How long have cards been trimmed?

[D. Bergin]

I know dealers were already doing it to upgrade condition when I first got into cards in the 80's.

As long as I could remember you had to keep an eye out for 71's being touched up with black marker.

Hell, even the Brits got into it. I would buy lots of c. 1900's Ogden's Tab Cards (Sports & Non-Sports) directly from England......and loads of them would normally be touched up a bit. They weren't even worth much at the time, but solid black borders always seemed to make people think they were restoration experts for some reason.

[Bridwell]

In the early 1970's, condition didn't seem to matter much and the cards weren't worth much. In the late 1970's, there was a craze where values jumped radically. Dealers started applying grades to the cards, and increasing the prices of the nicest ones. By 1980, there was certainly some trimming going on, but not very much (IMO).

Slabbing the cards in the late 1980's made deceitful trimming & altering a 'get rich quick' scheme for a few cheaters. It got worse in the late 80's to early 90's. I, personally, don't collect pre-1920 cards above EX-MT because I feel that a great many could have been trimmed. That includes even professionally graded cards of NMT and better.

[brett 75]

What about the idea of cards improperly trimmed coming from the factory? You see cards all the time diamond cut , uneven border, etc. I remember getting a Ron Blomberg from a pack of 1975 Topps that was about 2/3rds of the card and no it wasn't a mini ha! ha! . In the time before the rookie card craze if a card came up a little small did they really care or would they just have shipped'em out? Quality control would it have been a big issue pre 1970's? Brett

[steve B]

Quality control wasn't an issue well into the 80's. I have a number of cards that are either oversize or undersize. The oversize ones are pretty cool, and were easy to spot in dealers boxes.

The first quality control issue I can recall was a packaging issue with 81 Donruss. Each pack had 11 of the same card and I think 4 others. The first quality control thing I can recall with the cards themselves was 88 Score. Part of the first run had poor die cutting leaving tufts of cardboard fibers sticking out but only on About the first third of the set.They replaced them with run 2 which moved the die cut gaps in about 1/4 inch from the corners still leaving tufts but in a different spot. Third time they went with a die cutting mat with no gaps. It was a big thing at the time....The second batch is actually pretty tough- at least as tough as a late 80's main set card can be

Quality control is still pretty lax. The production process has fixed some of the problems, but there's still plenty of messed up cards that get out including a few that don't meet the size.

Steve B

[drc]

There's a difference between trimming and deceptive trimming. They trimmed cards Pre-WWII, but it was closer to cutting and hacking. No one was trying to upgrade an Ex to Nrmt-Mt.

[bbcard1]

There are also gunshy graders who when in doubt throw "evidence of possible alteration" on a card and make it somebody elses problem. At least so I have heard.

[bcornell]

Trimming cards has been practiced forever, but I always associate trimming-for-profit with the late 80's and, specifically, with the Copeland Collection. His effort to collect everything in high grades as fast as possible brought out the X-acto knives.


Bill