1950's Cards - Why are so many get high grades when they are "Tattered" - Pic Include

[that T206 Guy]

Originally Posted by swarmee

It's because the cards were cut with wires instead of long blades during many of those year (and especially on OPC). They are referred to as "rough cuts" and are how the cards come straight out of the packs. If the edges are smooth on many of those sets, you can assume that they've been tampered with or "sheet cut."

Although you don't like them, the fact that those are natural to the issue allows them to achieve high grades. And until it was shown that card doctors can also trim cards to look "rough cut", they were thought to be a sign the card wasn't trimmed. But you can see on the Blowout forums that many sets with rough cuts were trimmed and then re-roughed up in order to make the look natural. One the sets this was done to and detected on is the 1952 Topps Look-N-See set.

If they were cut differently why do they normally have 3 sharp sides and 1 rough one. Shouldn't they be all straight or all rough.