53 Bowman Color Condition Debate With a Friend

[Tere1071]

As I've chronicled previously, I started assembling my 53 Bowman color set in December of 2019 and completed it by late April of 2020. At first, I was purchasing only unslabbed cards off of eBay and still do, but I ran into situations where I was receiving altered cards. I saw two that were relisted on eBay this evening, the Spahn and the Martin/Rizzuto cards.

Since then I've focused more on slabbed cards in the 5-6 range, which is the condition that I find satisfactory. My major stars, Mantle, Musial, and Reese are in vg/ex and will probably remain so; my Berra is an o/c 5, but most of my set isn't perfectly centered which is okay with me. The only real issues I have with collecting are rounded corners, trimmed cards, and wrinkles/creases. There are three cards with creases in my set and about another thirty with corner issues which I'm seeking to upgrade. As for my slabbed cards, I really don't want to break them out, but instead, trade them for their "natural equivalents" someday.