“Ideal” centering for 1954 Topps Banks

[scotgreb]

My humble 4. Centering is always my priority and I believe I did well with this one but had not considered all of the factors brought forth in this thread.



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[jchcollins]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I recently picked up a copy of this card that I consider to be ideally centered, and given that it was so difficult to find - this of course sparked interest. I can tell you from searching for hours on end at the National a few weeks ago, finding a nice one with room above his name at all on the top is a very tall order indeed.

That said - the “print cutoff” thing on the name - where like part of the E and S seems missing at the top - not just the bad centering / cut - does anyone have more insight into how / why this happened? I have noticed that almost all of the time you find a decently centered card with room above his name at the top, the print problem like that is there. Many examples where the card is OC or almost miscut at the top - and the print problem will not be there, the E and the B and the S will be fully formed. Wonder why this is…

[Zach Wheat]

Interesting thread. I always used to prefer sharp corners over centering until I ran into this set. No matter how centered the card is, they always look off center T to B because of the way they were printed. I prefer strong centering L to R, with a wide enough space above the name

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Interesting thread. I always used to prefer sharp corners over centering until I ran into this set. No matter how centered the card is, they always look off center T to B because of the way they were printed. I prefer strong centering L to R, with a wide enough space above the name

Yeah, it’s a nightmare set for centering purists. I’m not in my normal card collecting life, but have discovered over the years that if the centering affects how design elements (like name, secondary image on ‘54 Topps) are positioned in relation to the edge of the card, I quickly become a centering freak. Another example of this for me is the team lettering on 1963 Topps. With the colored full-bleed bottom border, ‘63s can sometimes be o/c and not really look it - but I absolutely hate it when the team name shows little or no color beneath it and looks like it was almost cut off at the bottom of the card. I recently got rid of an otherwise very clean ‘63 Mantle due to this problem.

I digress. ‘54 especially after you see uncut sheets is really just odd. The names for a lot are pushed to the top by virtue of the design and there is just not much room for error when it’s also badly OC. Same with the black and white action player image, many of which on the cards were designed to encroach into the border as almost a little gimmick. I’m a Cubs fan and the Banks RC was a must for me and my team set endeavors, but I am NOT a fan in general of the 1954 Topps layout.


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[jb67]

No doubt that finding a 54 Banks with good centering is a challenge. I managed to land this one. About as good I could expect.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by jb67

No doubt that finding a 54 Banks with good centering is a challenge. I managed to land this one. About as good I could expect.

Very nice. Can’t do much better than that up top, and you have nice s-s centering as well. I was actually looking for a card like that in the 3, 3.5 range - but figured I had better pounce on the 4 I found with it when I did. I had looked in Cleveland for 3+ hours and not found one that nice.


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