are "A" authentic SGC & PSA cards gaining momentum with collectors/dealers

[glchen]

Personally, I don't like to buy A cards due to trimming because I feel that encourages that behavior. For example, say someone has a very nice card, but with a tiny pinhole in the top of the border. The pinhole would automatically reduce the card to a grade of 1. The owner of the card would then trim the card to remove the pinhole. Now the card would have beautiful eye appeal of a card with a much higher grade, it will now probably even sell better than if it were encapsulated as a 1 with a pinhole. There are other examples of this where an owner might try to remove slightly dented corners through trimming. If this trend continues, I think more people would try re-constructing cards like the T206 Wagner and Plank and were basically re-built from scratch. In general, I don't like to buy A's at inflated prices due to these reasons.

I think the reasons that A's sell better these days are much like what previous posters have said. First the eye appeal of a trimmed A is nicer than a beater 1. The other reason is the crapshoot grading where if you keep re-submitting trimmed cards, unless it is very obvious, it might get a number grade in the future.