Grading 1951 Topps Red & Blue backs

[ALR-bishop]

Steve-- the PSA 5 Berra posted above shows the separation nubs, but looks like it may have some other blemishes as well.

Since I do not do graded cards this issue does not mean a lot to me, but in collecting the 67 Punch Outs set it did seem that cards with ragged separations got dinged some by graders. Those cards came in 3 card strips so the top and bottom cards would have one straight edge and one perforated edge. The middle card would have two perforated edges. I have seen cards with 2 straight edges, which had to be cut or trimmed get high grades from PSA. On the other hand, the perforation stubs are much more prominent on the 67s then the 51s. You had to cut or bend the 67s multiple times to separate them

[rdwyer]

Thanks for all the help.

[Volod]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

Steve-- the PSA 5 Berra posted above shows the separation nubs, but looks like it may have some other blemishes as well.

Since I do not do graded cards this issue does not mean a lot to me, but in collecting the 67 Punch Outs set it did seem that cards with ragged separations got dinged some by graders. Those cards came in 3 card strips so the top and bottom cards would have one straight edge and one perforated edge. The middle card would have two perforated edges. I have seen cards with 2 straight edges, which had to be cut or trimmed get high grades from PSA. On the other hand, the perforation stubs are much more prominent on the 67s then the 51s. You had to cut or bend the 67s multiple times to separate them

Right, Al - All of mine are unslabbed, as well, so a little fuzziness on the stubs is meaningless. But, i guess the question is about how the stubs would look to someone assigning an official grade: i.e., a "rip" vs a clean cut - if that were perceptible. I have some with stubs that look as if they were cut with a knife edge, so maybe Topps actually used a cutting tool to separate them for the small packs, or perhaps a collector at some point took a pair of scissors to the stubs to clean them up. On the other hand, since many, if not most, of the Redbacks around today probably came from the full-size packs, that is, from panels used to buffer the delicate All-Star and team cards in the packs, they were most likely "ripped" apart by young collectors in 1951.

[toppcat]

When Topps issued the set, I would say the panels of 2 were machine separated for the Baseball Candy nickel packs and possibly the penny's. I suspect the 1952 Doubles reissue contained hand separated cards and machine separated to a degree as some of the pulls from Doubles packs have looked raggedy (nubwise) in my experience. Did I just type nubwise?