Yellowing Borders 1972-1974
 

I am primarily a 1970's collector and have noticed over the past 6-7 years an issue on cards with white borders.

There is an obvious yellowing on the borders of cards in the marketplace, more and more. Noticed it mainly for 1972-1974's - graded and ungraded.

Cards in my PC are stored in sleeves or are graded and I haven't noticed deterioration on those.

Has anyone else noticed this? I know these are 50 year old cards, but some examples on sale are crisp and white and some have this acid degradation.

I try to avoid bad examples - does this bother anyone else? Do you guys think this effects value? Have any collectors of the 1960's seen this over time? Seems like some 1964's I have are about 50/50, but other years don't suffer as much. Is it paper stock from year to year? Cigarette households? Bad storage?

Again - as a 1970's collector, I didn't see this as much on the 1972-1974's even 5 years ago and am noticing it more and more, now...

I looked at my 72-74 sets and do not notice what you are describing , but my sets are and have long been in sheets in binders so maybe that is similar to the negating impact of sleeves and plastic covers you also mention

I collect low grade junk up through 1974. I’ve never noticed this. None of mine have yellowing borders. Even cards I’ve bought that have been stored in yellow top loaders for years show no sign of damage from it. Could you show a couple examples?

i have complete sets ive never noticed that at all

Like I said, I am not seeing on my cards that are stored properly - just noticed that more and more cards for sale from 72-74 have aged borders.

Here are 4 examples of cards currently listed by the same seller - this is the first four I pulled: Hank and Rose have yellowed borders and the other two are whiter. Seeing the same from all sellers...

Some thoughts....

1. Some plastic holders that yellow do not seem to degrade cards stored within them.
   
2. Yellowed borders could be from a home where people smoked.
   
3. Topps often used two grades of card stock with their sets. One seems to stay white no matter what and the other gets dingier with time.

Not sure that's what's happening with your examples i.r.o items 2 and 3 but they could be contributing causes.

The glosscoat Topps used could yellow. Some 77s were yellowed by about 1980-81.

I'm not sure if it's a sign of multiple printers being used, or different glosscoat at the same plant.