Hi everybody.
I know this question is like the egg or chicken's one, but your opinions will certainly help.
In a raw NM+ set, which is worse between a mint but OC (30/70) card and a EX-EXMT dead center card ?
In other words, which small defect or qualifier decreases most the card's eye appeal?
Creasing apart, Is OC worse or not than any defect for a bigmoneycard (no ex or -)???
Hi Phil
I think if you have a NM set, then any NMMT card that is off center only 70-30 would certainly fit in with the consistency of the set, more so than a dead center ex card. This is a very subjective situation and I believe you will hear the opposite from some collectors who put centering as a premium. In my own collection a nice NM raw set would allow for factory defects such as centering. I would be more likely to try and upgrade a card with soft corners than I would upgrade a NMMT card with 70-30 centering. I would always be able to identify my set as NM to NMMT rather than EX to NM. Dave Martell
As Dave mentions this is a personal preference thing. I personally do not find anything 80/20 or better an issue as I would much rather have a higher grade card off center than an EX card that is centered.
when i was making my vintage raw card sets the main factor that made my decision over NRMT+ OC vs. EXMT CENTERED was the over all eye appeal factor.depending on what year or design of the card you are putting together,the over all eye appeal really helped me pick my cards.
for example lets use the tall boys 1964 topps,that design looks terrible if it is off centered so i would take a centered exmt tall boy over an oc nrmt+ card as my choice,as my set does have a mix of nrmt-mint cards down to ex cards which i dont mind adding an exmt card too.
like david said,if you are strict in having a consistent grade then that will be a different decision to make.
i have a lot of nrmt+ to exmt raw sets in my collection and i really enjoy them the way they are,just my 2 cents.
I agree with the majority--a NrMint card that is centered no worse than 80/20 is perfectly acceptable. At least you know that is the way it came from the factory. Condition of the corners and edges always catches my attention much more than centering. Centering is something that I have to really focus on or I won't notice minor variations.
When I first started collecting, I couldn't believe that people actually cared about something like centering, but once I looked at hundreds and hundreds of cards over the years, I realized that centering does make an impact on the eye appeal of the card. I still think it's a forgivable flaw, unlike corner dings or creases.
