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Posted By: Robert A

Josh.
Not a stupid question at all.
Not always easy to detect trimming with t206s, but after you figure out a few ways to detect trimming, you start to recognize it more and more. If you have never thought about it, you could stare at images on ebay for a year and not know the difference.

Its always easier to detect trimming in person of course.
Some useful methods I use for t206 and other issues:
Always consider the back. Does the back show even and "normal" discoloring or "nondiscoloring" (wear..whatever you want to call it)around all of the edges, or does one edge display as brighter than the others? That edge could be trimmed.

An obvious method includes measuring, but this is not failsafe because not all t206s are the standard size. I have shorter examples that are not trimmed and bigger examples too.

Another obvious method would include looking at the borders to see how big they are. There are some exceptions such as american beauties which are narrower than other t206s, but after you have studied them for a while, you will be able to detect altered cards with narrow borders just by looking at them.

One more essential would be to inspect the borders to detect if one or more is jagged.
Also, remember that these babies are old right? They will often show even rounding on the corners. If the card is worn, but has sharp corners, it could be trimmed. Not always, but maybe.
hope this helps.
robert a