How Much More Will You Pay For Great Centering?

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by UKCardGuy

+1

For me it about balance. Sharp corners and a good surface are first. Then centering. It also depends how bad the centering is. I can handle 70/30 but 90/10 probably not.

I'm with you. Centering is important, but not sure I'm on board with it being exponentially more important than every other aspect of condition that hobbyists have been judging for decades now. I've been known to occasionally keep a worse centered card with nicer corners and better color over a perfectly centered one with lesser attributes elsewhere. The last time I recall that definitely happening was with my '73 Schmidt RC.

In general, I can tolerate mild OC simply because it was so prevalent in cards that came out of postwar packs in the 1980's and before. 70/30 one way usually doesn't bother me. If I have to look at a card twice to determine whether or not it's miscut - that and things like 90/10 centering or "sliver" borders - usually do bother me.

On the whole I kind of chuckle at the centering craze that has enveloped the hobby post year 2000 or so. It's really just cognitive bias. I don't recall anyone at Topps ever coming out and saying that the "perfect" Topps baseball card had to be cut perfectly centered. Why do we believe this today? Because of hobbyists (and ahem, graders...) drumming that into us at every opportunity for the past 20 or 25 years, probably. Yes, a well centered card is a thing of beauty, I won't deny that. But just because that is true does not mean that a mildly OC card is inherently ugly / a pure factory reject from the word go, owing only to our modern day biases.

[GeoPoto]

Trigger Warning: My intent is to surface two ongoing auctions that may be of interest to followers of this thread/poll. In doing so, I intend to mention PWCC and discuss the two auctions as though PWCC is just another auction house. In doing so, it is not my intent to endorse the past, present, or future business practices of PWCC.

PWCC currently has two 1953 Topps Jackie Robinson #1 PSA 6 EXMT on auction. One closes on the 11th; the other on the 14th. The first one has full borders, but is badly centered; the latter one is close to perfectly centered. At present the first one is at $1,575; the latter is at $3,600.

It looks like as good a "vote with your money" poll on centering as you are likely to get.

[tkd]

In the past I would pay a premium but today the premium seems far greater in most situations. In this market I'm much less picky. For example I'm looking to collect the goudey Ruth's again and I'll take a bit off centered with nice eye appeal, color, focus and so on.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by tkd

In the past I would pay a premium but today the premium seems far greater in most situations. In this market I'm much less picky. For example I'm looking to collect the goudey Ruth's again and I'll take a bit off centered with nice eye appeal, color, focus and so on.

Yep, most collectors aren't that picky, so if you are looking to buy cards as investments you are much better off buying something that you can resell at VCP. Just a lot more buyers out there at that price point so the liquidity is better.

[conor912]

For my PC, I won’t typically pay a huge premium. That said, I will pay a hefty premium for great centering if I am buying for resale, knowing a lot of guys go gaga over 50/50.

[GeoPoto]

Badly Off-Center: $3150
Perfectly Centered: $9142

[Tere1071]

On the "Certified, Qualified, and Glorified" thread in the Watercooler discussion board the emphasis is on having the card, rather than looking for perfection. Yes, there are certain cards that don't have an appeal if they're off-center, but if one takes a good look at the cards displayed on this thread, there's nothing wrong with having them in one's collection. It comes down to what pleases the individual collector and perhaps affordability.

[dio]

Bold color and registration over centering for me. Check out all these 52 topps mantle psa 1. Some great centering one with faded and beat up you can hardly see Mantle's face clearly. I rather have clear picture with him with bold color. Psa OC is a great buy