A Simple Poll. What is Your O/C Preference?

[JollyElm]

I'm wondering what people's preferences are regarding off-centering. (If you never buy off-centered cards, this poll is not for you, so move on.)

If you were buying (forced to buy?) an off-centered card and had to choose among these four possibilities (I kept it real basic by only including one-way centering issues, and not adding other multiples such as top AND left, bottom AND right, etc.), which one would you prefer???

Which orientation looks the 'best' or is the 'most acceptable' in your mind?


1. Pushed to the left, as so...1966mantleleft.jpg. 2. Pushed to the right, as so...1966mantleright.jpg


3. Pushed to the top, as so...1966mantletop.jpg 4. Pushed to the bottom, as so...1966mantlebottom.jpg


(FWIW, these cards are just composite images of the same card. I used photoshop to manipulate the original screen grab to push the image to each of the four separate extremes - left, right, top, and bottom.)

[rsdill2]

That's some pretty slick photoshopping there. Kudos.

Never really thought about it but it's neat to see them all in a row like that. Suppose if I had to choose I'd go with the last one (pushed to the bottom) but I'm not real sure why. I suppose when I first analyze a card, that's the last direction I mentally measure so to me it's the least obvious.

[Bill77]

I went with pushed to the top, because my art degree tells me that matted photos are supposed to have a larger bottom boarder and small top boarder. It was just something hammered into me every semester while cutting mattes for my photography class finals for four years. But honestly speaking I have cards that are off center in every direction because sometimes the price is too good to pass up.

[riggs336]

For some reason (maybe because I'm a moderate liberal) my eyes tend to concentrate on the center and left parts of cards.

[Neal]

4 ... and then 2

[Tere1071]

Originally Posted by riggs336

For some reason (maybe because I'm a moderate liberal) my eyes tend to concentrate on the center and left parts of cards.

This brought a smile to my face.

[Casey2296]

For left/right I would take #1 based on the image, Mantle is facing left to a more open space because of the skinny border and allows the eye to flow off the image and leave the card. #2 he is facing a wall with nowhere for your eye to leave the image. The diagonal red border on the left also helps balance against the heavy border on the right.

Up down would be #4 pushed to the bottom since the large red name border balances with the large top border.

[Jim65]

Pushed to the bottom
Pushed to the top

Never liked cards OC side to side.

[Tere1071]

On my 53 Bowmans, which are notoriously oc, my preference is pushed to the bottom and to the right. It also depends on the image, some cards don't display well oc especially if it's side to side.

[Leon]

A majority opinion if pushing to the bottom is this. I want all of my T206s to look like this one, condition-wise.

[Empty77]

Either top or bottom are better problems, because it is less obvious to the eye/brain psychologically that a card isn't just designed that way (even if intellectually one knows the border is supposed to be even all around on that issue). Between those, pushed down looks better to me since the top-center is typically the main section of the card, in the sense of where the player face/torso usually is, so having what passes as an adequate border in the area where one first (and perhaps only, if taking just a quick glance) looks seems more soothing to the eye.

(Not sure if my opinion counts since I might buy a card that's a little off, but never one designated o/c).

[Oscar_Stanage]

When I think about top/bottom OC, I think about the 1954 Topps set, which is designed with no top border... since I really like this set, I think I prefer 'pushed to the top"

[One 'ol Cat]

Centering may be my most important criterion. I could accept squashed corners, slight creases, wax stains - way before I could accept bad centering. A lot of the Topps issues in the 70's suffered from centering issues, and I remember, as a teen, combing through the doubles for the best centering.
...Now if you hand me a badly centered Ty Cobb...I might be malleable...

[Phil68]

To the bottom. It's really the only centering issue I can live with at all. I've tried to talk myself into cards with poor centering and can't do it.

[JollyElm]

Virtually 90% of respondents prefer a card that's either pushed up or down, with the vast majority preferring it closer to the bottom. This certainly fits in with how the human eye operates, but I'm somewhat surprised more people didn't choose one of the side to side options. Interesting.

[frankhardy]

Originally Posted by riggs336

For some reason (maybe because I'm a moderate liberal) my eyes tend to concentrate on the center and left parts of cards.

I voted pushed to the top. However, with the above logic, I think I want to change mine to severely miscut to the right.....like so....

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by Casey2296

For left/right I would take #1 based on the image, Mantle is facing left to a more open space because of the skinny border and allows the eye to flow off the image and leave the card. #2 he is facing a wall with nowhere for your eye to leave the image. The diagonal red border on the left also helps balance against the heavy border on the right.

Up down would be #4 pushed to the bottom since the large red name border balances with the large top border.

Agreed. I would go with #4.

[jchcollins]

I generally prefer slightly OC top to bottom, but also care way more about how bad the OC problem is over and above what the direction of the problem is. I can usually live with 70/30 one way, cards worse than about 85/15 usually tend to bug me, though I will say in cases of really "bad" off-centering - it usually depends on the individual card. For example because of the way the borders were designed - some '53 Topps cards can be waaaay OC and not bother me at all. But for a set with background contrast and white borders where the centering is going to be very obvious (most '57 Topps cards, for example) that doesn't work.

I will say that I still kind of look at the sudden explosion of "centering as the number one condition criteria" only in the 21st century as kind of humorous. Sure, centering is important - bad centering beyond a certain point can totally destroy the eye appeal of a card - but to me it's still just one aspect of condition and grading. I'd much rather have a mildly OC card with perfect color and registration than a perfectly centered one that is slightly faded or has print problems. I will admit about a decade or so ago I kind of hopped on the centering train as it were, and was very picky for a period of time. Then at one point I had two different copies of a '73 Schmidt which matched what I just said. Comparing them side by side to me it was a no brainer which dupe to sell - I sold the better centered one that had worse color and slight print snow, and kept the slightly OC one that to me looked better. The cards were raw, but both arguably in the EX-MT range.