The Curious Case of 1972 Harmon Killebrew...

[JollyElm]

There are quite a few 'In Action' cards from the 1972 Topps set that are just a nightmare to find anywhere near 'perfectly' centered (#40 Bob Barton IA and #50 Willie Mays IA immediately come to mind). Don't take this as scripture, but they are generally found cut correctly (no tilt), and just OC left to right or top to bottom. Once in a while, though, a centered version does pop up. Probably because Topps printed so many freakin' cards that year, that the blind squirrel found an occasional acorn, as the saying goes.

But it gets stranger. I don't have a pic of an uncut sheet of cards from that series, but all of the other series runs had the IA cards grouped together in the corner of the printing sheet (usually with 2 of each card in the layout). So here is a list of the 12 different cards that would have been neighbors during the first series print run:

32 Cleon Jones IA
34 Billy Martin IA
36 Jerry Johnson IA
38 Carl Yastrzemski IA
40 Bob Barton IA
42 Tommy Davis IA
44 Rick Wise IA
46 Glenn Beckert IA
48 John Ellis IA
50 Willie Mays IA
52 Harmon Killebrew IA
54 Bud Harrelson IA

Now, virtually all of these guys are hard to find perfectly centered, and I'm reasonably certain no one is aware of this, but it's apparent that the Harmon Killebrew IA card just exists in a whole other universe altogether. This card is one of the most ubiquitous cards out there (you probably have 5 of them within reach right now), but although there are untold bazillions of them wherever you look (ebay, COMC, card shops, etc.), I dare say you will never see one perfectly centered. Among other things, they are almost always found off-centered way to the left and 99% of them are noticeably tilted to the left, like so:

1972killebrew52.jpg

Even when you think you have found one, a closer look will undoubtedly reveal the image to be slightly tilted to the left. In looking at the PSA page, I do see there have been a handful of cards graded a 10, but I'm wondering if they, too, actually have a slight tilt and/or are off-centered a bit more top to bottom than should be the case? I dunno.

So what’s the point of this thread, besides to simply point out this anomaly? Well, obviously, if anybody has one perfectly centered (with no tilt whatsoever) I’d love to see it or trade for it, but more importantly, if all of these cards were printed together, why in heck don’t the other ‘In Action’ cards (and the 'regular' cards, too) on that sheet show the same wicked ‘Killebrew tilt’ throughout the run?? It's not like the blade was running straight and then suddenly veered off when it reached card #52 and then corrected itself again. Some cards, like Cleon Jones IA (and perhaps others) have a lot of tilted versions, but not nearly at the same rate as the Killer’s card. And (assuming he wasn’t at the very top of the print sheet) if you follow the left edge of his card and treat it as a cropping line, wouldn’t a large percentage of the images on the cards above him be sheared off as the cut continued upward?? Why isn't that the case?? It makes no logical sense.

Anybody wanna bet that soon after this thread is posted someone is going to post a picture of a bunch of 1972 Harmon Killebrew IA cards they have that are perfectly centered?? Ha ha!!

[JollyElm]

I was asked what exactly was meant by, "And (assuming he wasn’t at the very top of the print sheet) if you follow the left edge of his card and treat it as a cropping line, wouldn’t a large percentage of the images on the cards above him be sheared off as the cut continued upward??"

So I randomly superimposed a Killebrew IA card (third column from right, fourth row from bottom) over a different IA card in a photo of an uncut sheet, and then drew a line (in white and it's easiest to see it by starting at the top of the image) along the edge of it and upward to show how the cut would've screwed up the cards (in this case) above it. In creating this graphic, it wasn't done to perfection (in fact, it's a bit of an overly conservative reading of the actual angle of the tilt), but this will give everyone a good idea of what I'm talking about…

1972killebrewcutfinal.jpg

[bobsbbcards]

Mine's pretty nice, but there's still a bit of tilt.

[ALR-bishop]

It looks very nice to me Bob. if you detect a tilt to the card, just tilt your head in the other direction when you look at it.

[murphy8276]

The PSA 10 last sold went for a steal for registry purposes, but it wasn't a PSA 10 IMO. Had tilt and several spots of PD around the outsides if you ask me. Should have been a PSA 9 pd.

