how did Topps cut cards
craig44
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Here is a question I have wondered about for years. I understand there are certain cards which are well known for being off center (79 Ozzie etc.) I wonder how only a few cards on a sheet are unlucky enough to be consistently cut off center while all other cards on the same sheet are centered? I think what I need is a video/image of the machines topps used years ago to cut sheets. I have not been able to find anything online, and I just cannot envision a mechanism for cutting large quantities of sheets that didnt cut them all at once. it seems if they were all cut at once, every one of the 132 cards on the sheet would either be centered or off centered. Maybe someone could help put to rest this long held question of mine.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
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scissors
You probably won't find any videos or footage, probably not even any stories about the method they used. But from my understanding, the cutting was a stand-alone process and was fully automated once the sheets were fed into the machine. Operator loaded up the appropriate sheets and out comes a stream of cut cards that were swept up and put into cases (cut card cases)... which were then later used to fill the inserting machines for pack creation!
As far as the actual cutting process, I believe the sheet was gripped on the left side while horizontal slits were cut for the rows. Then from right to left, a vertical blade cut off a column of cards at a time.
So to your point, the horizontal slits could cause all cards on a sheet to be OC (if not aligned). The vertical cuts probably varied a bit depending certain things in the process... but we do know the edge cards tend to be OC more than others.
The cards on the edge of the sheet are typically toughest to find centered and/or in higher grade. 79 Ozzie RC is one of those.
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.
Without regard to future collectors.
Good stuff guys. The information Baz518 provided is consistent with my understanding of the process. Below I've scanned in an article from the Topps Magazine from late 1990. This article is the source for most of the behind the scenes info I've been able to gather about the Topps production process in Duryea. In the 5th photo you can see sheets being fed into slitting machines. The uncut sheet looks too large for this particular machine in the photo. But the general idea seems correct.
And finally this iconic shot from the 1970's that others have no doubt seen before:
Another guy from a Facebook group got a video of the OPC factory from a local Canadian TV station that was archiving its old films. He put the video up on Facebook but it has since been taken down and only the stills are there.
Finally, a name to pin it all on. Your card is OC, blame Ron Werner.
I worked in the printing industry for a few years. Topps cutting machines were larger than ours, but generally the same process. The sheet is squared top and left in the printing process, the same goes for the cutting process. Once a stack of printed sheets is ready they're put in the cutting machine squared the same way. The first cuts cut off the borders where the alignment and color information is printed. Then, re-cut again to produce the final product. Any number of actions can cause the sheets to get misaligned and thus, OC cards. 1 - slight waivers/misalignments as the ink goes on the paper leading to the images on the sheets not exactly lining up with each other in the stack, 2 - sheet not properly loaded in cutting machine, not squared, etc. - at least two opportunities for this, 3 - blade dulling - just like a guillotine desktop paper cutter that pulls, roughs up the cut edge, etc. Obviously, Topps was interested in some quality control - no printer wants to produce inferior product, but these were 5/10/20/25 cent products so margins were small and keeping waste down was critical to making a profit.
So do i understand correctly that these cutting machines first cut the sheets into individual rows, then cut each row into single cards in a multi step process? I always envisioned a one step process where multiple sheets were stacked on top of each other, then multiple blades cut each individual card in one motion. with the volume of cards produced, it must have been a very quick process.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I expected to see some 70s cards and boxes up there in Laverne & Shirley's hands, not 1991 Topps!
Feel like I just got cat-fished here!
I don't think the rows were ever separated, when they slit the rows the left side of the sheet is still gripped by the machine... the vertical cuts are what made the individual cards (producing 12 cards per column). At that point, the cards are collated together and come out as a stream of cut cards... picture #6 is the "sweeper" gathering those cards and loading them into cut card cases. You can see how diamond cuts occurred... if the left side of the sheet isn't flush when it's gripped and they start cutting, the horizontal slits and the vertical cuts would actually be at a slant relative to the sheet.
thank you so much for the information. things are much clearer now. It is absolutely shocking to me, now that i better understand the process, that any card ever left the factory in mint or gem mint condition.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Panini has these videos too..
Nic
Guides Authored - Graded Card Scanning Guide PDF | History of the PSA Label PDF
It is amazing every card is not damaged seeing these videos and photos. Never imagined all the handling they went through to get them cut and in the box.
It's all ball-bearings these days!
Good post!
I worked in the printing industry for 24 years, and did a lot of cutting, but certainly nowhere near the quantity involved at Topps.
I used a guillotine shear, a punch press and a router at one time or another to cut our product. This was before laser cutting was affordable. We did not use any kind of rolling blades, as they were deemed too slow. We never discussed any kind of cutting using a wire that I can remember.
Using a guillotine shear we took 36"x48" sheets, cut them down to 24x36 and then to 12 or 18 x 24'. Our printing machinery was not big enough to print on the big sheets like Topps can.
I always felt that the Topps sheets were printed, then cut in half or into strips and then finally into individual cards. Picture #5 above looks like it could be cutting the full sheets down into strips of 4 x 11 cards. This would be 3 equal strips of 44 cards making up one full sheet. I doubt that this is a production area, but possibly a "test" area. I can't imagine Topps was cutting the sheets one at a time.
Note also that the outside borders are much wider than the distances between the cards.
I can't see how all the cards from a sheet could have possibly been cut all at one time, like in a punch press. Using a punch type cutting process leaves scrap around each piece being cut, some kind of blade MUST have been utilized. I suppose a vibrating wire would work too, as has been stated OPC did. OPC may have simply cut more sheets at a time and/or used their blades after they got dull? This would explain (to me anyway) why not ALL OPC's product has a rough cut.
Obviously the shear pictured is hand operated and much smaller and simpler than what Topps might have used/uses.
The square piece of metal protruding from the "bed" of the shear in the photo had a "stop" in it that you could set at whatever size you needed to square up the sheet, and there was an additional adjustable "stop" at the back of the machine that you set for the size you wanted. You would cut off any waste (if need be) from the far edge of the sheet, then slide the sheet into the shear until it touched the backstop and cut it. The cut piece of material falling onto a table underneath. If your sheet didn't touch the backstop evenly along the entire edge, the rest of your sheet was going to be miscut.
We cut several thinner sheets at a time, (we cut material from .0062 up to .098 thick). if we tried to cut a few too many sheets at a time, we got "chipping", more and we got a "rough cut" and if we really tried to do too much the material would actually "weld" together at the edges. It was only then that the boss would bitch at us.
I am sure Topps was intending to produce "perfect" cards. The problems arise when you actually try to produce MILLIONS of them a day at a low cost. I'm sure there were/are inspectors along the process, but obviously Topps was just fine shipping their "rejects", otherwise cards like the NNOF Thomas would have been scrapped.
Sorry for the long post, I'm sure most gave up on it a while back ;-).
Perfect cards are as much a result of luck than anything else. I seriously doubt that other than overall size, (to fit in the packaging), centering, print defects and creases etc were ignored. I doubt that they had an inspector checking borders and making adjustments to the machines.
As each new shift came on, a new operator MIGHT have took a good look at how things were set up. This had to be an extremely boring job after a while!!!! Where I worked, the managers wanted the machines running at all times, even during breaks when there were few, if any, workers watching the machines!