1977 Crack Maradona Rookie Discussion

[aljurgela]

OK, So I have now received emails from 5 different people THIS WEEK about Maradona cards. Hopefully this is not due his terrible antics at the World Cup, but instead his success on the pitch. I have long thought that the 1977 Maradona card and the two Pele rookies (ALFA and Quigol) will end up being some of the most desired soccer cards. Therefore, I have accumulated a bunch of copies over the past 5 years. I am attaching 10 of my favorite copies. Since I have received questions, I figured that I would just post my thoughts.

1. There is A LOT of variation on the coloring and cutting of these "pog" cards. Check out the differnce between the SGC 30 and the SGC 84 below. Looks like Trump before and after the tanning salon!
2. Most will have some visible "notches" where the pogs were once attached to a more full piece of cardboard
3. If the printing was slightly off, it tended to mean that part of the border prints in white (not yellow) - this is NOT PAPER LOSS and is akin to being slight off center
4. There are some cards that have some seriously fuzzy photos of him. I prefer to avoid these cards, but they may not affect the grade (if the copy is graded by a TPG)
5. Most lower grade examples are such as they have been removed from albums and have some small paper loss on the backs - which many times is hard to distinguish
6. There are some of these cards that come on the market that look to have been soaked in water (trying to get off the albums?) and that tends to fade the coloring to the point where they are pretty undesirable (to me at least)
7. I have noticed a huge disparity in the PSA copies which I do not completely understand based on the scans that I have seen and basically am avoiding acquiring any PSA copies of this card at this time.

Anyway, I hope that this explains some of my thoughts with respect to the 1977 Diego Maradona Futbol Rookie Disc.