PSA: from Experts who thwart "wack jobs" to unappreciated, human-based opinion givers
 

Preface: This was posted on another thread and by the suggestion of a fellow member, I am re-posting this as a new topic.



There was a PSA article published in 2004 by Joe Orlando entitled "Whack Jobs". Not surprisingly, PSA deleted this from their website very recently. In the article Orlando states the following (my bold and underlined letters for emphasis):

Taking My Hacks: Whack Jobs – The Issue of Card Trimming

Joe Orlando - January 20, 2004

Trimming. To card collectors around the globe, this is treated like a four-letter word -- the really bad kind. No, I am not talking about what should be done to my Aunt Gertrude's mustache or to the back of one of my best friends (just kidding, I don't have an Aunt Gertrude). I am talking about card doctoring.

What is trimming exactly?

Well, in a nutshell, it's what some people do in order to enhance the edges or corners on a card. This, in turn, will enhance the overall grade of the card. With the prices realized for ultra high-end cards, it's no wonder that some people lower themselves to try this. These guys smell money like a Great White smells blood.

Back in the day, trimming was a bit more crude. Despite what many would consider obvious today, the old school brand of trimming did work for a while before the advent of grading. I can still remember seeing these severely whacked cards at card shows and commenting to a dealer, "Are there such things as 1954 Topps minis?" After PSA really caught on by the mid-1990s, many of the more prominent card doctors vanished.

Today, there are those who are still trying it. Some of them are butchers and some of them are master artists, but it doesn't, in any way, change the approach of PSA graders. The tools have changed in some cases and the skill level of the whackers has heightened but so has the awareness of our experts -- that's what they are paid to do -- and that's why people have so much faith in the PSA process.

The biggest point of confusion with trimming comes when a collector notices a card that is slightly undersized -- even in the PSA holder. I hear the cries, "That card looks small, it must be trimmed -- trimmed I say!" Nothing could be further from the truth. Is size one factor that may tip off a grader that a card could be altered? Of course -- but size alone, in this case, does not matter.

I can remember opening vending cases from the early 1970s where the cards came in a variety of sizes. Pre-war cards, especially, were cut very inconsistently. To most, the size differences are subtle but when placed in a holder, the card's size is more apparent. My point here is simple. Cards can come in different sizes straight from the factory -- straight out of the pack -- straight from a vending case. Experienced hobbyists know this but many do not.

There are more important questions when attempting to spot trimming.

Do the corners flare out or dive in unnaturally?
Is there solid consistency to the stock and/or grain of the card?
Is the cut consistent with the year or issue?
Is the card cut from a sheet?
Do the edges possess an unorthodox waviness?
These factors, amongst other things, enter into the mind of each grader as a card is evaluated and graded. Does the size matter too? Sure it does, but that is not the most important factor that a grader considers. Technically, you could have an oversized card that is trimmed or a severely undersized card that is unaltered. These are extreme cases but actually plausible scenarios.

Just as in the everyday world of criminal justice, it's up to the authorities to keep up with or stay a step ahead of the criminals in order to prevent crime and catch them. As the world's sportscard grading authority, we take the same approach and will accept nothing less from our staff.

Dead link: https://www.psacard.com/…/taking-my-...ck-jobs-issue-

Captured link:https://www.facebook.com/SportsCardR...6614815279007/


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Most recently Orlando published this article:

Taking My Hacks
A Collectors Universe Retrospective
Joe Orlando

In June of this year, Collectors Universe reached a major milestone. PCGS, our coin division, and PSA combined for 75 million total items certified since inception. After a lot of hard work put in by a host of different people, early struggles to gain acceptance and through many ups and downs in the market, the company eclipsed this truly remarkable number recently.

In addition to being three quarters of the way to 100 million, this summer marks my 20th year at the company. In fact, August makes it 20 years exactly. It seems like yesterday that I was just starting out, fresh out of school and taking a chance by working in a hobby I had loved since childhood. I am fortunate to work for a company I have believed in since I was a customer in the early 1990s.

