"Improving" Cards: New poll
 

The base question for this poll is:

If I "improve" one of my cards and put it up for sale in the BST section here without disclosing the "work" I did on it, by doing one of the things listed, would you consider that to be "unethical".

This is a multiple choice poll, so pick as many as items as you like. If you pick one of the items, that means you think that by me doing that to my card and putting it up for sale, that I am being unethical. If you think it is okay, then don't pick that item.

The last question is a bonus question, which asks if I would still be unethical if my "work" was submitted to PSA (again, without disclosure) and PSA gave the card a clean grade.

P.S. This poll is anonymous, you will not be "outed".

Another question, for those who are sharp enough tonlook and find these things: do any of these conditions return or deteriorate over time, say, the next 20 years?

I think what we already see in the poll what will be the prevailing thoughts going forward. There will always (it's some kind of scientific law) be naysayers. Happy collecting...

I feel the need for a card that could be an 8 in the wrong hands..:eek:

I vote "All of the Above" is unethical, assuming we're referring to selling or trading the card to someone else without disclosure of the alteration (or "restoration," "improvement," "cleaning," "wiping," "sprucing," or whatever phrase you like).

As for the PSA question, someone suggested in the previous thread that the card is whatever the PSA label says it is. I strongly disagree, and I'll use Fritsch W512 prints as an example. Because PSA dabbles in incompetence, it has slabbed a number of obvious Fritsch prints as original W512 strip cards.

https://i.ibb.co/PQHT9Xz/IMG-5824.png

Getting a lazy PSA grader to put "1926 W512" on the label doesn't magically transform an ersatz Ruth into an original one. Let's say I knowingly submitted the above Fritsch print to PSA, and PSA slabbed it as a W512 Grade 1. If I sold it to someone without disclosing that it's really a Fritsch print, then I committed fraud.

Bless your shriveled black heart if you're willing to give me a pass in that scenario, but the reality is that you're a scumbag enabling another scumbag.

Many of these methodologies were completely unknown to me, as a buyer ignorance is bliss I surmise. I’m going to use an eraser and remove these from my memory, just need the Men in Black!

I clicked the boxes for everything, but some of these are pretty minor in the category of "unethical".

Ultimately this is incredibly simple, but I know this group will bend itself into a pretzel to justify whatever is or may eventually be profitable. The average American types at somewhere around 40 WPM, apparently. "Rubbed off wax", "erased pencil mark", "removed ink with acetone", "Kurts spray for pinhole". These take literally less than 3 seconds to type into your listing. Why would you folks not just be open and honest? Far more time and effort is spent coming up with why things should not be disclosed than it would take to just spend less than 3 seconds to disclose it. The question is rhetorical, obviously it's because we want to stretch as much as we can to justify profitable things and pretend it's just too complicated or somehow ethical to not disclose rather than the obvious.

I am quite hard pressed to think of a case in the world where a lack of disclosure in a transaction is the ethical path and where people without a vested interest would by and large vote for that. It's the opposite, and we all know that when we aren't trying to justify things to boost values or make more money for ourselves or our friends.

Rub off wax with panty hose

I had never heard of this before today. Might be a reason for some us to search out an old school undergarment wearing significant other.

And I wonder if this panty hose method works for ear wax?


Brian

I've seen it done on occasion. It was the only box I did not check.

Some were pretty clear, others maybe not.

For example, I voted that using acetone etc to remove ink or other stuff was.
But
found an easy example just a few lines down with the black marker on 71s. That's clearly wrong.
But would removing that black marker be "bad" ... I don't think so. With the usual caution that we have no actual data on how that would affect the card long term.

The bonus question was difficult. I could do stuff to an already altered card like the above 71 and send it to PSA expecting nothing better than "Authentic"
If The self proclaimed experts cant spot it, and give it a number grade, that's an entirely different question. They could be incompetent, thus their claim of expertise is questionable and maybe unethical.
Or their stated standards are more flexible than I would like.

If I then sell that card without disclosure... again sort of a gray area. It would be a 71 whatever graded X...
Personally I would disclose the removed alteration, but I could see the argument that it's a PSA X because that's what the label says.

I have a card that I had graded, thought it was better than the VG it got. When I asked SGC at their booth, the guy there pointed out a well done erasure on the back that I'd totally missed.
Now, I still disagree with the grade, but not as much. I'd thought it was VG-EX, maybe a bit better, now maybe g-vg.
That probably should be disclosed so at least the next owner (Likely a long time from now) will know not to bother cracking it out in hoped of a better grade.

