The Curious Case of 1972 Harmon Killebrew...

[JollyElm]

I was asked what exactly was meant by, "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??"

So I randomly superimposed a Killebrew IA card (third column from right, fourth row from bottom) over a different IA card in a photo of an uncut sheet, and then drew a line (in white and it's easiest to see it by starting at the top of the image) along the edge of it and upward to show how the cut would've screwed up the cards (in this case) above it. In creating this graphic, it wasn't done to perfection (in fact, it's a bit of an overly conservative reading of the actual angle of the tilt), but this will give everyone a good idea of what I'm talking about…

1972killebrewcutfinal.jpg

[bobsbbcards]

Mine's pretty nice, but there's still a bit of tilt.

[ALR-bishop]

It looks very nice to me Bob. if you detect a tilt to the card, just tilt your head in the other direction when you look at it.

[murphy8276]

The PSA 10 last sold went for a steal for registry purposes, but it wasn't a PSA 10 IMO. Had tilt and several spots of PD around the outsides if you ask me. Should have been a PSA 9 pd.

[jmoran19]

here's the full 1972 first series sheet.

Killebrew IA is on right half, column 9 row 8 and 11

John

[JollyElm]

Hey, John, thanks for posting that! Been looking for one for quite some time. In the example I created (above), I was very close to getting the proper placement right. Pretty cool.


As stated, there is a huge percentage of Killebrew IA cards that are cut on an angle, but when you look at, say, #17, Dave Duncan, cards (two of which appear in the same column as the Killer cards), they are obviously O/C virtually across the board, but there is barely an angular cut to be found in the group.

Take a look here to see a whole bunch of Killebrews (with a ton of angle cuts):
https://www.comc.com/Cards,sl,=1972+52

And here to see a bevy of Duncans:
https://www.comc.com/Cards,sl,=1972+17

How does this make sense?? If the blade was straight and the sheet was cut on an angle, the offending angular cut of the Killebrews should appear on a similar percentage of all the other cards in the row and (most likely) on all the cards printed on the sheet.

What in high heck is going on?????

[steve B]

Since the masks would have been done by hand, it's possible the card is a bit crooked on the sheet. I expanded to 200% and still couldn't see any difference, but it would be pretty small.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

I was asked what exactly was meant by, "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??"

This assumes the sheets were cut vertically into long columns first, then cut into individual cards horizontally. Doesn't it seem more logical the sheets would have been cut horizontally first, then the rows cut vertically to make the individual cards?

But in either case, if the cards were miscut, in other words, not completely rectangular, then holding a stack of cards with a Killebrew included would make the Killebrew stick out. Since I don't believe that is the case, the answer must be what another poster said: the Killebrew image itself was tilted on the sheet, and the card was cut correctly.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by Mark17

This assumes the sheets were cut vertically into long columns first, then cut into individual cards horizontally. Doesn't it seem more logical the sheets would have been cut horizontally first, then the rows cut vertically to make the individual cards?

But in either case, if the cards were miscut, in other words, not completely rectangular, then holding a stack of cards with a Killebrew included would make the Killebrew stick out. Since I don't believe that is the case, the answer must be what another poster said: the Killebrew image itself was tilted on the sheet, and the card was cut correctly.

I was sort of using the vertical cuts as a stand-in for either vertical or horizontal cuts, but you're right, I should have specified both possibilities. It's funny, because the more and more I look at the card abutting Killebrew, Cleon Jones IA (one of my favorite Mets from childhood), it seems that a much higher percentage of them are tilted than I originally thought. But (and it's a big BUT), the card occupying the spot on the other side of Killer, Billy Martin IA, is always, always, always O/C, but 'rarely' ever found with any sort of tilt to it. That just deepens the mystery of whatever was going on back then even more. There could possibly be some other sort of basic explanation to all of this. For instance (highly unlikely), perhaps Topps' quality control people actually did their jobs and tossed out multitudes of overly-tilted cards, but an inordinate number of Cleons and Harmons squeaked through? I doubt it, but who knows? Personally, it's tough for me to imagine that Topps laid out the sheets and somehow misaligned the Killebrew card. Certainly something to consider, but I would think the chances of that being the case must be pretty remote.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Personally, it's tough for me to imagine that Topps laid out the sheets and somehow misaligned the Killebrew card. Certainly something to consider, but I would think the chances of that being the case must be pretty remote.

Only 2 possibilities.

If the Killebrew card is on the sheet straight, then the cut is wrong and the card won't be in square. Easiest way to tell is take a stack of cards, put a "tilted" Killebrew in the middle, and feel with your fingers if it is perfectly aligned with all the other cards. If it is, the cut was square and the "tilt" would by necessity be attributed to its positioning angle on the sheet.

If the card is not cut with 4 square 90 degree angles, then cards adjacent on the sheet must have been impacted by the common miscut edges. In this case, if the cutting process involved cutting sheets into rows first, the impact to other cards would be greatly lessened, only affecting the cards to the immediate left and right.

My guess is that they are cut square, with 4 90-degree corners, and the card image is slightly tilted on the sheets. Maybe at some point they realigned it to account for the better examples you've found, or, since it was a double print, maybe one was aligned better than the other.

[JollyElm]

I don't want to argue minutiae here (as I got this thread started again to celebrate my acquisition of a centered Killebrew IA card, WOO HOO!!!), but if the sheets were printed correctly and then became slanted (placed incorrectly?) in the cutting machine/on the cutting table/whatever (not properly squared off prior to slicing), then as long as the second cut(s) were perpendicular to the original 'angled' cut(s), you would still end up with perfectly rectangular cards that had tilted images on them. (Obviously, not every card on the entire sheet would be usable, because at some point you would go off the page, so to speak, and you'd have to chuck some miscut/malformed cards out...unless maybe you had a large enough gutter to handle it...but all of the eventual keepers would be of the correct size and shape, just skewed.)

[Mark17]

I don't want to pursue this further so this will be my last on this topic.

If the card was correctly aligned on the sheet, and if the final card was perfectly rectangular, but tilted due to miscut, it would mean:

Whichever cut was made first, vertically down the whole sheet or horizontally across the whole sheet, the problem you initially described would result in quite a lot of significant miscuts. The second cut, likewise, would create the same tilting on every other card on the sheet.

If the initial cut was clean, so as not to negatively impact the other cards, but the other cut created the tilt, then the card would not be square.

Think of it this way. Impose a grid over an uncut sheet, make the Killebrew tilted, and, as your diagram shows, every other card on the sheet gets goofed up too, many resulting in bad miscuts. There is no way Topps would've cut that much scrap (waste) without correcting the problem, and quickly.

Best explanation is that the cutting equipment worked properly, every card on the sheet was cut square and the Killebrew image, at least one of them, was a little off.

[steve B]

Mark is correct.

The most likely thing is that the Killebrew in at least one position was laid out with a bit of tilt in relation to the other cards.
As bad as Topps QC was at the time, nobody wants to make loads of really bad cards. They had no problem shipping them once they were made, but a few thousand non- square cards would have been a problem.