A Noteworthy Pair Of Mantle RC Sales - Re: Grades & Eye Appeal

[pokerplyr80]

I think we were discussing these two cards on Peter Spaeth's wtb thread for the 51 Mantle and that it would be interesting to see if we could find one auction that had an off center card with a higher grade and a card a grade lower with great eye appeal to test if people are really willing to "buy the card not the holder."

The consensus was that these two would not work because of the crease. It appears we were wrong, that someone was still willing to step up and pay extra for the centering despite the crease. If that PSA 4 didn't have the crease I think it would have sold for more than that PSA 5.

[pawpawdiv9]

I looked at these the other day, I didnt even notice the crease on the elbow, without zooming in on it.

[ls7plus]

We had a thread I started several years ago about eye appeal vs technical grade. While it ultimately gets down to specific cards and cases, eye appeal is tremendously important, and, I think, gaining ground. I have a 1935 Diamond Stars "Greenburg" error which is virtually perfectlty centered, with some corner wear, but no creases--a very nice raw VG. But I prefer it to the ExMt example I sold some years back due to the far superior centering of my current example. And just picked up a nice '34 Gold Medal Flour Dizzy Dean with four nice corners and superb centering which had been graded just "VG" due to a wrinkle in the card that you had to hold at just the right angle to even detect. I far prefer it to one graded SGC Ex which is still being advertised for sale on ebay, which has what I would call poor centering.

Always a good topic.

Regards,

Larry