Interesting eBay Auction: 1961 National City Bank Browns Len Dawson
April 24th, 2010 | Published in Interesting eBay Auctions
Here’s a card up for auction that I don’t see often: a 1961 National City Bank Browns card of Len Dawson, with a starting bid under $10. This is a pre-rookie card of Dawson; he played for the Steelers and Browns in the NFL before jumping to the Texans/Chiefs in the AFL. (For other pre-rookie cards, see my pre-rookie cards page.)
There are 36 cards in the 1961 National City Bank Browns set. They were distributed on 6-card panels, so any individual cards you see have been cut by hand from a panel. There are usually a few individual cards on eBay, and at the moment there is also a complete set of uncut 6-card panels.
PSA has designated this Dawson card Authentic rather than assigning it a grade because it is hand-cut and not all of its borders are present. The following is from the section called “The Grading of Hand Cut Cards” on the PSA Grading Standards page.
In order for PSA to actually assign a grade to any of the cards that possess visible/defined borders on all four sides, evidence of that border must be present. If the cut exceeds the visible border for the card in question, PSA will encapsulate the card as “Authentic” only.
For this card that seems a bit harsh. If you don’t mind that a bit of the dashed border is cut off, it looks like a pretty nice card.
For more interesting auctions, see my Interesting Auctions page.
