Share your contrarian hobby opinions

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JustinD

The absence of a white border does not in any way eliminate centering from a grading platform or equation. It continues to be just as measurable and obvious to the collector from the visual clues of the card of photo and text.

I was just as concerned about centering as were the majority of collectors I knew in 1982 as I am in 2022. Grading just recognized that value was and is placed in the beauty of symmetry as has been recognized in art since its creation.

The absence of a white border doesn't mean that a card won't still be judged on centering by a TPG; correct. But it does make the problem of bad centering far less obvious to a collector ripping a pack.

You and your friends must have been ahead of your time. I knew nobody that was super concerned about centering (outside of miscuts maybe...) in the 1980's or 90's before PSA. Grading advancing centering issues was not a straightforward proposition. Before PSA, price guides that spoke to centering would refer to "uneven borders" or "slightly off center, OC, miscut". There was none of the paranoia trying to determine say the difference between 60/40 v. 65/35 that eventually came along after PSA. TPG's totally codified that - and a I think a lot of how collectors think of centering today is mainly the result of cognitive bias.