1981 Topps Baseball Scratchoffs

Wabittwax

I just bought 10 boxes of these and I'm in the slow process of opening the packs and looking for gradable stuff. I know that PSA will grade the full panel of 3 or the cards individually. Does anyone have any experience on separating the cards? Is it ok to make a clean cut along the perferation or do I have to tear them and make it look like crap? I was going to try a few with a clean cut to see how they come back from PSA.

These remind me very much of 1975 Topps. The corners greatly resemble them under a magnifier. It does appear though the the red cards seem much tougher than the green ones so far.

Anyways, I should have a ton of raw and graded stuff after I'm done if anyone is looking for anything in particular. I probably won't have anything graded for a few months though because I'm gonna wait for a special.

Anyone dabbled in these yet that could offer some advice?

Panama Mutiny (Formerly lawyer05)

Well i know that i had a problem with perforated cards. I sent the first cut with a blade and had them graded. I sent the second submission of perforated cards cut the same way and they returned all 38 cards stating that if its perforated it means it canoot be cut. I was given a voucher for my cards. Thats my say so call them first before you do anything and sell me the carew carew, omar moreno, stennett or sanguillen of those cards.

rbeaton

I think full panels are much more difficult and would sell for more $$$.

I would be interested in any high grade Jim Palmers which you come across.

Robert

mikeschmidt

<< <i>I just bought 10 boxes of these and I'm in the slow process of opening the packs and looking for gradable stuff. I know that PSA will grade the full panel of 3 or the cards individually. Does anyone have any experience on separating the cards? Is it ok to make a clean cut along the perferation or do I have to tear them and make it look like crap? I was going to try a few with a clean cut to see how they come back from PSA. >>



I don't think clean cutting them will work - I think PSA might ding them for being trimmed. I am by no means and expert, Steve, but I have submitted a number of these over the years for my player registry set[s].

Here is an example that 4SC recently got - they've graded a few of these out recently:



In general, the panels tend to be worth a little more. I would pay very nicely for any 9s of Schmidt panels that I need. No panel has ever graded 10, I believe.

On the flip side, one card from every pack of three will have significant wax residue on it - and in those cases, sometimes separating out a single card or two might make more sense, since the panel would definitely be qualified otherwise.

In grading these cards, the three most important things, I think, in descending order of importance are A) The Corners, The Centering and C) The amount of black over the circles.

~ms

Carew29

Ye olde Bic razor blade has worked well for me.

dontippet

This is what I did after opening 25 packs. I first looked at the full panels and selected some for grading. Then I looked at the individual star cards and separated them for individual grading if the respective full panel had faults on the other portions of the panel. Out of 25 packs, I may have submitted two full panels and two individual cards. I believe I got PSA 8's.

bishop

Marc---I am not a graded card person so I do not know reallyy how PSA handles the perforated issue, but I do collect the 67 Punch Outs ( I still need 12 to complete the set) and they also came in a 3 card srtip that could be separated ( I have two unseparted strips). I have bought a couple of graded specimens from Goodwin in his auctions and they were obviously trimmed of the perforation edges but still had very high grades ( 7 or 8s) from PSA.

I have a set of the 81 Scratch Offs. There are only 108 players but there are 144 "cards" in the set given different panel combinations

RedRomad275

I have had the same conversation in regards to stamps and stickers. The bottom line is that if the card has perforations then they cannot be cut or they will be returned as trimmed. I spent several hours working with some stamps until I got one that I thought was good. It came back a 9. Cards are a bit different as the effort to sperate them at the perforation requires more effort hence possibly damaging the card. Maybe that is why the large amount of lower grades.

I agree with mikeschmidt about the grading. Corners and centering are big issues. Especially with the red cards.

Red

Virtualizard

Marc,

Maybe PSA has changed their stance on cutting vs. tearing, but a few years back, Darton submitted an '81 Scratchoff of Schmidt that he cut with an exacto knife - I can't remember the grade, but I'm pretty sure it was 8, 9, or 10. I have cut a few Squirt cards in a similar manner and received grades of 8 and 9 on all of them. I have also "cleaned up" the cut on a few '60s Post cards that were originally cut large (still showing the border), and they've all graded as well (lower grades, but still graded).

Again, these submissions were all 2-5 years ago, so maybe they've changed the grading criteria.


JEB.

carew4me

Well I just had 45 or so Wheaties FB stamps that were exacto cut on the perfs returned as "evid of trimming".

$300 lost for a rule that is stated no where on the website.

redlegs

I had three cards just graded from the 1981 Squirt set that came back graded as PSA 9's. The Squirt cards were issued in two card panels. I used a paper cutter rather than separating them at the perforations.

ledsters

Steve,

I would be interested in an uncut or unseparated panel with Ozzie Smith.

Thank you.

Kevin

Wabittwax

<< <i>Well I just had 45 or so Wheaties FB stamps that were exacto cut on the perfs returned as "evid of trimming".

$300 lost for a rule that is stated no where on the website. >>



Wow, that sounds like a load of crap. If others on here had them graded and they kept your $300, that doesn't seem right. You just changed my mind though about this whole project. PSA seriously needs to address this issue if people are losing this kind of money. PSA vouchers is one thing but keeping all your money is just plain wrong. If it was for enough money, that might be something that would cause me to quit playing the grading game altogether, or at least switch to another company.

RedRomad275

This restates my opinion that PSA need to be more clear to the cards that they do or do not grade and issues like perforations should be included under the hand cut rules. I think the simple addition of a page listing the "DO NOT GRADE" cards would be fairly easy to add and maintain.

Red