What's up with these cut autograph issues?

I had a friend who reads the blog ask me last week why I don't include issues like Leaf Sports Icons Cut Auto Edition and Historic Autographs 'In Memory Of' Cut Auto Edition in my New on the Market columns. The reason I gave him is that I consider these to be after market modifications and not a legitimate separate issue. Sort of like some of the custom '1/1' cards that pop up from time to time with a special embossing on them or a foil imprint that someone put to try to increase the value of their base cards. His response to this was that the major card company do basically the same thing for a lot of their cut autos. Like certain Topps Sterling Cut autos;


This is obviously a fair point, but at least those came in a mainstream product.

This is not to say that I think these Cut Auto issues are worthless and I would always avoid them. I actually have a collection of autos of every Cubs player. I don't have every player yet and if one I don't have were to show up in one of these issues and sell for a price I was willing to pay, I would buy it in a heartbeat. I just don't include these issues on my master checklist of Cubs cards for the reasons I mentioned above.