Differences in "Eye appeal" within the same grade
 

Hi Guys,

Working on my main Topps 67' set and lesser so some replacements of my 69'.

67' is a very "colorful" set.

The green backs on the 67' set can vary greatly within the same grade. Also the front color.

You could have 2 PSA 8's and one would have a somewhat faded back and one would have a bright green back. Same with front color. The Pete Rose for example. You could see an example with very bright red and a not so bright red card within the same grade.

I was recently replacing my 69" leaders cards which are cards 1-12 with bright red outline. I received a card off Ebay perfect in every way except the red outline was faded. The card it was replacing which had badly dinged corners, had far better brighter red color. Very tough to tell on Ebay as many sellers enhance the color or brightness on the photo.

Does anyone have an opinion on these color issues for these years?

Much appreciated,

George

Or even this kind of 67 green back...

Coloring difference exist in most Topps sets. There are at least two versions of each 1957 card, lighter and darker. The 68 set, beyond the Milton Bradley backs, has different shades of yellow in different series, and many sets have white, grey or cream backs, sometimes mixed in the same series. We have a lot of printing experts here that can weigh in on other front differences. Exposure to light sources can also cause differences, or there can bemissing colors like black or blue, or too much color


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This is at least partially why "buy the card, not the grade..." is a thing. Earlier this summer I bought a '76 Nolan Ryan that was a PSA 8. When the card arrived, it had a noticeably faded or "washed out" appearance in comparison to other cards I have from the same set. I'm not sure if this was not evident in the scan before I purchased, or if I simply wasn't paying close enough attention.

Anyway, long story short - I sold the PSA 8 and replaced it with an SGC 5 of the same card for less than half the price. The 5 of course has much brighter color / improved eye appeal, even if the corners are worse & not perfectly sharp. Remember that in the final analysis, a number grade is based in most cases on pure technical aspects first over and above subjective eye appeal. Nice technical qualities often equate to improved eye appeal, but there are nuances that means this is not always the case. TPG's are notorious for doing things like killing the grade for minor corner wear, while ignoring coloring problems which in some cases present far worse.