General Forum

 Hi all.  

Look, I'm an experienced collector, but I'm also generally a trusting soul. I've picked up my eBay purchases (and sales) a lot over the last year or two, which has frankly helped reinvigorate my interest in the hobby and makes it fun and more convenient. 

But now I'm wondering, just a bit mind you, about card trimming and how one could tell. Today, for example, I received three 1968 Topps cards. Nothing valuable--I paid $1.75. They are in maybe Ex shape and were advertised as such. Not graded or anything, of course. And they're all slightly different widths. I'm not actually suspicious of these cards, but it did get me to wondering if anyone knows more about the actual legitimate variations in card widths, which I figure there are. 

Thoughts?

Thanks.

v3

 Back in the past., cutting the cards out of the full sheet wasn't an exact science.  If the full sheet was not centered by a fraction of an inch, it would result in the cards on that page being off centered.  Basically, that is what you have when you have different sized cards from the same set, some are just off centered when cut out of the full sheet.  Depending on how noticible, it can effect the pricing of the care. If parts of the name or picture are cut off, then the value is dropped drastically.  However if it is just a boarder offset, the value may depend on how noticible the off set is.  You will find that not many cards from the 1960s are the exact same width.  Quality control was all done by sight, not computers.

 Thanks. I figured. This was just more noticeable.