Yes, that's a big question with graded cards. If you trim a card and send it to PSA to launder it, and PSA grades it a 7, is it still trimmed? Or is it now a clean 7?

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Is this like some "Schrödinger's Card" thought experiment?

If you trim a card and send it to PSA, it's still a trimmed card, regardless of the label that PSA slaps on it.

As an aside, I find it amusing that people often repeat the mantra, "Buy the card, not the slab," suggesting that the card is the actual product and the slab is just a plastic vessel that someone slapped a number on.

But when we're talking about card doctoring, the conversation quickly morphs into a philosophical discussion over whether the slab is the product, and the card itself is just window dressing.

I'm guessing that we've got the majority of votes in now. Kind of fascinating to see how they line up.

Basically 3 big groupings here:

-Activities that almost everyone is okay with
-Activities that most people are okay with
-Activities that the vast preponderance of people are not okay with

Pantyhose falls into the category of activities that almost everyone is okay with, with only 9% reporting it as unethical.

Bending corners back, erasing pencil marks, and soaking cards to remove glue, dirt, or stains falls into the bucket of activities that most people are okay with, with around 20-33% reporting it as unethical.

And finally, most everyone seems to think that the rest are highly unethical, as they line up with 74-95% reporting it as unethical. The application of black marker to a 71T takes the cake with 95%+ reporting it as unethical.

Even more excitingly, right in the middle at 57%, almost half of us find no ethical conundrum with getting PSA to grade improved cards. Some of this could be driven by the fact that it probably depends on whether we're talking about submitting any of them, or all of them. For example, I'm guessing that some portion of respondents who find pantyhose acceptable are also fine with taking the card so hosed by panties and submitting it to PSA, and ergo declined to check the PSA box.

Of course, some of the responses to the bonus question could also be driven by basic antipathy towards PSA in general - anyone who buys slabs certified by a perfectly imperfect TPG deserves what they get, so caveat emptor and all that.

I think it's a bit funny that there is a group of around 10-15% of responders as of now that are perfectly ok with trimming, using nail polish remover, random chemicals with unknown results (especially when the resulting chemicals are trapped in a plastic tomb with the card to air out for years), and press out creases with Kurt's magic rollers but using a sharpie on a 71' Topps...well that's just over the line buddy! :cool:

Haha. My 71T's are being unfairly discriminated against.

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The bonus question really isn't that difficult. When sending items to PSA you agree to the following:

2. PSA will not grade items which bear evidence of trimming, recoloring, restoration or any other form of tampering, or are of questionable authenticity, and Customer agrees not to knowingly submit any such items.

By knowingly sending in "such items," you are breaking your agreement and are therefore, unethical.

I'm most amazed by the percentage for the first one. If I accidentally bend the corner of a card then put it back into place before selling on the BST, that's unethical? To some people, even fraud? That's ridiculous to me

Key words here are bear evidence. More than one member says that if done right (i.e. don't bear evidence) there is nothing wrong with tampering or restoring. I disagree. Does not matter if the cards bear evidence or not it is the act of improving the cards that deem the act of submitting them unethical if your plan is to not disclose it upon sale.

Some of that comes down to points of clarification I'm sure. When I responded to the poll, I checked the option for 'trimming', but when I read it again, I realized he was asking something different. He was asking if it's ok to trim off the "fuzzy edges" of a card. Sometimes cards have fuzz sticking off of them. I think it's pretty common for people to pluck off little pieces of fuzz from their cards. Surely, this is how some people interpreted that option, while others were responding to trimming in general. That's why we see a higher percentage of people who checked off using a sharpie on a 71 Topps than we see for people who checked off the "trimmed fuzzy edges" option. I assume if you were to facet the trimming response by people who thought of trimming in general vs people who were thinking of picking off a few pieces of fuzz that you'd get two vastly different percentages here.

Welcome to Net54. Now go ask these questions of the general public (I've actually done this for fun). Nobody thinks any of this stuff is unethical outside of the hobby.

Regarding the BONUS question - TPGs are supposed to pick up alterations. However, if you knowingly submit altered cards and you get them passed by the TPG (numerical grade) and you then sell the card(s) without disclosing the alteration because the TPG didn't catch it, then my thoughts are you're a douche bag and validated the reason why TPGs are useless.

