Describe eye appeal importance.

akuracy503 · March 7, 2010 1:04PM

When you talk about high value high demand cards are you looking for centering, registration and corners as top consideration?

Are surface creases less desirable than soft corners, is registration more important than centering?

Name your order of importance in a mid grade high dollar card:

1. Centering
2. Registration
3. Edges
4. Corners
5. Surface

akuracy503 · March 7, 2010 1:08PM

By the way sorry I know this topic has been beaten to death.
For those who want to participate and chime in I just wanted to give a little checklist format to answer the thread.

Ease · March 7, 2010 1:16PM

1. Centering
2. Corners
3. Surface
4. Registration
5. Edges

high eye appeal card has got to be sharp & centered to begin with imo...

akuracy503 · March 7, 2010 1:21PM

would a sweetly centered mid grade with light surface wrinkle kill a grade of a card?

storm888 · March 7, 2010 1:24PM

1. Centering

2. Surface

3. Corners

4. Edges

5. Registration

Obviously, registration becomes more important to "eye appeal"
if it is bad enough to detract from the card. Usually, it is not.

ToneD · March 7, 2010 1:27PM

I'm a centering nut myself so my list starts with centering. On a card in the 4-5 grade I'll take natural corner wear with perfect centering anyday over a card with sharper corners and off centering. It's all personal preference though.

1. Centering - Most desirable to me
2. Registration - very important. I don't like to look at fuzzy images. (In my best Pete Puma voice) It gives me a headache!!!
3. Surface - Light wrinkles are ok but I try to avoid cards with creases.
4. Edges - Slight edge damage not a big deal to me.
4. Corners - Honest corner wear acceptable.

Blacklabelsociety · March 7, 2010 7:30PM

<< <i>When you talk about high value high demand cards are you looking for centering, registration and corners as top consideration?

Are surface creases less desirable than soft corners, is registration more important than centering?

Name your order of importance in a mid grade high dollar card:

>>

1. Corners
2. surface
3. edges
4. registration
5. centering

MBMiller25 · March 7, 2010 8:35PM

1. Centering

2. Surface

3. Corners

4. Edges

5. Registration

toothshucker · March 7, 2010 9:14PM

When I'm looking at a card for purchase- I start with the cards corners. And I think this is the most challenging to evaluate. What really is a sharp corner vs a "fuzzy" corners vs a card with minor corner wear, paricularly with the naked eye ? 10X mag has helped but sometimes I feel like a geek if I use it at a show. I've got lots of PSA 8's and 9's that have one or more fuzzy corners. I've found BGS/BVG is toughest on corner wear though then GAI > PSA = SGC in order of toughness.

Next I look at the cards centering in a very instinctual way. Is he cards centering pleasing to my eye or not? If it is not I move on. Sometimes depending upon the actual photo pose/player position on the card or color borders on the card, off centered cards can be ok. I can't stand "diamond" cuts though- they ruin a cards esthetics for me and because they take so much away from the eye appeal of the card, I can't understand how a "diamond " cut can achieve a 9 mint grade. BVG toughest then GAI> PSA = SGC. Qualifiers hurt PSA here.

Next I check the Color, Registration, and Surface Gloss. In my opinion these are what really makes a high end card for a particular grade, particularly a gem mint 10 card. I don't like out of register cards at all. When I look at them I keep thinking that I need reading glasses. Deep color is really great and very slight surface scratches are ok to me. PSA is the toughest for color and surface gloss in a 10, then SGC=GAI=BVG. In a 9 SGC = GAI > PSA = BVG

Next I look at the edges. To me these are least important. A rough cut is ok in most circumstances. BVG ridiculously tough on edges to the point of scrathing your head about it. Overall PSA = SGC =GAI >>BVG

The Gestalt- Putting a card all together in vintage high grade material- PSA most realistic/consistent with a close second between GAI & SGC then BVG (because BVG too tough on corners and centering, although a BVG 9 always "looks" like a BVG 9 as well as a high end PSA/GAI/SGC 9.

Kind of confusing ain't it. Pete

Garabaldi · March 7, 2010 9:28PM

Centering
corners
registration
surface
edges

ymarea · March 7, 2010 9:35PM

<< <i>would a sweetly centered mid grade with light surface wrinkle kill a grade of a card? >>

Such a wrinkle would knock the card down to as low as 4, although I have several sweetly centered cards with a small wrinkle in 5, 5.5, and even (1) 6 holder. The wrinkle may kill the grade, but not the eye appeal.

For me:
1. Centering
2. Corners
3. Surface
4. Registration
5. Edges

I used to be much bigger on sharp edges, but having collected many OPC CFL (notorious for rough cuts) and rough '57 Topps baseball, I now see a certain charm in rough edges that I never saw before. I don't love 'em, but I can certainly live with 'em.

firstbase23 · March 8, 2010 1:39AM

1. Centering
2. Regsitration
3. Corners
4. Surface
5. Edges

cwazzy · March 8, 2010 1:58AM

<< <i>I'm a centering nut myself so my list starts with centering. On a card in the 4-5 grade I'll take natural corner wear with perfect centering anyday over a card with sharper corners and off centering. It's all personal preference though.

1. Centering - Most desirable to me
2. Registration - very important. I don't like to look at fuzzy images. (In my best Pete Puma voice) It gives me a headache!!!
3. Surface - Light wrinkles are ok but I try to avoid cards with creases.
4. Edges - Slight edge damage not a big deal to me.
4. Corners - Honest corner wear acceptable. >>

This is mine exactly.

The card that I'm the least fond of in my collection is a PSA 6 '53 Bowman Color Roy Campanella. The centering is perfect! But I paid so much attention to that aspect of the card that I forgot to look at registration. When I got it in the mail i noticed that the yellow on the card had shifted about 1/8th of an inch and caused everything to be fuzzy. I can't look at that card w/o feeling A LOT of buyers remorse. It bothers me enough that if I saw a perfectly centered, nice looking PSA 5 I would be tempted to trade it even up.

digicat · March 8, 2010 2:03AM

I'm obviously in the minority.

1. Registration
2. Surface
3. Corners
4. Centering
5. Edges

For a low/mid grade raw vintage card to stick in a binder, centering will be in the top, but for a graded vintage card, I regard "absence of damage" higher than centering. I'd rather have a PSA 9 OC than a PSA 7 with 50/50 centering.

The nice thing is that since centering is king for most folks, I can get cards I'm happy with for a discount.

saucywombat · March 8, 2010 2:06AM

If the eye appeal isn't there you're probably not going to care about her charming personality, though "special talents" may still increase your overall interest.

Describe eye appeal importance.

Comments