Is there a rule of thumb for slabbing horizontal cards ?

wolfbear

Was upgrading a set with some new additions tonight and came across this :



No big deal, just curious how PSA decides which end is up ?

murcerfan

Virtualizard

Maybe by grade? That's the only thing I can come up with. I've got a lot of horizontal cards (1960 Topps, team cards & leader cards from other years) all in PSA 8 and 9. I can't think of one I have in PSA 7 or lower. All of my horizontals are slabbed with the bottom of the card facing right when looking at the front of the card (as in the PSA 8 card in your example). Maybe cards graded lower than 8 are slabbed the opposite way?

Or could it just be a mistake on the PSA 7?

JEB.

mikeschmidt

The 1955 Bowman baseball cards (all being horizontal), are all slabbed the same way, like your PSA 8

toppsgun

(In answer to your question) I don't know, but there should be.

1961 and 1962 Topps baseball have "reverse" backs, i.e., the card number on the back of the card is at the bottom of the slab. Most other years, it's at the top of the slab. But with the horizontal team cards and 1961 "thrills" subset, PSA is not consistent on how they place the card in the holder. I even sent one back and requested it be reviewed and flipped. They bumped the grade up one, but put the card back in the same way (wrong!).

So the rule of thumb should be:

Place the card in the holder to line up the card backs with other cards in the set.

FB

From the 72 set, there are a number of "in Action" cards that are horizontal. Most of them come back slabbed like you PSA 8 - although I've got a few slabbed the other way as well.

As long as the grade is right, it never really bothered me much.

Vargha

The bottom one is a rare, inverse-slabbed PSA 7 1/1. It will command millions on eBay.

helionaut

My 1971 Greatest Moments are all slabbed so that when the card is held at the proper viewing angle, the label is on the right like the one at the top of the picture at the beginning of the thread. Except I just got one that is the other way round, like the lower one in the picture. My cards are all 5-7, except one 8. But I'm sure that has nothing to do with it. Whoever stuck it in the slab just got it backwards. But it sure did bug me. I thought for a second that it had been switched out, but I'm sure it hasn't. Just one of those things.