71 Collecting and Issues on NM Cards

[Frankish]

Originally Posted by TCannon56to71

I went back today after getting feedback and looked closely at the long description from the seller. Seller says "claimed grade (NM in these cases) does not refer to any marks that may be on backs of card or CARD SIZE". So he must know?.

Yeah, that sounds suspicious. I mean the seller made a disclosure, sure, but it's just a more sophisticated version of those sellers that found a 51 Mays in the old lady next door's attic, looks real to them but buyer must decide for himself...without ever actually seeing or handling the card in person.

Anyway, are you still looking? And how tight are you condition? I have a pretty nice 71 set I'm thinking of breaking up. Most of the cards were bought raw as "NM" but many are not. One thing I can say for sure is the none of the cards have been altered...all bought from original collectors. If any are short, they were packed that way. Anyway, if you're looking, I could pull out the high numbers and check condition. If not, no biggie.

Cheers!

[Tere1071]

There was a previous discussion regarding cards that came out of the vending boxes that were found to be slightly shorter than those that came from retail packs. Could that be true of the 71s?

Phil aka Tere 1071

Working on my 71 Topps Baseball set
(13 needed to complete)

[ASF123]

Originally Posted by Tere1071

There was a previous discussion regarding cards that came out of the vending boxes that were found to be slightly shorter than those that came from retail packs. Could that be true of the 71s?

I think you may be referring to a question I had last fall about a few cards that I bought. They were indeed 71s and 72s, and I got comfortable that they were factory cuts - but they were a bit narrow, not short.

[jchcollins]

My guess would be that a lot of short yet very straight-edged cards would be from vending.

[JollyElm]

Something else to keep in mind. If you send cards away to be graded, the short ones might shoot you in the foot, even if they actually came out of the factory that way. In one of the fairly recent group subs, I sent out nine 1971s. These are cards that I've had since the late 80's, early 90's, and never had even an inkling that they were doctored in the past. One third (3) of them came back ungraded with this assessment - "N6: MINIMUM SIZE REQUIREMENT." It is very possible that they were nothing more than simply 'factory short.' Bummer.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Something else to keep in mind. If you send cards away to be graded, the short ones might shoot you in the foot, even if they actually came out of the factory that way.

Yep. PSA is willy nilly random on this kind of thing. N6 supposedly means they don't think the card is trimmed, but yet it does not meet the size requirement. So they are acknowledging by that the cut is factory, but yet they still won't grade it. To me this is the epitome of third party grading bull$hit. Either a card is altered, or it's not. But yet for years they have insisted on this gray area as part of the process. I know many collectors who have submitted the same card multiple times. One time it may be N6, the next time it's trimmed / altered, and the time after that it gets a PSA 6. If you think these guys know more about vintage cards than you do if you've been collecting for decades, then you are being extremely generous. Just my 2 cents. #RantOver.