Trimmed or Minimum Size
 

Is there a way to tell if a card has been trimmed or if it came from a vending box, and deemed minimum sized?

What is a give away?

if there is a way to tell most professional graders don’t know it.

HaHaHa!!!!!

Best way is to compare to a few other cards from that year. Hold the edges together and see if they are the same size.

Thank you Adam. Yes I realize that holding one card to another tells me if the card measures correctly or not.

My question is / was if there is a way to tell if a card is trimmed or cut short ( minimum sized ) .

Neither will measure correctly, but what do I look for if a card was trimmed?

What do I look for if it's minimum sized, and not trimmed?

I will put the card in question in the middle of about 20 other cards from the same set. I like to use a small pocket type top lighted microscope. Then go over the edges of all the cards when still held together. Usually if one has been trimmed the cutting pattern will look way different than the other cards.

+1. I have never thought trimming detection as an exact science.

Brady Playoff Contender
 

Odds are if you send PSA a BGS Playoff Contender Tom Brady rookie you are going to be told the card is factory short.

Compare the color of the edges. A trimmed card will Have fresh - not aged cardboard on the outside as it has been cut away. Also the straightness of the cut. It is extremely difficult to do a good job trimming a card. Look for jagged or uneven cuts or an edge or border that isn't straight. Put the edge against a flat surface and see if it is flush. Usually a minimum size card will be miscut one way Side to side or up and down - not both. But if someone did a really good job trimming you may not be able to tell the difference.

me either Leon...I'm the world's worst......

Couple strokes of a finger and that factory fresh isn't factory fresh any longer. Trimming is usually apparent to me after I acquire the card. And I think we have all heard or seen (many) stories of a TRM going to a numerical grade on resubmission.

Cards made 75 or 100 years ago were't made in a NASA or MIT laboratory. Isn't it a little absurd to believe they were all exactly the same size coming out of some little printing room somewhere? I always wonder when someone says a card is trimmed whether maybe it was just printed/cut lousy in the first place. Obviously no way to tell that.

Here's a lesson to be learned. To buy a bulk lot of rookies or not....

In the 80's, a lot of uncut sheets from the major card makers were obtained by people that cut the sheets or had them cut to get the "rookie" cards. A lot of those rookie cards were sold in huge lots so when they're stacked they all look absolutely perfect in size (relative to each other). However, yes there's a but here, in some cases if you compared one of those cards to a card from a pack, it could have been smidge narrow or short. If you sent the card in for grading it would be apparent to the grader that the card was a smidge narrow or short but not to you because you purchased a stack of them that were all uniform in size. The card would be returned as trimmed from PSA.