Help Me Pick a Gretz

[gfel2795]

Biggest hobby purchase by far.

I have been selling and trading and using fantasy winnings for the past couple years now and it's time to splurge and I need your help.

Which Gretzky? Each are authenticated and around the same price:

Gretzky 1



Gretzky 2



Gretzky 3

[87sluggo]

I like #1, for whatever that's worth. The sides on #2 and #3........ I just dunno.

[gfel2795]

Trimmed sides won't get past PSA grading would they???

I have NEVER purchased a PSA card or anything graded...total noob on this area here.

I was leaning towards #3 but I also like #1...pretty much between those two...

[Cunnuc]

Well I am a noob in this area as well but I can definitely tell that you should stay away from #2.

I cannot see the edges on #1 well enough so #3 looks better to me in that regard but you can tell the centering on #3 is worse than #1.

[bdiam]

#2 may look like it's in the worst shape of the three but......those double print-lines on the back, are often indicative of being from the first print-run. To a "OPC purest", that would make the card stand-out considerably from the other copies.

[13stepper]

I would go number 3, here is why:

The corners and edges appear to be the sharpest,
The centering isn't that great, however the centering on all 3 aren't great either. If you were to grade any of them they will come back with poor centering number.

[gfel2795]

These are all PSA 7s within $15 of one another...I went #1...#3 looked nice but the edges look a little questionable...#1 looks the most "vintage OPC" if that makes any sense.

The clincher is that #1 accepted returns FWIW.

[qwas]

Is #1 actually that blurry? If it is I would stay away. I personally like #2 even with the bad top left edge. #3 is also a good choice but I don't think the clarity is as nice as #2.

[pwskelly]

Trimmed sides won't get past PSA grading would they???

I have NEVER purchased a PSA card or anything graded...total noob on this area here.

I was leaning towards #3 but I also like #1...pretty much between those two...

#3 looks the nicest but like some others have mentioned it might be indicative of trimmed edges. PSA, like BGS is run by human beings and so they can be prone to mistakes. Personally I feel good about buying cards graded by PSA or BGS because it decreases the likelihood that you are getting ripped off on a high end card. That said, even the best graders make errors and as such there is a small degree of risk when purchasing graded cards. I myself have purchased a number of expensive graded cards from PSA and BGS. However I would advise anybody to not blindly purchase cards that are graded without doing any research on how the cases should look and how to tell if they have been tampered with. Good luck!

[japhi]

I like #2. #3 looks trimmed and is probably in a BGS slab, or maybe it's a Topps card. 2 is the best centered card and those edges are how those cards came out of wax, it's a function of a dull cutting blade. Only thing that concerns me about number 2 is the white spot near the bottom edge, make sure that is not paper loss.