1991 Topps Desert Shield #35 Greg Maddux

I was going to post this yesterday as it came in the mail sometime last week. But I didn't want to exploit the holiday in any way. This set means a lot to me as it came out when we were stationed overseas (Germany) and my dad spent some time in Iraq. The regular version of this set was also the last complete flagship set I completed before exiting the hobby the first time around.

I'm down to needing just a few unsigned cards and quite a bit more signed but I crossed a biggie off the list in Greg Maddux. As I've mentioned, I'm trying to be a little more condition sensitive with cards from this set and from what I've seen, there are quite a bit of centering issues with 1991 Topps in general.

 

This card was graded an 8 by Beckett but if you zoom in, you can see it received a 9.5 for centering. And to the naked eye, the edges and corners look as good to me as any I've seen.

 

Now, when you flip it over, you can see a little browning (gum? wax?) on the back which is probably why it earned a 7 on that sub grade. I can live with that as its nowhere near as bad looking in person. And its the back.

 

When the opportunity arises to get this signed, I'll crack it out of its case, hopefully without ruining it. Anybody have experience with that? Any tips or tricks?

 

The Maddux card brings me to 27/32 to complete the unsigned set and I'm still sitting at 7/32 signed.