Eh, I'm skeptical that you're the most objective pollster.

"Poll Question 1: Do think it's unethical to improve the appearance of a trading card that belongs to you, especially when you're just restoring it to its natural state, there's no damage whatsoever, and it brings you great joy?"

"Poll Question 2: Polling shows that the vast majority of experts and even casual hobbyists don't see any problem with enhancing a card's natural beauty; in fact, they say it adds tremendous value. Given that information, are you personally offended by people who take bad things and make them better?"

"Poll Question 3: As stated in the previous question, improving a card's appearance adds tremendous value in a completely unobjectionable way. Do you think it's unethical to share that value with others?"

"Poll Question 3A: Assuming you answered no (like most rational people), do you think it's necessary to give others an itemized receipt of all the nice things you did, or should they just shut up and be grateful?"

"People outside the hobby" aren't really a relevant sample population for questions about the hobby.

That's an odd point. I can see that people who have no interest in our hobby don't care how we manage our conduct, but I don't know how their indifference would be helpful to us.

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People who don't play chess think the obsession with chess is stupid, therefore the obsession with chess is stupid.

Because we often debate whether or not these actions constitute fraud. I think asking people outside the hobby (and thus a potential jury) what their viewpoints are is helpful if seeking a reality check.

Should leave this one up to any of the trial lawyers on the board but even I can address this...

Typically people who sit on a jury hear testimony and while they are not experts they have been provided two sides of an argument over a period of time. Absent doing that, people outside the hobby rendering their opinion is utterly useless and pointless.

And your own bias surely doesn't enter into how you frame the questions. Not to mention you're not qualified to explain what fraud is, legally anyhow.

I just asked the two closest people in my house who know nothing about baseball cards if one should disclose alterations that have been made to an item whens selling said item or if the seller should cover it up. They said it should be disclosed. Pack it up, folks, we have our answer.

Can we see how absolutely stupid of an argument this is?

You would think a data scientist would know better, I dunno.

I'm a natural born sceptic, but I suspect there's also no data science in pretending you can tell if complete strangers are gamblers by your amazing intuition.

It's almost like some people just completely make things up and their justifying appeal to their self-authority is absurdist.

There are like a half a dozen threads on the front page I could post this on but Travis, what size are you? I am buying this one for you. Use it as a reminder.


https://i.postimg.cc/4yFXJtZJ/tshirt.jpg

There is no confusion on my part about how to phrase a question objectively so as to obtain unbiased responses. It's an important part of my job as a data scientist. Uncovering hidden biases in data is probably the single most important aspect of what I do at work every day.

Hint... This phrasing above, ain't it.

Perhaps time for a Court-Martial? Or even better, let’s bring this debate to the US Supreme Court. No, rather, the Augusta National Golf Club Board of Trustees!

I am confident there is no way, no matter how you frame it or them, you can elicit a meaningful answer from an outsider about the subject of alteration in one or a few questions.

Think about how fast trials would go if they were all conducted by snowman. I am all in favor of this if it meant I would no longer be required to participate in jury duty.

In the real world there are jury consulting firms who do focus groups, help structure mock trials, etc. to help lawyers gain insight into how a jury might react to a case. Who knew it was as simple as having a data scientist ask a couple of (undoubtedly unbiased) questions.

That was then, this is now. You might have to become a professional gambler now and give up that law degree. Are you prepared?

I checked all the boxes. I'm curious why anyone would want to restore a card to begin with, unless it's purely for the $ value. Pencil marks, glue, etc are all a part of the card's journey through the decades.

I could see someone wanting to restore a card for OCD reasons. But the Venn diagram of people who obsess over a card's appearance and people who resell those cards without disclosure seems to be a full circle.

And equally importantly, how well they have survived the journey (or not) should determine their relative value -- not the skill of a card doctor/restorer/whatever. It means something if a 100 year old card has actually survived in, say, near mint condition. It means nothing if someone is able to doctor it to make it look near mint.

100%!!!

Well stated.


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Wouldn't the erasure of a pencil mark also be part of the card's journey?

There’s also this prediction that has yet to come to fruition.

ChatGPT did pass the bar exam though...

