1933 Delong Mini??

[steve B]

I can give you the reason why an 80year old undersize card might have nice corners.

If there's a stack of say 50 cards in a box, and they're loose whenever the box is moved they move and the corners and edges take a bit of wear. Worse on the corners because the force of the bumping isn't spread out.

If they're really loose it might all work out evenly. But lets say the stack is tied with a little string. That holds them from sliding a bit like a rubber band would.
Only now the undersize cards corners might not stick out. And as it moves they don't get hit and don't wear. 80 years later the stack gets found and most of the cards are vg, maybe vg-ex. The small ones will be a bit nicer, maybe a lot nicer.

Of course they could also be trimmed.

That's why the way the edges are is more important than size. T206 were done on a guillotine cutter that leaves the front edge rounded slightly towards the back, and a very slight ridge on the back side. Had they been cut with the back facing up it would be the opposite. (Never seen one, but I have to think it's possible. ) Other cards have been done other ways and each way of cutting looks different in an extreme closeup. But none of them look like an exacto knife cut or a scissors cut.

Steve B

Originally Posted by DezHood

I respectfully disagree with anyone who has an issue with minimum size returns from TPGs. Without that, I think we'd have even more trimmed cards in holders and likely with high grades as these cards can often be very nice in terms of centering and corners (can't imagine why cards from 80+ years ago with sharp corners would be small).

I do like the qualifier idea - I'd have no problem with that, but not all TPGs use qualifiers.