DOES SGC HAVE CENTERING GUIDELINES?

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Posted By: Jay Miller 

How can a card with this kind of centering be SCG60?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2747510124&category=31718

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Posted By: Rich Jacobs

Jay: Here's what they say

"60 EX 5: 80/20 or better centering, minor rounding or fuzzing of corners, roughness or chipping along edge (no layering), one VERY slight surface or "spider" crease may exist on one side of the card, gloss may be lost from surface with some scratching that does not detract from the aesthetics of the card."


But:

"CENTERING: Tolerances are allowed for centering but must be within 5% of the standard and should not detract from the overall eye-appeal of the card. Back centering is less critical than front centering and a tolerance of up to 10% in excess of the front standard is allowed."

I guess that means 85/15 is acceptable for a SGC 60.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Rich--Thanks! My eyes may be getting bad so would one of you younger guys confirm that the centering is worse than 85-15.

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Posted By: Peter Thomas

My eyes are not younger but I will confirm that's way beyond 85 - 15. 90 - 10 @ best.

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Posted By: david

my experience with submitting both modern and pre war cards to sgc has been that sometimes they are a little more liberal with the centering guidlines when it comes to vintage cards.

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Posted By: leon

One time I said the same thing about centering. I asked one of the graders at SGC and was very surprised. It was hard to believe what was considered 80/20....it looked like 95/5 to me. Bottom line is that since then I have looked at centering a little differently. If you can even see a sliver of the border it is probably at worst 90/10....and yes, I know this doesn't make sense but it's the way they grade....and I think most grading companies are the same....regards all

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Posted By: jay behrens

Leon, certainly wish taht were the case. I ahve an e93 Griffith that is better centered and ahs better corners than the Cobb in question and it only got a 40. I also have e50 Dockman Teddy Roosevelt with great centering and one slightly soft corner, and yet get only a 50 becuase of a slight diamond cut.

How much SGC downgrades a card for centering seems to be random at best.

Jay

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Posted By: Elliot

I blew up the scan a bit and measured it. I got the centering to be bang on 85/15. It sure looks a lot worse, and of course my methodology wasn't perfect.

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Posted By: leon

Don't ask me why but they kill diamond cuts and slight miscuts but don't look so hard at some o/c's.....With the 52 that I just submitted at the National I had one card (SF HESS Newsboy) come back trimmed and a D359 Williams Baking Baker come back "miscut". I wasn't really too happy about the "miscut" and no slabbing. I asked them about it and they said it would be irregular in the holder. I said "so what" slab the damn thing as it is naturally this way from the mfg process. I even had a few other examples they could compare and they DID slab another D359 with a miscut, albeit not quite as severe. They said they would think about it. My point is that for some reason I think they hit miscut's/diamond cuts more than normal o/c......best regards