Your take on discoloring of the shortside of cards?

[jasonspezza19]

Hi,
Was talking to a friend I sold some cards to and he pointed out that the short side (not the surface of the front/back, thick patches would have a big one to clarify the perhaps obvious) of some cards had either bleached discoloring or yellowed discoloring to some degree.

It sounds from him like the cards were greatly damaged because of this and would tank the "edge" grade a lot and lose it's value if graded.

I was a bit stunned because this is something I don't even think about or notice unless it's very obvious.

How do you even scan (because I can't capture this on a camera, it doesn't show) I mean some older thicker cards have a glue feel to it or even a rough almost hairy feel in between the layers when you touch it. Do you give a discount for this?

What's your take on it? Is the short side of card that important in terms of tones of coloring, more so than rough edges (as in edge towards front / backside), slightly dinged corners, scraped surface etc?

Would love your input

Andreas

 

[creasecollector]

I think I know what you're saying, and it could be the glue. I have one card (that I know of) in my collection where the glue is showing a bit on the side.

If they want to grade it, I think it could hurt value, but it's a very minor cosmetic thing over since the surface of the card still looks good. You sold the cards raw for x price and if it doesn't grade the way they are hoping that isn't your total fault.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't think it's a big deal and maybe offer a partial refund for the inconvenience to make him happy (especially since it sounds like a multi-card deal)? But I wouldn't give too much of a refund on it for something so small, especially if the card was sold raw and is in good condition overall.

 

[HammerHawks]

I don't think that's a big deal...it's just how the card is made. Some are going to be more prone to that than others. It isn't damage. It's just aging based on the construction of the card and the materials used.

 

[jasonspezza19]

I don't think that's a big deal...it's just how the card is made. Some are going to be more prone to that than others. It isn't damage. It's just aging based on the construction of the card and the materials used.

I feel the same. I compare this side of the card to the outer border of a painting or even the backside of one.

I think I know what you're saying, and it could be the glue. I have one card (that I know of) in my collection where the glue is showing a bit on the side.

If they want to grade it, I think it could hurt value, but it's a very minor cosmetic thing over since the surface of the card still looks good. You sold the cards raw for x price and if it doesn't grade the way they are hoping that isn't your total fault.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't think it's a big deal and maybe offer a partial refund for the inconvenience to make him happy (especially since it sounds like a multi-card deal)? But I wouldn't give too much of a refund on it for something so small, especially if the card was sold raw and is in good condition overall.

Yeah I mean I provided scans, and the sales-term were no other than normal. These are 12-17 year old cards, I could be the 2nd or the 15th owner from what I know. I had these stored away in box+lid+teambag+toploaders/magnet+softsleeve for atleast the last 7-9 years.

..I wish I could give a partial refund but since it was a 30+ card deal and in the several $100 price range I gave him an almost unreal discount. Some cards were 15-25% of what I gave for them or perhaps 8-15% of bv.

I went over most of my remaining Spezzas and picked out those that stood out as most miscolored. Managed to scan them as well. These are some of the "worst" of the perhaps 800-900 I have left.

I'd say the chance he happened to randomly pick out 30 others in which the majority was worse than this is zero. If his cards looks like this, it's logically in a worst case.

In hand you can definately see a change in hue towards yellow but I wonder if the average collector would notice it to the point that you bring it up to the seller. Front/back surface looks fine.

He says the bv went straight to low value and that I have sold him lower quality cards.

I think my mistake was to send several of the cards in old sunbleached toploaders which triggered this reaction (samples in scan as well). And yes during my years as actively collecting, those spare toploaders were sitting wide open in a box without a lid together with other card accessories with a window just a few feet away.

Well, I feel this is to demand a bit too much when buying 12-17 year old cards at 10-25% of bv. I don't feel the discoloring is that severe that the overall value suffers by 40-70%, not even close.

I'd appreciate others view on it as well.

Andreas

 

[jasonspezza19]

double post sorry.

 

[HammerHawks]

100% agree with you. Anyone who thinks that normal aging decreases the value substantially is just plain wrong. What are you supposed to do? The cards are made the way they're made. No one can change that. If I received cards like that, I wouldn't even think about it because I KNOW that's how it is. It doesn't decrease the value one bit to me. Yeah, would it be nice if they were white as snow? Sure. But that isn't even really possible with cards when glue/adhesive is used to construct them. Would a jersey collector get bent out of shape over a white jersey from the 50s being more of a cream color now? Of course not, because that's how the material works.