Originally Posted By: FlyingDonut
 Originally Posted By: CaptainOfIndustry
 Originally Posted By: FlyingDonut
 Originally Posted By: CaptainOfIndustry

Most have found a way to live with pressing, most will find away to live with the fact that their book may be trimmed, and most would be able to live with a hypothetical paradigm shift in the hobby where trimming became acceptable. People will find a way to rationalize whatever it is that they want to do, even if it means arbitrarily designating some practices as immoral, while deeming other very similar practices perfectly acceptable.


I'm sure I'm late to the argument, but this is a ludicrous statement.


Don't feel that you have to back up that statement with any kind of argument or rationale. \(thumbs u

I think it's ludicrous that you think my statement is ludicrous. See how easy that is?

As a long time board member, are you going to sit there and tell me that there hasn't been a pretty drastic shift in attitude from when pressing was first brought to light? So please explain to me why a similar shift wouldn't be possible if, hypothetically, trimming somehow became an acceptable practice.



Well, since it is impossible to defend a negative, I'll ask you - name me one person who believes that cutting a piece of a book is OK. If anything, we've moved AWAY from that. There were ads in the 80s encouraging trimming - I don't remember any of those anymore. I don't see anyone anywhere in the marketplace anywhere near accepting trimming.

If anything, I think CGC putting trimmed books in purple holders gives those out there who want to try to rip people off a basis to do so. If you're going to microtrim a book, and the worst that will happen is you'll get a purple label 9.8, you're going to do it. If you microtrim a book, and it comes back in a blue label with a 0.5 grade, you might think again.

Pressing has been argued ad nauseam on this board - I'll argue there hasn't been a "drastic shift in attitude" on pressing in the general market place - but I'm not talking about pressing, I'm talking about trimming. Even the most virulent pressers out there don't believe trimming is any good. There's never been at any level a discussion about accepting trimming.


The reason I used terms "paradigm shift" is because I'm not talking about things as they currently are. So no, I can't find you many people who are ok with trimming, but that's not the point I was making.

The human mind's capacity to adapt to significant change is tremendous; this has been observed by experimentation time and time again. People who are making money hand over fist will embrace any kind of change that will guarantee their continued profits, even if that means changing a belief about something that has very little real moral implications(like trimming). People who collect will either adapt to the change, or leave the hobby, just like some did in the 90's, when CGC appeared, or when pressing came to light. So if micro-trimming became part of the hobby in the way pressing is now, there would be an "adjustment" period where people figured out where they stood, but ultimately things would continue on as normal. And as time went on, more people would enter the hobby with an understanding and acceptance of trimming "as is" and the stigma would become nothing more than a peculiarity in the history of the hobby.