Should this 1973 Topps #1 be a PSA 9?
BaltimoreYankee
Posts: 3,024 ✭✭✭✭✭
I was interested in this tough card once I saw the front centering but the back is pretty bad. I know the PSA standard is 90-10 for back centering. If this makes the cut, it's just by a hair.
Daniel
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Gorgeous front! Personally the dark spot/stain on the back bothers me more than the reverse centering. I'm just speaking for myself, but I don't look at the back of my cards very often anyhow so it wouldn't make a difference.
No doubt! I would as well.
Wouldn't bother me a bit if I owned it as a 9, I display the front and just don't care much about the back. JMO.
Same here. Still looks nice in a 9 holder though.
buying O-Pee-Chee (OPC) baseball
Would bother me and I would downgrade the card because of it. I care more about card backs than most people. I reason it is half the card but most feel differently.
Honestly, I’ve never seen a copy of this card with good front centering where the back was not pretty similar to this.
'73's in general are really tough with reverse centering. I once had a nice set of '73's with mostly good centering on front but many of the backs had really bad centering.
I will echo this, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a nice example of this card with decent centering on the back
I have noticed the same thing. I think the way this card is positioned on the sheet, if front is well centered the back is not.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
I concur with what others have said. The best I’ve seen is about 60-40 reverse centering when the front is decently centered. However, that’s extremely rare and usually found in lower grade examples. For this particular example, I would be happy with it other than the fact it has that stain. Due to that, I’m passing on this one.
I had a 1984 donruss mike schmidt diamond king Steele/Steel error with the back looking the same exact way, 90/10 or worse and they graded it a PSA 9. I saw the same card being sold by 4SC in a PSA 10 with the same back centering lol.
myslabs.to/smzcards
I would agree with this but grades shouldn't be on a curve. If all of an issue if off center, maybe an 8 is as good as it gets.
The fact that this card, being off center and with a stain, gets a 9. but another card having a nearly undetectable surface wrinkle on the back gets an automatic 6, leaves me baffled.
This card isnt a 9 IMO and why you have to price based on the example presented and not just on the holder.
If ALL of these are off-center on the back, the card is ok to me as a 9.
In any case, back centering is within 90/10 requirement for a PSA 9.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
I agree with Green Sneakers that just because every example of a card is a certain way does not make it acceptable in top grades. In fact, as I have mentioned here before, there is a particular wacky pack sticker that is literally impossible to find with better than 65/35 centering, otherwise it has a portion of another sticker showing on it. To me, that simply means the highest grade it can attain is a PSA 8.
Unfortunately, someone convinced PSA that common sense should be overridden, and that a card that appears miscut should be graded a PSA 9 or 10.
Here is some further discussion of that issue:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/11575186
I would certainly never give a card with a flaw a 10 even if every one had the flaw, but in this specific example of the Home Run card, I think a 9 is ok, it does meet the back centering standards. I could see it in an 8.5 holder too.
Not sure that's a stain, but that does bother me. I don't care too much about the backs of cards and I don't think PSA does either.