March Pick-Ups:

[irv]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Seems to be a 52 Topps theme this month...

Nice 52's, guys!

Can you tell why Lopat only graded a 3, Adam? Looks much nicer in your pic and reminds me of my Kuzava, which, to this day is a grade I can't figure out.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by irv

... reminds me of my Kuzava, which, to this day is a grade I can't figure out.

Is that some very light spider-creasing through the top of Kuzava's hat? If not, could it be something in the scan?

Wrinkles that can be very difficult to see are usually one of the first suspects on otherwise very nice cards that come back a 5 and surprise you. Mostly they are on the back, but I've seen some 5's that have multiple light wrinkles on the front.

If it's none of the above, then who knows. I've seen a lot of 6's lately that could be 7's. I've argued for a while now that PSA should have some type of service - maybe even make it premium - where the grade your card got is explained in a paragraph or something like that, if they aren't going to do sub-grades like Beckett does for the newer cards. I guess they would see that as skewing their business model, and it would only add to their already ridiculous turnaround times, however. I don't know. I think that back in the early days of TPG's, PSA was probably on par with SGC in terms of strictness. Here lately they seem to be harsher graders - particularly with vintage - to prove some kind of point. Everything seems to be more of a game anymore than taken at face value...

[JollyElm]

Got this one for a fairly decent price...

1964topps331bombers.jpg

[jfkheat]

Got these two today. The Drysdale is an upgrade for my 62 AS subset. The Stuart gets me down to needing three cards to finish my 64 Stand-up set.
James

[irv]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Is that some very light spider-creasing through the top of Kuzava's hat? If not, could it be something in the scan?

Wrinkles that can be very difficult to see are usually one of the first suspects on otherwise very nice cards that come back a 5 and surprise you. Mostly they are on the back, but I've seen some 5's that have multiple light wrinkles on the front.

If it's none of the above, then who knows. I've seen a lot of 6's lately that could be 7's. I've argued for a while now that PSA should have some type of service - maybe even make it premium - where the grade your card got is explained in a paragraph or something like that, if they aren't going to do sub-grades like Beckett does for the newer cards. I guess they would see that as skewing their business model, and it would only add to their already ridiculous turnaround times, however. I don't know. I think that back in the early days of TPG's, PSA was probably on par with SGC in terms of strictness. Here lately they seem to be harsher graders - particularly with vintage - to prove some kind of point. Everything seems to be more of a game anymore than taken at face value...

John, I really don't think there is any spider wrinkling/creasing in the hat, but I need to purchase a loupe as my eyes aren't what they once were.
I believe when I talked about this card before, there might have been a little bit of that wrinkling on the back? IIRC, it was hardly noticeable but likely the reason for the grade. The TPG, imo, despite the tiny bit of wrinkling, graded it tough. If I could find all 3's in this condition, I'd purchase them all.

Rekindling the 52 Topps theme that was prevalent earlier in this post. These arrived a few days ago, plus another multiplayer card as well.