2 Questions/Observations about TPG Grading

[steve B]

The Leaf cards are about as difficult as it gets as far as using them for examples goes.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the two shown are in some ways entirely different cards. There are differences in most of the colors, especially the yellow that were differences between press runs. And those differences were on the plates themselves. The 6 is the more common, and even with the black inked a bit better, it always looks washed out and reddish in the face area. Leaf generally had horrible registration, and I believe some of the reason for multiple press runs was an attempt to hide the poor registration.

The common numbers have 3-5 distinct press runs, maybe more.

[Bigdaddy]

I've never understood the non-penalty for bad registration either. I'm in the last legs of putting together a '57T set and I can tell you that registration is a big issue. Other years, not as much. It especially shows up on cards where the photos are taken at a distance, so that the facial features are either clear or fuzzy. Took me a while to find a nicely registered 'Dodgers Sluggers' card. You can also see registration issues quickly on the team cards.

Shrug.....

[Kenny Cole]

Look at some of the photographic cards from, say, the Old Judges. Cards where you can't even make out the player because the photo has disintegrated can get 4 due to corners while a sharp photo with rounded corners gets a 1. I'll take the one, where I can actually see who the player is, over the 4 every time.