O-Pee-Chee, shaggy edges and my dwindling sanity...

[OPC Baseball Obsessed]

[QUOTE=YazFenway08;2046457]A question for the o-pee-chee experts here...

I like vintage o-pee-chee baseball cards and, as I have posted elsewhere on net54, I am just starting to dabble in graded cards.

my understanding of the "grading process" is that the age and genesis of a particular card is not taken into account by the grader...so for example, a '33 Goudey Ruth with badly rounded corners doesn't get graded a "7" just because its older, etc.

so, when I look at many o-pee-chee examples, particularly from the 70s, in slabs...they have that normal/typical rough-cut edge thing gong on...like they were cut from sheets with a chain saw. Cards that if they were "regular" topps i would never even give a second look at buying. Yet these cards seem to regularly get "7"s and "8"s. To me, that just arent near-mint

not trying to start another pro/con thread on third-party grading...I just don't understand this allowance in the grading. full disclosure...I am a collector that has always focused on edges, corners and no creasing over centering and print defects...so it is highly probable that I still don't understand the grading criteria very well even after reading the various TPG sites.

thanks for looking...and sorry as usual for the rambling.."

ANSWER:

I know this thread is old but this same discussion came up between me and my very knowledgeable Heritage Auctions Rep. I am selling an extensive vintage OPC graded star card collection that includes some of the highest grades given on some. Others, surprisingly, have some submissions graded higher. I've dealt in these for 25 years and they can take you to a dark, dark place......lol

Fenway you have hit on the big mystery. As ya'll may know, these were manufactured in a factory in London, Ontario Canada. At times quality assurance was good. Other times not. Miscutting was common. But certain sets seem beset by the "soft edges" whereby the side (usually right edge, or bottom of a horizontal card) is soft cut. Unsharpened sheet cutter is culprit.
1972, 1973, 1975 and 1976 cards seem most affected.

From my experiences, BVG punishes this condition by 1.5 grades, if the correlative PSA grade is the constant. One example is a 1973 Schmidt PSA 9 that was featured online recently. It had a soft bottom edge that touched the grading border in places. Otherwise beautuful card. Having opened unopened boxes and filed through probably thousands of the 65-76 singles, the soft edges dont bother me much.

Another example is the infamous 1971 Roberto Clemente #630. I have personally seen and examined around 10 of them. I own 2, one graded PSA 8 (oc). They all have had this "pin line" inside where the right edge border would be that looks like a light cutting line drawn on the card. Worse, its not straight. The card is punishingly hard to find at all, much less with centering required by the EX-MT+ (6.5) grade.

My Clemente is 8 (oc) with the line, and there is a decent amount of PSA graded examples of this rare gem (44). But all PSA 8 cards received a qualifier. There are five (5) PSA 7s registered, 3 are qualified.

If you have access to the BGS reports, which I do not, look at those grades. It will give you a good idea how these two companies grade these manufacturing defects that seem to apply to all copies of particular cards. However, the Schmidt does not qualify as one. I am selling a PSA 8 with a very sharp strong edge in Heritage's Catalog Auction for May. Thus, it appears PSA does not lower grades for the soft edges, within tolerances, I am sure.

One thing is for sure, the values of vintage graded stars is about to explode. With a production rate between 1-5% and general unavailability of them in the states until the internet age, a steep shift upward in pricing on these is coming. The grading percentages for OPC stars for the 1965-1976 era reflect about 2% overall for the same year topps cards.

The first group of auctions can be found here: https://www.ha.com/c/search.zx?saleN...ve-notice&FC=0

In the May catalog auction you will find a 1971 Ryan BVG 8, 1974 Hank Aaron #1 BVG 9, and several other of these rare cards in high grade.

[Exhibitman]

True factory rough cuts could be found on some Topps too. I once bought a childhood collection from an older gentleman who had a lot of 1954 Topps cards and many of them, untouched in 50 years, had one or more rougher edges. They graded 8s and 9s from PSA. That was even something I used to look for when shuffling through Topps products of the era.

OPCs have those great rough cuts even in the nicest cards. I haven't seen those downgraded either. The soft corners are a definite issue. I've got quite a few raw OPCs that are pack-fresh but with those rough yet soft corners.

[JollyElm]

Picked up this absolutely perfect 1972 Topps Jim Palmer with a 'Fuzz Cut' recently...

1972palmerroughcut.jpg

[Exhibitman]

Crispy OPC edges at their best

[toppcat]

I like the fuzz, always have.

[Eric72]

To me, the rough cuts signal a card is much more likely to be unaltered

[mantleman]

I use this mentality when I am on the hunt for a nice OPC gretzky rookie........never trust perfect edges on that card !!!

Originally Posted by Eric72

To me, the rough cuts signal a card is much more likely to be unaltered