Trimmed cards gaining acceptance?

[Runscott]

Excuse me while I think back on the 'good old days' (6 years ago) when trimmed cards were frowned upon. You rarely saw a trimmed high-grade card sold by a major auction house unless it was in a PSA holder, and you rarely (perhaps never?) saw them selling raw trimmed commons. I was once surprised when SGC returned a card to me with a reject slip that said 'evidence of trimming' (no slab).

Now they slab trimmed cards as 'AUTH' and PSA 'AUTH' slabbed cards actually say 'Trimmed' on the label. When did this start?

Are more trimmed cards ending up in high-grade slabs now? (It seems like it to me). Are the trimmers getting more sophisticated, the graders getting lazy or are we just encouraging them with our tacit approval?

How do you feel about buying/selling trimmed cards? When they arrive as the dredges of a larger lot, what do you do with them? I've been filing mine away in a dark corner, never to be mentioned again. The pile's up to 12

Excuse the brain dump, but sitting here looking at 'the deadly dozen', I'm scratching my head in wonder.

[Fred]

Scott,

I think that the card graders didn't want to lose out on business so they began providing the AUTH labels so people would submit those cards. I know that SGCs been doing it for a few years now. I'd call them about grades and if they said they saw evidence of trim I'd ask them to just put it in an AUTH holder. Now you don't have to ask them to do it, they just do it.

I don't mind trimmed cards as long as they are lightly trimmed. Also, those AUTH holders seem to drop the price on a card well below what you might pay for a lower graded example. I suppose it depends upon the trim job. As far as OJs go I don't mind a slight trim job, what I don't like are the trim jobs that remove the ad at the bottom of the OJs or the trim jobs where ALL four edges are trimmed down and there is no border (between edge of card and image) on the card.

I'm not going to get started on the AUTH and ALT designations for grading companies....

[sycks22]

It all depends on the eye appeal I've found. I've seen SGC / PSA Auth cards go for what a 4-5 would go for before. Usually they're around what a 2-3 would go for if there aren't a bunch of creases / wrinkles.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Fred

Scott,

I think that the card graders didn't want to lose out on business so they began providing the AUTH labels so people would submit those cards. I know that SGCs been doing it for a few years now. I'd call them about grades and if they said they saw evidence of trim I'd ask them to just put it in an AUTH holder. Now you don't have to ask them to do it, they just do it.

That makes sense - I'd rather see 'AUTH' on the slab than 'NM'. What surprises me more is all the 'trimmed' raw cards being sold by large auction houses. Did they used to cull these out and just tell the consignors they wouldn't auction them? It used to be a real no-no to find trimmed cards in your winnings.

[kmac32]

I have an E121 series of 120 Ruth holding bird that is trimmed. Knew it when I bought it. SGC slab bed it as authentic which is fine with me. It has the appearance of a nice card with sharp corners and looks nicer that many of the cards that have grades. I would rather have the nicer looking card than a crappy example of the same card with a grade. All of my cards are SGC graded not because I really care about the grade, but because they appear nice in their display case. Strip cards are usually graded authentic because they are "trimmed" fron the strip. Trimmed is okay in slab as long as seller says it is trimmed. Guess I'm okay with "authentic" cards.

[skelly]

Simply can't stand trimmed cards. I usually give them/throw them away ( I'm not talking about rare expensive cards, I'm talking trimmed 71 Kaline, trimmed 72 Mays- you get the idea, 10-20 dollar cards. As far as grading, I know I'm weird in this way, but I'd rather have an unaltered card be slabbed as Auth. I just think it sounds better than "poor."

[tjlives]

I tend to collect whatever catches my fancy on a particular day on a not very large collecting budget, which a lot of the time is beaters. Given the choice between a card with bad wrinkles and stains affecting the picture and a card that is trimmed for the same price, I'll take the latter every day of the week and twice on Sundays. It's usually cards I simply wouldn't be able to purchase in a higher grade anyways.

[sportscardpete]

Originally Posted by skelly

Simply can't stand trimmed cards. I usually give them/throw them away ( I'm not talking about rare expensive cards, I'm talking trimmed 71 Kaline, trimmed 72 Mays- you get the idea, 10-20 dollar cards. As far as grading, I know I'm weird in this way, but I'd rather have an unaltered card be slabbed as Auth. I just think it sounds better than "poor."

If I had a ton of money I would never buy a trimmed card, but if someones budget is low they provide a fantastic value. Some cards are hardly even trimmed, and can look better (and sell for wayyyy lower) than cards that grade a 2-4.

I would 1000% buy a trimmed t206 Magie, Plank, or Wagner.