Is this real Mantle RC?
 

I am about to trade for this card. First of all, is the card real? The centering looks too good for this card and only got SGC 5.5? I just want to make sure before trading away some high dollar cards for it.

Thanks

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Looks real to me and is a blazer, but your scan is not good enough to tell if the edges of the slab have frosting from being taken apart. SGC slabs are easy to "crack" with a butter knife. If the slab is sturdy and doesn't show signs of being glued back together, you should be fine. You could make the deal contingent on inspection at a card shop. It's quite possible the seller also has the new SGC-provided high res scans of the card when they graded it, so ask him/her for them. Gorgeous card, with only a hint of misregistration in the ballcap, so I'm leaning towards real. Good luck!

Virtually all SGC slabs, both new and very old show some type of internal "debris", from where the slab halves were pressed together. The key is whether or not the fingernail test actually compromises the seal, not just whether or not it looks like it was glued. I have many SGC slabs which through edges with frosting, internal marks, etc. - might be interpreted to have glue in them somewhere, depending on who saw what. I am confident they are all good. I will agree they can be opened fairly easily, and think that both that and the appearance of the edges / production process might be something SGC could work on - especially in consideration of the fact that the face of their slabs generally present so well.

Will agree that card looks authentic / untampered with to me.

My big question is why is that only a 5.5? Seems like that would be higher based on what I can see. That would be my red flag

There are 5-range cards that look like 3's, and then some that look more like 7's that were undergraded. It's difficult because EX is a catch-all middle grade. If the corners and centering are really nice, the card might have a difficult to spot surface problem that reduced it, or something else on the back. I've seen vintage cards that look like they should be given 8's or 9's based on centering and corners graded 5 due to very light surface wrinkles - yes, even on the front. They aren't supposed to do that, but I've seen it.

You would probably need more detailed scans, or to inspect it in person to see precisely why that one graded what it did. But I would agree just from that one scan, it looks fantastic for the grade assigned and not like a garden variety 5.5. Congrats if you pick it up!

I see the card up on eBay.

Click on this seller's feedback and then click "Received as a seller." You will see that he only deals in modern cards. Does he know his vintage cards? If somebody switched that Mantle card, would he be able to catch it?

I bought a PSA 5 this year, but I got it from a person who has sold many high-end vintage cards before, so I was very comfortable dealing with him.

Why? The card has wear on 3 of the 4 corners. It looks properly graded to me.

Agreed. The corners still look sharp, but you can tell if looking closely that they aren't perfect. Honestly throughout the history of TPG's, 5's have been all over the place. I've seen some with liberal minor corner wear, but if the corner is still all there (i.e would still be described more as "sharp" than "round" at an arm's length...) it gets a 5. On newer ones - at least from the PSA perspective - they seem to give 5's to cards with sharp / very nice looking corners that have other technical problems which will not rate higher. SGC is more of a mystery to me, but I had a least one 5 returned late last year that I suspect was due soley to centering.

In my experience the SGC slabs really stick out if they have been cracked and resealed. I have a few that have a lot of frosting on them that I got graded. If you compare them to ones that have been cracked open there is a huge difference.

I am sure in hand with some magnification you will see why it got that grade. I have a 4.5 Ted Williams that in hand looks like a 7 till you find the pin head size bad spot under magnification.

If cracked, the edges can break unevenly; I'm not sure you would even be able to to fit them back together on a straight line. SGC occasionally gets flack for having "easy" slabs to bust - but if the point is more simply to tell when an authentic slab has been compromised, I don't think SGC is any worse than anyone else.

Sounds like a nice Ted Williams. Cards that present fabulously but have some tiny technical issue which suddenly makes them affordable are generally my favorites.

I've always said SGC grades tougher, and that Mantle might just be one of those, but then again, as I have been going through some of my cards, some of which I haven't gone through since acquiring them from my father many years ago, it's surprising what I see now that I didn't see then.

My Sal Yvars, although somewhat rough looking, is covered in wrinkles/creases that don't show in the scan but clearly do just by tilting the card slightly.

That 5.5 Mantle is definitely not like that, but there has to be something there that the scan is not picking up properly.