How do you actually determine centering ratios?

[Buythatcard]

I hear people all the time throw out numbers like 80/20 or 90/10 when they describe the centering of a card.

When I look at a card, I can see that it's off centered but no way can I determine whether its 80/20, 90/10, 65/35 and so on.

I am curious how some of you actually come up with your numbers when it comes to card centering.

[pokerplyr80]

Technically you measure the border on each side at the part of the card that is most off-center. But I just estimate based on looking at it, as I'm sure many do. Personally I think it's hard to tell exactly, unless there's some app or computer program that can calculate it out there that I am unaware of.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I am probably fooling myself but I feel I have seen enough cards to be able to get close enough with an eyeball estimate.

[conor912]

Yeah, I'm pretty confident that at this point I can eyeball it to within 10%.

If you need an actual number and have a scan, just enlarge the scan then get a ruler and hold it up to the screen and measure the borders in mm. If one is 2 and the other is 6, then that's 25/75 centering and so on.

[egbeachley]

The problem is certain cards may have borders only 1mm wide. So a shift of 0.7mm makes it 0.3 mm on 1 side and 1.7 mm on another, or about 85/15. The same shift on a card with 3mm borders makes it 2.3 mm and 3.7 mm or about 65/35.

Not fair for small bordered card collectors.

[Prince Hal]

If you like the centering it's centered just fine for your collection. If you don't like the centering for you collection skip it. Buy what looks good to you and fits your collection, not some nebulous measurement and never based on the grade.

[bbcard1]

Only slightly related...I ran a nice little shop back when everyone had a shop with a partner. He had great tolerance for centering but not wear. I had great tolerance for wear but not centering...we would often disagree on valuations. He was a hell of a guy though and we worked it out.