After passing this recent milestone and approaching my 20-year anniversary, it seemed fitting to reflect on my experience and share it with you.

When I first came upon PSA and Collectors Universe, I didn't become a supporter because I thought the system was perfect or because I agreed with every grade I saw. In fact, I can remember writing a letter to PSA, sharing my concerns about grading at the time. I became a supporter because it was clear the market was so much better with third-party authentication and grading than without it.

Today, I'm the president and CEO of PSA's parent company and I don't agree with every card, autograph or bat grade issued ... and that's OK. As a collector, I don't have to. Why? Because I don't have to buy it. We have choices, which is part of what makes collecting so much fun. As an individual, I am entitled to an opinion too and it's OK if my personal standard differs from a third-party service. Their job isn't to confirm my opinion; it's to render their own.

Like most other industries, ours contains a fraction of people who choose to do nothing more than complain about how third-party systems are imperfect, instead of offering feasible or logical ways of making it better. Their expectation of human-based opinion services is simply unattainable. There are realities and limitations to what any third-party service can do.

If it were up to them, there would be no umpires in baseball either, because these men don't get every ball and strike call correct. Card and coin graders, like umpires, must make decisions repeatedly in a relatively short period of time. They do the best job they can, but like all people, they are not perfect. They can only judge what they see in front of them and interpret what their eyes are observing. Grading is not conducted in a science lab. It is simply humans looking at collectibles.

The train left the station a long time ago. You can choose to get on board and take the ride, which can occasionally get bumpy along the way, or get left behind with delusions that somehow returning to the Wild West of the 1980s is better than what collectors have today. If you prefer to collect raw cards, that's OK. There are many ways to enjoy our wonderful hobby.

In the meantime, the beat goes on. After 20 years at the company and a lifetime in this hobby, there are a few things I know. There will always be challenges that our hobby will have to face and, unfortunately, there will also be those who choose to spread fear and ignorance. For those of us who love the hobby, there will always be opportunities to improve it by engaging in civil discourse.

More importantly, third-party authentication and grading is here to stay. It makes the hobby better, even though no system will ever be perfect.

Never get cheated,

Joe Orlando

Joe Orlando
President & CEO
Collectors Universe, Inc.

https://www.psacard.com/articles/art...-retrospective

See the difference?

[QUOTE=WhenItWasAHobby;1909012][I] For those of us who love the hobby, there will always be opportunities to improve it by engaging in civil discourse.

Like on the CU Message Boards. :eek::D

Great post Dan. I wonder how many PSA articles or statements have been pulled since this scandal (err, major black eye to PSA’s credibility) started a few months ago. I doubt this is the first. I think that would make be a very interesting article - a survey of PSA propaganda erased since the scandal started and/or a comparison of post and pre-scandal statements/positions. Someone should hold PSA publicly accountable for these statements that clearly don’t hold up.

Great Post Dan !!!

Please email that to everyone on the PSA Registry

Aren't we getting close to their quarterly financial statement?

Also, my liquidation sales are still going nuts. You can get most of these modern Bobby Jones cards raw for $1...but in a PSA 10, you have immediate buyers at $50. ;-) Even more, actually, since these were purchased on eBay with COMC's crosslisting markups.

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...b1&oe=5E13C3F9

The time has come to be PSA card poor and cash Rich!!

Sell them Slabs Hand Over Fist Before it’s to late.

.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...605196cd9f.jpg

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Of course this is a concerted effort to move the goal posts. Has anyone heard a peep from any of the PSA registry whales yet?

Crickets ....

If anything they want to silence this.......They have so much money tied up in it they took the bait hook line and sinker from PSA…… Completely brainwashed

Turn those machines back on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D

Their fiscal year ended on June 30, 2019, so they are actually in the middle of their annual financial audit by their outside auditors. In prior years the auditors were Grant Thornton out of Newport Beach, CA. Would assume they didn't change for this year and are using the same firm. Based on prior years, all of their year-end financials and statements are usually out by sometime in September/October, so it shouldn't be too much longer.

