They don't need gem copies of any card on hand. Once a person has seen and felt a large number of a particular sort of card and understands the printing process it's just a matter of deciding if it's genuine and figuring out how it grades with the centering and defects.
A scan of the card in question would help, most print defects look different from plate damage or stuff that was part of the image.
Just seeing a bunch of cards with the same defect doesn't mean it's on every example of that card, although it could be. Modern examples are easier, so I'll use a couple of those.
I've got a few 75 minis of Kingman on the desk right now, all with an identical fisheye in the G of Giants. Because of how those happen it's probably on hundreds of them if not thousands. If it's on all of them, it's still a print defect. Granted, it would be one that means there could never be one graded 10 but still a defect.
The opposite end of things is on many 81 fleer the people making the masks for the plates let the tape overlap the picture. So every one of them has printed in cellotape in the picture. Not a printing defect, just a design defect that was on the plates.
Steve B
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