What is the PSA Tolerance for Card Measurements?

[commishbob]

This gets close to something I've been thinking about since the whole 'trimmed and then graded' scandal has broken loose.

A few months ago I bought a nice, raw '75 Yount as one of the last cards for my set build. I bought it from an eBay seller with tons of positive feedback whom I have bought from several times before. I pulled the card from the packaging and examined it and something just seemed 'off'. It took a couple of seconds but I was suddenly aware that the card was not standard size. I laid it down on a stack of other '75s on my desk and sure enough, it was just a tiny bit narrow.No way was it simply a factory miscut. This was trimmed.

Now I've handled many, many raw cards in my many decades of collecting but I'm far from an expert and yet I was able to pick up on the card being 'short' almost immediately. I just sensed it as I examined it in hand. If I can do that how is it possible for graders, whose job it is to spot these things, can let so many go by?

Volume? Boredom? Or something more nefarious? I have opinions but I'll let it all play out. So far, to my eyes, the statements made by the parties involved have been woefully lacking.


BTW...I contacted the dealer via an eBay message and received an almost immediate response which included an apology and paid return label. They forwarded me all the tracking info so I knew the card had reached them and within a half hour of that I was refunded completely.