How does card position on an uncut sheet affect centering in the manufacturing process?

tkd7

I've been trying to figure this out for a while now. I know that Topps produced sheets of 132 cards. I am assuming these sheets were then cut up to make individual cards (duh). But what is the process that was used? Are cards first cut into strips and then cut into cards?

The reason I am trying to understand this is I see mention of certain cards that are hard to find centered. I'm trying to understand the root cause of this problem. It would seem to me that the cutting process would either produce an entire group of cards that were either centered or not. I am trying to understand why the card making process would be biased towards card location on a sheet leading to one card being more likely to be off center than the others on the sheet.

Maybe there are some uncut sheet collectors that know the answer.

Forgive me, I'm an engineer, so I like to understand how these things work.

mikeschmidt

tkd7:

You are assuming [perhaps incorrectly] that ever card on a sheet is exactly properly placed and spaced between one another. Remember - just a centimeter off can make a card off-center.

Also - the position is important in terms of the alignment process. I think the cards were basically all cut at once. [e.g. not into strips first]. That said - when the cutting process is commenced, the usually the blades are lined up to one of the corners. So if they align the cutting to the top left corner, even a slightly off position of the sheet can make the card on the bottom right corner severely off-center or diamond cut.

~ms

baseballfanatic

Though I am not an engineer, I have often thought the same thing. You would think that all of the cards that were cut from the same row would have the same problem since the blades would have to all be lined up the same. My take was that one blade could become worn or loose, causing the same rough cut or same off cut on the same card, rather than effecting the whole row. We all know how big business loves to put a "bandaid" on a problem, so I could picture Topps employees in maintenance walking around with wrenches trying to keep everything in working order rather then worrying that one baseball card out of 132 was cut 1/16th off to the right more than any of the others. As long as the machine cuts, be it through the middle of the card or leaving a perfect margin all around, the presses keep rolling.....

mikeschmidt

<< <i> We all know how big business loves to put a "bandaid" on a problem, so I could picture Topps employees in maintenance walking around with wrenches trying to keep everything in working order rather then worrying that one baseball card out of 132 was cut 1/16th off to the right more than any of the others. As long as the machine cuts, be it through the middle of the card or leaving a perfect margin all around, the presses keep rolling..... >>



Let's be fair, though. Pre-1990, Topps was primarily making these cards for kids. And people in the pre-1990 world, even the vast majority of collectors, didn't really give a flying f* if a card was 1/16th off-center. The supreme focus on centering today is largely a function of the grading card paradigms. Although there were a handful of collectors twenty and thirty years ago that cared about well-centered cards, the focus today is a result of the $$$$ associated with high grade cards, which depend on good centering.

tennesseebanker

I know when I was a kid I would actually prefer off center cards because I thought they looked cool and were almost like an error card, I would especially like them if they had been miscut to the point of having another card on it.

baseballfanatic

<< <i>

<< <i> We all know how big business loves to put a "bandaid" on a problem, so I could picture Topps employees in maintenance walking around with wrenches trying to keep everything in working order rather then worrying that one baseball card out of 132 was cut 1/16th off to the right more than any of the others. As long as the machine cuts, be it through the middle of the card or leaving a perfect margin all around, the presses keep rolling..... >>



Let's be fair, though. Pre-1990, Topps was primarily making these cards for kids. And people in the pre-1990 world, even the vast majority of collectors, didn't really give a flying f* if a card was 1/16th off-center. The supreme focus on centering today is largely a function of the grading card paradigms. Although there were a handful of collectors twenty and thirty years ago that cared about well-centered cards, the focus today is a result of the $$$$ associated with high grade cards, which depend on good centering. >>




I agree 100%. These pieces of cardboard were an incentive to sell gum! I was just saying, I dont think Topps gives a flip about the centering of thier cards, and I dont mean that in a negative way. They are concerned with initial values (which used to be selling 10 cards for a dime) rather than secondary market values.
Believe it or not, I had a close friend back in the 70's and 80's that would throw away miscut cards right out of the pack! Unlike Levi (and I wont get into that again), he thought that the cards shouldnt be continued in the marketplace. A lot of the original collectors couldnt even get a PSA 1 out of 90% of thier cards, even though they are probably the rarest of all, because they really didnt care about the monetary value of the cards and would trim them, write on them paste them etc etc.
WAY too much time has been devoted to the monetary value of a card, which is arbitrary anyways, but the spin off of the monetary value has put billion dollar companies like PSA and Beckett into the marketplace. They push for the $$ aspect to be the main issue of the hobby, or they would be out of business......

tkd7

I think mikeschmidt had a good thought that hadn't occured to me. If in the design of the original printing plates, say the typical space between images was 8 mm. If for some reason when the Willie McCovey image was laid out on the plates only 7 mm were between the Willie McCovey and Bob Cerv images but 9 mm were between the Willie McCovey and AL Home Run Leaders, the sheet may be cut perfectly but the image layout leads to an OC Willie McCovey. This would lead the modern day high grade card collector of a "typically OC card" to really be looking for a centered card that was created in a way that left every other card on the sheet miscut.

My guess is that sheets were printed and loaded into a cutter and cut into rows. There was probably some tolerance for loading each sheet which would create miscut cards. Then strips were cut into cards, also with some tolerance that would lead to diamond cut cards. I can't picture a process that wouldn't first cut cards into strips. Simultaneous cross cutting blades seems too advanced for bubble gum card manufacturing anytime before 1989.

When I was a kid I did think miscut cards were great. It was something different. Now if that was all I got, I don't think I would have liked that.

Now that I read auction catalogues and see "Low Pop" I have to come up with some root cause.

royalbrett

I would hate to see the other cards on a sheet if the same sheet produced a centered 1976 Brett.