1970 Topps Baseball - What will these grade?

Gemmy10

As many of you know I am trying to build a complete set. I have about 260+ card from my childhood. Several, including stars, graded PSA 6.

I bought about 300 cards raw recently. Many have sharp corners and several are either miscut or trimmed. Also some of the backs of the cards look stained. Are the stains from gum? The person who sold me the cards had them stored in 9 pocket pages for about 10 years and I am not sure if they were PVC free. Maybe that caused the darkness.

To the naked eye the Munson card looks like it has 4 sharp corners but under a high resolution scanner the corners and bottom edge look "touched". Also the back of the card is poorly centered. What do you think PSA would grade it?

Also, look how the right edge of the Bristol card is. Either it has been trimmed or is badly miscut. But not to take any thing away from Mr. Bristol, but why would anybody trim a Common card so I think that it is grossly miscut. Several of my cards from my childhood are also badly miscut.

How would the staining in the back effect the grade if the front of the card was well centeted and the corners were sharp?

Gemmy10

Gemmy10

I forgot to mention all of the card except the Bristol measure the same size.

poolman

I have a complete 70's set. Sent some HOF's in to be graded, mostly 5's 6's and 7's. Also numerous duplicates of commons. I can't see the munson scan

Gemmy10

poolman, do you think those are gum stains on the cards?

Gemmy10

Gemmy10

Tunispaul

First of all, let me congratulate you on the largest scans I have ever seen posted, lol. I have a lot of 1970 cards that I put together in a set myself. My mistake, I think, was to concentrate more on the centering than on the corners. So I have an awesome centered set with a lot of cards that have "touched" corners. I would also like to see the opinion of others on these scans. This was brought up before but I do not like the white "print" line that is present on a lot of these cards. One other thing that I always wondered about is the card stock. I have a lot of cards that are brilliant white on the back. I also have others that are more of a yellowish color. The fronts are pretty much the same but how does PSA grade the difference. I don't believe that it is from fading. Maybe two different printing places? Thanks for the help in advance. Paul

Gemmy10

Paul, a lot of my backs on the cards from my childhood are white but the ones that I bought are a combination of white and some are brownish like the ones in the scans. Until I blew them up the Munson looked like it had 4 sharp corners. Also have you ever sent in any of your cards with the darker backs to PSA for grading? If so, what grade did they get?

Buccaneer

I am going through my completed raw 1970 set that I built in the 1980s (using some cards that I had when I first started collecting). Your cards look a lot like my cards. Of the two that looked at, I give the Wills a 4 and the Munson a 6. A NM cards cannot have any corner wear that is visible to the eye and this definitely has one corner that knocks it down. The Wills has all 4 corners being frayed; if it was 2 or 3 of them, I would give it a 5 but not all 4.

Gemmy10

Buccaneer, what about the dark back? What's up with that? Do any of your backs look stained?

Do any of the 4 cards look trimmed to you.

By the way, I reduced my scan in the first post as it was too large:

Tunispaul

Gemmy10-Check out Virtualizard's 1970 set on the All-Time finest list. He is number 3 and he has provided scans of the front of the card and the BACK!!!. I checked out quite a few of them and it seems like you can get an 8 with the darker colored back. This is why it is so awesome to post scans of your cards. It really helps the beginners in deciding what their cards might grade. Paul

A761506

ok... to answer your main question... what will the Munson card grade...

From that scan, it definitely appears like it has been trimmed along the bottom edge. If it has not been trimmed, although I'm nearly certain it has been, the maximum grade you are looking at is a PSA 5. I don't think they would do much to the grade based on the centering of the back, even though the PSA 5 qualifications state that the back needs to be centered 90/10. I've got some cards that appear to be miscuts when looking at the back, and they have not taken off much, if anything, for that.

As far as those other cards, the Bristol is obviously trimmed. I don't think that is a factory miscut, nor the trimming on the Munson. The other two cards look unaltered. The Wills would be a PSA 5, and the Senators rookies looks like a 7OC.

Gemmy10

A761506,

Looking back at some of my 1970's from my childhood that I sent into PSA for grading, I have found two PSA 6's whose back was as poor as the Munson, so now I don't think it is trimmed. My Munson card measures exactly with the dimensions of my other cards when I put it flush next to them.

Also, why would anybody bother trimming a super common card, the Bristol....simply not worth it.

Gemmy10

A761506,

Cases in point. 90:10? On the Pittsburgh Pirates team card you can hardly see the bottom border. Try 99:1 and yet it is graded PSA Gem Mint 9. Now why is that?





A PSA 8 with a darker back similar to mine:



White back:



Tunispaul,

Thanks for the tip. It doesn't seem like the off-center back or dark back will hurt much. I am encouraged since some of my cards are well centered and have sharp corners. There must be some PSA 8's and 9's in my collection.