Tale of 2 1953 Topps Mantles

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by MCoxon

I just have to believe the centering phenomenon is here to stay.

Any more, under PSA or SGC holders, you can't see the wrinkles or minor corner wear nearly as well as you can see the very ugly lack of centering - thus, centering trumps corner wear - and god forbid - small creases

I know there are threads elsewhere on this, but I think the centering issue will fundamentally change go-forward grading standards, and will also dramatically drag down prices of off-centered (but not qualified) graded cards in the same way that prices of raw cards have been dragged down starting about 15 years ago once grading became prominent.

I'd love a statistical analysis of centered 5s vs. off centered (but not qualified) 6s for high-end star cards. I'm guessing the centered 5s beat the non-centered 6s

I'm not sure. Grading has been with us since 1991 and while centered cards of course always enjoyed a premium, to the best of my knowledge the mega-premiums are a very recent phenomenon. The downside of this is that it encourages power erasing, which as I understand it is not always caught.