Thanks Nick. I didn’t know that about the longer cut card types. I have a few in my backup sets and have been meaning to validate that. I also spend a fair amount of time studying the PSA pop reports. There are a number of cards that have less than ten PSA 9s graded. The minis are also an issue that have been heavily impacted by tougher grading standards. They were talking about this in the collectors forum a decade ago and things have gotten even tougher since then. The difference between an old slab 8 and a new slab 8 can be huge. There are old slab 8s out there that would grade a 6 now or even worse.
The other thing is that it’s truly challenging to find cards without microscopic surface flaws, bubbles etc. It seems 70s topps cards, particularly 75 & 76 were prone to these sorts of issues. Some graders overlook these issues and some don’t.
Curious if any Topps historians can share the inside story of how these were conceived and why they didn’t move forward with it in 76 until 89, I think, at the height of the junk wax era.
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