Yes I'm sure the guy who mostly dedicates himself to here to functioning as PWCC's PR department and incredible arrogance assigning himself godly powers to discern at a great remove other peoples habits he knows nothing about whatsoever is an objective questioner and conducted a scientific study that will hold up to standard :rolleyes:

I don't really have a dog in this hunt but I am surprised that, as a lawyer, you took Snowman's word at face value and didn't recognize that he may have deployed a classic argument from authority. He may very well have experience creating and administering opinion polls to the public, but his LinkedIn profile indicates significant experience mainly working with complex data sets. I am not a data scientist, but I know enough statistics to know they are very different disciplines.

If you keep this up you might earn yourself a gfy and not 1 but 2 aggro PMs but ya have to wait until the wee hours of the morning for those...between 2 and 3 AM PST.

Well this is obviously correct of him to do, because he is a data scientist with perfect intuition and the main character, after all. Everyone else is always wrong, without any need for evidence or actually looking at the thing in question or even considering if the thing he is claiming is even humanly possible whatsoever, because the appeal to his ego is paramount.

This clown claiming he can detect heavy gamblers he has never met or interacted with or seen by his gut intuition with great accuracy is possibly the stupidest brag I have ever seen on this board.

As to his incredible intuition on the gambling behaviors of people he will never meet, he says he has been a gambler for more than a decade or was that decades? Anyway, since he was 9...How long have you been gambling where you can question the validity of his in depth characterization of Ohtani?

Snowman is our board's Most Interesting Snowman In The World...Stay thirsty my friends.

Erasing, trimming, and soaking are all part of the card's journey, but only if you can tell that they occured. In each of those cases though the idea is to conceal or remove the card's imperfections. But yes, if you could tell that there was once pencil on the back of a card and that someone had attempted to erase it, that would certainly be a part of the card's history and journey. A card that has been soaked, trimmed and erased has had its 100+ year journey removed, and is now essentially a 21st century card in my eyes. I completely understand your point, but I tend to think of cleaning cards the same way coin collectors frown on cleaning coins.

I think this is the most misunderstood modification on the board, not entirely sure why, but it really seems to be. The advertising for Kurt’s and the actual act of this is using moisture and rollers to press corners with damage to better and sharper condition.

How the understanding with some is that it would be flipping up a bent corner so it can slide in a toploader without an attempt to conceal is a silly debate. The corner is still bent and everyone can see it. If you have a card that is literally folded in half and you put it in a top loader it’s the same. Downgrading a repair method by comparing it with a logical manipulation to store it would be much the same as asking if deer hunting is the same as shooting up a 7-11.

I'll skip right past the burgeoning 'Snowman-Gate' (But remember when Leon put that over-the-top annoyance, Adrian, on a daily maximum post limit years ago and the site improved immeasurably overnight? Asking for a friend.), however I want to add to the 'whys' of improving cards.

Besides the two extremes (OCD and profiteering) that are the focus of most discussions (uh oh, I didn't read every thread to make sure those two topics do, in fact, make up at least 51% - or, more specifically, 50% plus a single additional mention - of the chats, so I may be in trouble with a certain data scientist), there is also the much less 'calculated' desire of just making your cards look better, because it does your heart good.

Mending a minorly bent corner, removing a stain or gunk and flattening a 'bubbly' surface are all things I've personally done to my own cards, and I think they're reasonable acts to make a card return to its proper glory. Trimming, recoloring and all of those fraudulent things are anathema to me, and are a completely different ball of wax, but I get excited if I'm able to slightly 'correct' one of my cards through far less than drastic means...and it simply makes me happy, and I do this :D:D:D.

All I know was I was expecting his poker winnings to be way more than reported on the poker sites with all his knowledge/intuition.:confused:

Ben, those totals are not adjusted for inflation.

I'm not in support of estalking. I can tell he's full of shit easily enough when he claims to have impossible powers and tells blatant lies he can't support to defend his favorite fraudsters :rolleyes:. I love free speech over everything, but it would be nice if this idiot would at least try to keep his claims plausible instead of going over-the-top with the senseless ego babble not a single person is going to believe. It's like a four year old who doesn't understand there is an objective reality outside their internal narrative.

There is large a gray area between responding/addressing someone and estalking, imo. As you point out, he has opened himself up to ridicule with the absurd and baseless stuff that he posts. And this goes back to his early days here too.

I have not seen posts of his in support of PWCC or in defense of them since Brent was sent packing by Fanatics. Maybe I missed them but prior to that he was a moving banner ad for PWCC, no doubt.

I haven’t thought about that guy in a long time.


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Ok. Take a breath. Maybe walk around the block.

