Posted By:
Dan Mathewson...but, since people so often go right back to PSA's own standards for comparison...
This is what PSA says about a NM-MT card, right from their website:
A PSA NM-MT 8 is a super high end card that appears Mint 9 at first glance. But upon closer inspection, the card can exhibit the following: A very slight wax stain on reverse, slightest fraying at one or two corners, a minor printing imperfection and/or slightly off-white borders. Centering must be approximately 65/35 to 70/30 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the reverse.
This particular card has better than NM-MT centering. It possibly has slightly less than NM-MT corners, or maybe the corners do meet the NM-MT standard. To the naked eye, the corners look good, but the "fraying" or "touched corners" don't really show up until you hit them with the microscope. There is nothing documented about the back of the card, so I assume it doesn't have the allowed wax stain. No printing imperfections and the borders look clean, as does the surface.
Under the microscope, everything is going to look very enhanced and exploded (like "split-ends") and imperfect, no matter how recent the factory cut. I've seen corners that appeared absolutely stellar to the naked eye -- yet, under a microscope, they look like a car crash.
Inmy own collection, I have too many inconsistencies anyway, between almost all of my PSA Graded cards. I have PSA 4 T206's that look far better than a couple PSA 5 T206's. But, then again, since PSA doesn't tell me what factors about the card gave it the grade it has, I have no friggin idea what they were thinking...
That's one of my main points. I can say PSA is inconsistent because they appear to be. But, I have no clue what properties of each card earned them the grade they have. No idea whatsoever...
Not so with Grade Tech. I see each specific factor that they cite and can refer to the CD for an exploded view of what they are talking about.
I dunno, Mike, but I'd think this card makes the cut. It seems to be very much in that NM-MT range to me...