Why do you suppose good centering is so hard to do?

As sophisticated as our society is, you would think I would be able to find decently centered 2007/2008 Bowman Chrome refs.

Lack of understanding of importance from the people Topps outsources to? (I do understand other companies have this problem as well, i.e. Razor Metal).

I always wonder about that too. Not only cards, but our dollars are never totally centered either. Granted they printing them off faster than toilet paper. :lol:

Burge needs something to do with his free time.

Sheets of cards are fed through the cutting machines at a tremendous speed.
So a placement variant of only a few milimeters can result in a horribly off-centered card.
But I do agree, with today's technology, there should be a way (laser guiding?) for modern cards to always be well centered.

BGS asked them politely not to

Mudcatsfan said:

BGS asked them politely not to

Click to expand...

This was sort of my first thought too...if cards were to be in perfect shape right out of the pack, then there wouldn't really be a need for grading services. Not that I'd care, just sayin'.

I'm sure the technology is out there to perfectly center cards, but it's probably more expensive than the companies are willing to spend.

Austin said:

Sheets of cards are fed through the cutting machines at a tremendous speed.
So a placement variant of only a few milimeters can result in a horribly off-centered card.
But I do agree, with today's technology, there should be a way (laser guiding?) for modern cards to always be well centered.

Click to expand...

Yes, being off millimeters will cause it, but it's the 21st century. Of all the amazing things we do, you can't tell me that it isn't possible to get a sheet of cards cut right.

flightposite said:

Austin said:

Sheets of cards are fed through the cutting machines at a tremendous speed.
So a placement variant of only a few milimeters can result in a horribly off-centered card.
But I do agree, with today's technology, there should be a way (laser guiding?) for modern cards to always be well centered.

Click to expand...

Yes, being off millimeters will cause it, but it's the 21st century.
Of all the amazing things we do, you can't tell me that it isn't possible to get a sheet of cards cut right.

Click to expand...

...which is exactly what I wrote in my third sentence.

Funny this topic came up.....I was thinking when I logged on tonight and saw the Davish 2009 Bowman chrome design....the first thing that came to mind was that I will never see a better centered card get pulled out of 50 cases :lol: :lol: :lol:

It's really irritating when you are after certain cards and nearly all of them are off center.

I am not exactly sure where topps has there cards printed and I don't know where any of the other cards are printed for the other companies but I have a real hard time believing they are all cut totally by machine.And if in fact they are not then I can totally understand why.They may very well be cut by machine with little if any human intervention but I have also seen cutting machines that someone has to man and if they are in fact cut that way at all you can bet there will some centering issues.The only thing leading me to believe they don't use these types of cutters is because cards are considered a highly collectible item and the value factor may be diminished if care to condition is not taken into consideration.

I guess it all depends on where they get them printed at.I know where my dad worked for years and years they had this piece of crap cutting machine and I have even used it when I'd helped him out in the summer.Even though the company made millions and millions of dollars and printed up about a good 90% of the print jobs for the entire Black community for the greater Houston area they still cut as many corners as they could and made some pretty decent looking stuff with pretty crappy equipment.Its a wonder most of it looked so good.But it just depends on where companies have their cards printed up.And I can guarnatee you that they do not care about anything other than what topps tells them to care about.If a few cards get screwed up here and there...as long as most of them look good they will go through.I have seen many different times how things are printed whether it be with computers or full size printing presses and I know for a fact they can only quality check so many things.Same thing goes with cutting.

And on something like the numbered refractors and whatnot...they only print so many of them.I know they always overprint a few so that the quality checks can then be discarded as well as any screwups found (say you order 200 cards printed...the final amount you receive may be closer to 220 or maybe a little more or maybe a little less depending on product, ink, special materials used etc.) but in the end...they are not going to want to trash a bunch of anything and reprint it.If the entire print run of a gold refractor is supposed to be 50 and they only print say 75 or 80...they aren't going to reprint anything if one whole side of a sheet gets slightly off center during the cutting process.And one whole side of a sheet may equate to a lot of cards because I know if your using a manual cutter your not cutting one sheet at a time but rather several of the same sheets at once.

Just a thought.