All I see is TRIM!!!!!!!

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I put that set together a few years ago. What I noticed was the height was always exactly thew same but the length varied greatly. It took me a few Willie Mays cards to find one that wasn't extremely short with a couple of them being obviously trimmed.

This is common with a lot of the Topps sets too. Most of them measure pretty much the exact same in the narrow direction (L/R for a standard card, and T/B for a horizontal issue), but they can vary by upwards of an entire 1/4" in the long direction. A card that is trimmed narrow is often easy to identify because of this. But a card that is trimmed short could easily never be detected if it was tall to begin with. I think there are likely millions of trimmed cards in slabs.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by Snowman

This is common with a lot of the Topps sets too. Most of them measure pretty much the exact same in the narrow direction (L/R for a standard card, and T/B for a horizontal issue), but they can vary by upwards of an entire 1/4" in the long direction. A card that is trimmed narrow is often easy to identify because of this. But a card that is trimmed short could easily never be detected if it was tall to begin with. I think there are likely millions of trimmed cards in slabs.

Would agree.

Just a general comment on the topic of trimming...Size is not what graders are supposed to rely on for determining if a card has been trimmed. Looking at the edges and consistency of the cuts are factors which would more likely than not determine if a card has been trimmed.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

Would agree.



Just a general comment on the topic of trimming...Size is not what graders are supposed to rely on for determining if a card has been trimmed. Looking at the edges and consistency of the cuts are factors which would more likely than not determine if a card has been trimmed.

This is absolutely correct. Measurements help, but the look and feel typically give it away prior to measuring.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

Would agree.

Just a general comment on the topic of trimming...Size is not what graders are supposed to rely on for determining if a card has been trimmed. Looking at the edges and consistency of the cuts are factors which would more likely than not determine if a card has been trimmed.

That's true to a certain extent, but there are also a lot of slabbed cards out there that you can tell with absolute certainty that they have been trimmed simply by the size alone. If a card measures within spec, it measures within spec. And I would guess that the majority of trimmed cards are probably still within spec. But once a card gets too small, it simply has to have been trimmed, particularly for L/R cuts on vintage Topps cards.

[Scocs]

To me, here’s the bottom line: there are cards that are centered, have nice edges, and generally sharp corners.

I can’t tell if a card is trimmed or not.

So while it may not be a 100% perfect solution, I will inevitably place my trust in PSA or SGC that they are better able to detect alterations to the card than I could if the card is raw.

I don’t know what else to say….