Share your contrarian hobby opinions

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JustinD

To state cognitive bias seems a misnomer and ignores the history of biology.

We can agree to disagree. Miscut cards or 90/10 cards being recognized as ugly in the 1980's, - yes. 70/30 cards? No, or at least not in the majority. I think cognitive bias came into play in the early 2000's, when people would begin to understand / recognize the difference between a PSA 8 and 8 (OC) as being only centering. Both are sharp cards, and often the OC qualifier card is not egregiously OC. Would most collectors have shunned the qualified card in 1989? Maybe they would have, maybe not. I tend to think not. That's my only point with OC, and you are certainly entitled to your opinion. I love a perfectly centered card - who doesn't? My position is simply that a card that is somewhat off centered is not necessarily "not" a good looking card just because of that. I state cognitive bias because with the advent of PSA - you had a whole population of collectors suddenly shunning mildly OC cards at a time when just a few years earlier - nobody much cared. New people to the hobby were told by experienced collectors to "avoid OC cards" before they even fully comprehended what centering was. Your points about biology and centering are valid - but understand that at Topps in 1990 and earlier, nobody gave the first hoot about centering. A worker taking cards out of a cut tray was not looking at something like that. It wasn't part of their criteria. A card then was mint whether it came out of the pack 50/50 all the way around or 100/0. Part of why I think it's all at least partially cognitive bias is that cards that were never intended to be a certain thing are now being judged by a criteria which would have been considered utterly ridiculous at the time they were produced. So yes, inherently - truly centered cards look better. But not appreciating the ones that aren’t is at least partially cognitive bias IMO. We shun them because the hobby has told us to for more than 20 years now.

I’m 45. I would agree with you that mail order when I was a kid was a gamble at best, a nightmare at worse. I remember getting a 1955 Bowman Pee Wee Reese in a mailer I think from Bill Henderson. The card was raw - no toploader, no penny sleeve - sandwiched in-between thick, stapled cardboard. I'll give him credit - it was in the condition described. But I got lucky.