[jmoran19]

here's the full 1972 first series sheet.

Killebrew IA is on right half, column 9 row 8 and 11

John

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I was asked what exactly was meant by, "And (assuming he wasn’t at the very top of the print sheet) if you follow the left edge of his card and treat it as a cropping line, wouldn’t a large percentage of the images on the cards above him be sheared off as the cut continued upward??"

This assumes the sheets were cut vertically into long columns first, then cut into individual cards horizontally. Doesn't it seem more logical the sheets would have been cut horizontally first, then the rows cut vertically to make the individual cards?

But in either case, if the cards were miscut, in other words, not completely rectangular, then holding a stack of cards with a Killebrew included would make the Killebrew stick out. Since I don't believe that is the case, the answer must be what another poster said: the Killebrew image itself was tilted on the sheet, and the card was cut correctly.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Mark17

This assumes the sheets were cut vertically into long columns first, then cut into individual cards horizontally. Doesn't it seem more logical the sheets would have been cut horizontally first, then the rows cut vertically to make the individual cards?

But in either case, if the cards were miscut, in other words, not completely rectangular, then holding a stack of cards with a Killebrew included would make the Killebrew stick out. Since I don't believe that is the case, the answer must be what another poster said: the Killebrew image itself was tilted on the sheet, and the card was cut correctly.

I was sort of using the vertical cuts as a stand-in for either vertical or horizontal cuts, but you're right, I should have specified both possibilities. It's funny, because the more and more I look at the card abutting Killebrew, Cleon Jones IA (one of my favorite Mets from childhood), it seems that a much higher percentage of them are tilted than I originally thought. But (and it's a big BUT), the card occupying the spot on the other side of Killer, Billy Martin IA, is always, always, always O/C, but 'rarely' ever found with any sort of tilt to it. That just deepens the mystery of whatever was going on back then even more. There could possibly be some other sort of basic explanation to all of this. For instance (highly unlikely), perhaps Topps' quality control people actually did their jobs and tossed out multitudes of overly-tilted cards, but an inordinate number of Cleons and Harmons squeaked through? I doubt it, but who knows? Personally, it's tough for me to imagine that Topps laid out the sheets and somehow misaligned the Killebrew card. Certainly something to consider, but I would think the chances of that being the case must be pretty remote.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Personally, it's tough for me to imagine that Topps laid out the sheets and somehow misaligned the Killebrew card. Certainly something to consider, but I would think the chances of that being the case must be pretty remote.

Only 2 possibilities.

If the Killebrew card is on the sheet straight, then the cut is wrong and the card won't be in square. Easiest way to tell is take a stack of cards, put a "tilted" Killebrew in the middle, and feel with your fingers if it is perfectly aligned with all the other cards. If it is, the cut was square and the "tilt" would by necessity be attributed to its positioning angle on the sheet.

If the card is not cut with 4 square 90 degree angles, then cards adjacent on the sheet must have been impacted by the common miscut edges. In this case, if the cutting process involved cutting sheets into rows first, the impact to other cards would be greatly lessened, only affecting the cards to the immediate left and right.

My guess is that they are cut square, with 4 90-degree corners, and the card image is slightly tilted on the sheets. Maybe at some point they realigned it to account for the better examples you've found, or, since it was a double print, maybe one was aligned better than the other.

[JollyElm]

I don't want to argue minutiae here (as I got this thread started again to celebrate my acquisition of a centered Killebrew IA card, WOO HOO!!!), but if the sheets were printed correctly and then became slanted (placed incorrectly?) in the cutting machine/on the cutting table/whatever (not properly squared off prior to slicing), then as long as the second cut(s) were perpendicular to the original 'angled' cut(s), you would still end up with perfectly rectangular cards that had tilted images on them. (Obviously, not every card on the entire sheet would be usable, because at some point you would go off the page, so to speak, and you'd have to chuck some miscut/malformed cards out...unless maybe you had a large enough gutter to handle it...but all of the eventual keepers would be of the correct size and shape, just skewed.)