There are quite a few 'In Action' cards from the 1972 Topps set that are just a nightmare to find anywhere near 'perfectly' centered (#40 Bob Barton IA and #50 Willie Mays IA immediately come to mind). Don't take this as scripture, but they are generally found cut correctly (no tilt), and just OC left to right or top to bottom. Once in a while, though, a centered version does pop up. Probably because Topps printed so many freakin' cards that year, that the blind squirrel found an occasional acorn, as the saying goes.
But it gets stranger. I don't have a pic of an uncut sheet of cards from that series, but all of the other series runs had the IA cards grouped together in the corner of the printing sheet (usually with 2 of each card in the layout). So here is a list of the 12 different cards that would have been neighbors during the first series print run:
32 Cleon Jones IA
34 Billy Martin IA
36 Jerry Johnson IA
38 Carl Yastrzemski IA
40 Bob Barton IA
42 Tommy Davis IA
44 Rick Wise IA
46 Glenn Beckert IA
48 John Ellis IA
50 Willie Mays IA
52 Harmon Killebrew IA
54 Bud Harrelson IA
Now, virtually all of these guys are hard to find perfectly centered, and I'm reasonably certain no one is aware of this, but it's apparent that the Harmon Killebrew IA card just exists in a whole other universe altogether. This card is one of the most ubiquitous cards out there (you probably have 5 of them within reach right now), but although there are untold bazillions of them wherever you look (ebay, COMC, card shops, etc.), I dare say you will never see one perfectly centered. Among other things, they are almost always found off-centered way to the left and 99% of them are noticeably tilted to the left, like so:
1972killebrew52.jpg
Even when you think you have found one, a closer look will undoubtedly reveal the image to be slightly tilted to the left. In looking at the PSA page, I do see there have been a handful of cards graded a 10, but I'm wondering if they, too, actually have a slight tilt and/or are off-centered a bit more top to bottom than should be the case? I dunno.
So what’s the point of this thread, besides to simply point out this anomaly? Well, obviously, if anybody has one perfectly centered (with no tilt whatsoever) I’d love to see it or trade for it, but more importantly, if all of these cards were printed together, why in heck don’t the other ‘In Action’ cards (and the 'regular' cards, too) on that sheet show the same wicked ‘Killebrew tilt’ throughout the run?? It's not like the blade was running straight and then suddenly veered off when it reached card #52 and then corrected itself again. Some cards, like Cleon Jones IA (and perhaps others) have a lot of tilted versions, but not nearly at the same rate as the Killer’s card. And (assuming he wasn’t at the very top of the print sheet) if you follow the left edge of his card and treat it as a cropping line, wouldn’t a large percentage of the images on the cards above him be sheared off as the cut continued upward?? Why isn't that the case?? It makes no logical sense.
Anybody wanna bet that soon after this thread is posted someone is going to post a picture of a bunch of 1972 Harmon Killebrew IA cards they have that are perfectly centered?? Ha ha!!