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Who took his word at face value? I've done nothing but call BS on him.

Had a great run. How was your cardio today?

Thanks for the thoughtful reply and I see your point. To relate it to my collection, I sometimes bid on GU flannels that have vintage team number changes. This was commonplace back in the pre-1972 era. But I never bid on jerseys that have modern restorations, like new numbers or lettering added. As you say, that makes the shirt 21st century.

I lifted today. I'll run tomorrow. I am getting lazy on the sit-ups, though.

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This is of course, nonsense. They are nearly one and the same discipline. Every graduate-level data science program in the country requires numerous statistics courses. And many statistics programs offer two tracks - biostatistics or data science. The only difference is that a data scientist is a statistician with coding skills.

Do you realize how stupid you look right now? Anyone who has spent decades of their life entrenched in the gambling world can easily identify the traits of a gambling addict. It's not a super power or a brag. It's no different from a bartender with 20 years of experience being able to identify an alcoholic.

Nearly is doing a lot of work right there. Constructing a polling question is not the same as writing an SQL script and the resulting data set differs in size from a large database by several orders of magnitude. As has been pointed out upthread, your arguments here rest on repetition of your job title and not by laying out cogent and accessible arguments.

You might want to consider that, when faced with a group that universally disagrees with you, there are explanations other than that they obviously are unable to appreciate your brilliance.

But, this is getting pretty far afield from the intent of the thread and I have to pack for an early flight to attend a business conference. So, I will concede to you the point the one thing you seem to covet: the last word.

I really like that comparison to jerseys. What's interesting as well is that although I knew there were number changes on some vintage jerseys, I didn't realize it was commonplace pre- 1972. Those vintage jerseys' "imperfections" just taught me something about baseball I didn't know until you mentioned it, so to make 21st century alterations that are "corrections" is really a shame in my opinion.

It's going to seem like a dumb thing to argue, but that actually does have all the value of a W512 Grade 1 Babe Ruth because of their guarantee. So the flip does define what's inside...even if outside the slab it would be defined differently. Counterfeits, alterations, anything the flip doesn't mention doesn't exist while it's in the slab, value-wise anyway. True story.

A bartender could not tell an alcoholic from the way he "carries himself" on TV.

We don't know that for sure. If that bartender also has a grad degree in data science and has coding skills, he too might have the same super power that snowman has.

Unless They have self proclaimed "Monk Like" abilities. Not in regard to celibacy, but sleuthing.

Its a jungle out there !

A bartender cannot identify an alcoholic they have never even met and have no experience with. A gambler cannot tell a gambler they have never even met based on absolutely nothing but their immense ego.

Having experience in a category does not mean you can just magically discern people excessively into it based on absolutely nothing.

This is the stupidest garbage that has hit the main board in a long time. Your schtick would do a lot better if you cut off the top 20% of your vain bullshit that has nothing to do with reality.

I'd argue that the flip still doesn't define what's inside. What you're describing isn't a "W512 Grade 1 Babe Ruth," it's a coupon for PSA reimbursement.

If you treat cards as nothing more than currency, then I suppose it's a distinction without a difference.

There is a certain amount, granted it is a very large amount, of disbelief one must suspend in engaging with Travis. I would hope this is just a game for him and not the way he actually conducts himself outside of here.

More accurately, this is the stupidest garbage that has hit the main board since his last time. This is not his first performance and it will not be his last.

No no you don't get it, it's based on how Shohei "carries himself."

Sadly we will have to wait until after midnight PST for Travis to add to this thread. Speaking for myself...I simply cannot wait. He told me in a PM (in between numerous f bombs) that he refuses to interact with me here.

This has not dashed my hopes that we might be able to chat on the phone or hang out for coffee.

Very true. As a mere mortal who cannot assign myself the power of God to decisively judge the internal sins of rando's I don't know even know, I don't really understand quite how it all works for data scientists.

The good news is that, as he has experience drinking beverages, he can tell based on how you carry yourself exactly how you take your coffee and if you like decaf, sugar, cream or other features. Could start a very successful business here with this skill. Wouldn't it be convenient to not have to input your order into an app or to give it at the counter, if they could simply just know your interests and proclivities and tastes and bring you what you wanted?

AI Snowman?

Well, what can I say? You sure got me there. I was just kidding all along. I'm talking out my ass. I fold. Nice hand, sir.

On behalf of everyone, I thank you for that reference.
I frickin' loved that show!!