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T206CollectorI have this issue right now with doubles of a T206 Ed Killian portrait. I have two sharp and clean examples -- with that crisp new morning sun yellow beaming at me every time I look at them -- but each with one very specific defect. One of them has a fairly hard crease going right through the top of the card from left to right, but not intersecting Killian's head, but disrupting my nice yellow morning -- a sure "Good 2". The other is crease free, but has very minor paper loss and some faint staining on the reverse from being removed from a scrapbook at one time -- likely a 1 or 2. I keep going back and forth on which one to sell in my next auction run. My wife (the tie-breaker between my schizophrenic nature in such debates) agrees with some of the above posts that front image is most important. But I like my cards to not have those kinds of minor defects that go towards the integrity of the card itself, e.g, pin holes and paper loss.
In the end, on the truly close calls, one cannot get answers to such weighty issues from others. One must search deeply within himself or herself. For within the heart of every true and great collector lies the answer. It is the same place to go when deciding what kinds of cards to collect and even whether to even collect cards at all.