Advice sought

[wolf2039]

Hi all --

I was hoping to tap into the collective wisdom of Net 54 for some advice. I am a long-time collector; but, am somewhat new to the process of acquiring cards via catalog auction. I recently was the successful bidder for a 1957 Topps set that was advertised as being in (on average) VGEX condition. I received the set a couple of days ago and while very few of the cards had creasing or other noticeable wear that you might expect to see with a VGEX grade, nearly all of the cards seemed to have lost most or all of their gloss and have an ever so slight stickiness to them as a result of being in plastic pages that appear to be less than the caliber of the ultra-pro pages of which I am mostly familiar. When you remove a card, you can even see what look like oil marks inside the slot on the page that formerly housed the card.

I am not sure whether the cards' condition warrants a complaint to the auction house; on one had, the cards have little to no creasing and visually look VGEX or better; on the other, they all seem to have damage -- that was not described in the listing -- that could cause them to have a materially lower grade than VGEX.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts on the matter the Board might have.

Thanks -

Brian