am not above correcting myself. Sorry if I roused your ire.

I've only sent cards to SGC, back when a rejected card that you didn't have slabbed as "A" came with an explanation.
had one come back min size, Short top to bottom, but factory or they'd have written trimmed. (also had one come back "trimmed all four sides... obviously didn't look too closely at that one before sending it)

This one has very rough cuts top and bottom, not trimming, but not typical, so rejected.
https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...pictureid=5054
https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...pictureid=5053

This one has weird cuts, caused by debris in the stack of sheets being cut, or on the sacrificial strip in the cutter.
I really doubt anyone would give it a number.

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...pictureid=7029

Consider also that despite being "experts" they won't grade
Sets that are difficult - Star basketball, Fro-Joy Ruth...
Cards that aren't in a published guide. (when there sort of isn't a guide anymore... )
Pretty much anything they think is "too difficult"

It's all about appearances, and limiting the chances of them looking foolish even if they're right.

Here's one I've been wondering about. Top and bottom borders are on a substantial, but parallel slant. The vertical edges run straight. Anyone know if this is legit, and if so, how does this particular miscut occur?

Thanks

I imagine the standard cutting process chops the cards first into horizontal rows, and then those rows are cut into individual cards. So, a total of two groups of cuts are done. Since the sides of the pictured card are straight, it would seem one of the cut sequences had the sheet on a slight angle or something, and that's what led to it being non-rectangular.

These odd angled cuts are a good place to start when detecting trimmed cards. You'll see it on many cards, although that Young is a little more on the extreme side it's perfectly fine. When you see a little bit of an odd angle just look at the other end to make sure that they are parallel, then by looking at the corners you can tell the other sides are good too. With that Young, you have a parallel top and bottom and perfectly worn and even corners, which is good. On some issues, funky cuts are more prevalent than others. Look at cards closely, especially from this era, and you'll realize it's more common than you think. A lot of times it's just minor though. Some people stay away from cards like that Young, but I think it's kind of neat because it tells a story of the process.

Here is a random example from Ebay that shows the same thing going on, albeit in a much more subtle manner. There is a downward, but parallel, slant from left to right on both top and bottom.

Parallel slants are frequently seen with respect to pre-War cards:

https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1605877964
https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1605877995

Back to the O P’s question, if I had to wager, I’d say Duke is trimmed on the right border and maybe the left. Not too and bottom. It would be telling to look at the edges under high magnification.