u/beautybeatsgrade

As you all know, u/skelly423 and I are building well centered 1952 Topps sets. Over a year ago I purchased a well centered Minoso at a HA auction (Minoso1 - first photo). It was in a PSA 5 holder but it just looked insanely good. I way overpaid for the card (at PSA 5 prices) thinking it was drastically misgraded. When the card arrived I was right about the card. It has one of the whitest borders and sharpest corners I’ve ever seen on a 52T. We are talking 10 quality corners here. What I didn’t appreciate was the reason it got a five was a red ink overspray during printing. A type of print defect if you ask me. You just couldn’t really tell what it was from the auction pics. This however had the added effect of changing the typical canary yellow background to a much more vibrant yellow. The card really pops in hand. The downside is, the overspray is not 100% uniform and so it’s noticeable if you look closely.

Given the cards corners and condition, I broke it out of its PSA 5 holder and sent it to SGC raw thinking it could get a 7-8. Returned “altered”. Uhhh Resent it in with the PSA 5 label I saved and just requested a crossover and got it back in an SGC five holder. Hooray!!

During the time Minoso1 was still in limbo this Minoso2 (second photo) popped up. It is to my eye perfectly centered. It was insanely cheap for the eye appeal and already in an SGC 4 holder and so not knowing what would happen to Minoso1, I snagged it as a safety net. Now I have two graded Minoso’s.

My plan is to keep Minoso2, because I’m building a centered set and it’s got insane centering. However, it sucks selling Minoso1 with such crazy condition back to the population for likely way less than what its condition would justify, because of the 5 grade.

What do you think of these two? Which one do you like better and which one would you keep if you were me?

Some random centered 1952 Topps cards that are easy to look at.

Special thanks to u/donalddrapershair for the Preacher Roe!