Of particular interest will be the amount of warranty reserve they show on the company books for this year end. Based on the numbers of altered/doctored cards thought to be sitting in numerically graded PSA holders, as speculated on by many on here and the BO boards, the potential warranty claims that could be made against PSA could be in the millions of dollars. Should be interesting to finally see what they ended up showing on their financials as their warranty reserve amount, and that the auditors agreed to let them use. If you look at their full annual report once it is up online also (as a publicly traded company this all goes out for public viewing), it will be interesting to see what, if anything, it mentions about these current issues. It should give everyone an insight into their thinking and how they are trying to present this to their auditors and others in the financial community.

They may remove past comments and statements from their sites, and be completely silent to the collecting community about all the issues going on currently, but that won't work when it comes to their outside auditors and requirements of the SEC and the investing community.

I've asked the question if there is anyone yet that has gone back to PSA with a suspected altered/doctored card to take them up on their warranty, and have heard nothing. I did hear that PWCC was refunding buyers of suspect cards their money back when such cards were returned to them, and then they were turning those suspect cards over to the FBI as part of the ongoing investigation. Had also heard that PSA was possibly telling buyers of such suspect cards to also go back the sellers also, and not bring the suspect cards to them. I would love to hear what happened if someone with a suspected doctored card in a PSA holder didn't go back to a seller, like PWCC, and went to PSA instead and demanded they uphold their warranty guarantee. What would PSA say and do?!?!?

I hope for a hobby movement for a more realistic understanding of grading, so I actually see Joe's rewriting of it to be good. He states that grading is subjective and full of margins of error, and I hope for the hobby to view it as that. If you can often quote the President of CU himself as to the subjectivity, margin of error and errors, that would serve the purpose.

I hope the Easter Bunny comes in April too.

The grade may be subjective, but altered/unaltered, even with the gray areas of what's acceptable, really isn't.

I'd hope they get their act together on that aspect at least. But that probably isn't possible with 30 seconds of inspection.

That is true. I was thinking about grading. The inability to identify alterations is another matter. The gade is a matter of opinion, the existence or non-existence of alterations is a matter of fact. Certainly, there will be some errors in judging that latter, but it had better be very small in percentage or you shouldn't be in the business . . . And whether or not PSA should be in that business is, of course, an ongoing question for some.

Duly note that Joe's letter went down as poorly on the CU forum as here.

If you think you'll get a bunch of detail regarding a change of warranty reserve, you're likely going to be disappointed. My guess is they will increase the reserve but it likely won't be material enough to warrant much, if any, disclosure. I can't imagine they would do any more than the bare minimum with disclosures but whatever they disclose, it will have been opined upon by the CPA firm. It'll be interesting to read regardless!

(BTW-I spent 6 1/2 years w/one of the big CPA firms as an auditor)

I still feel there is or was some kind of fix in place between Moser, PWCC and PSA. Exactly how it was organized or the mechanics of the operation, of course, I have no idea.

Agree...

Hopefully law enforcement can dive deep, sort it all out, and issue punishments that are commensurate with the respective levels of fraud and deception.

My career is in Artificial Intelligence (no, not robots). This sounds like a great business model. Thousands times faster, reliable and accurate. Google already has software and hardware availible for cheap (garage geek cheap). We just need some garage geeks at a TPA to do some work. This is not SciFi, it's happening today. For this application it would be no bigger than a home scanner. Gosh....where's my application for a patent :-)

I've kind of wondered if PSA, etc aren't using (or developing?) AI because its a serious threat to their business model.

I'm under the impression that in the near future the technology will exist that will allow an app to grade cards (or something similar already exists as you say). Right now you need some actual hardware to make it work which prevents its use from being widespread, but possibly in a few years everything you'd physically need will come bundled with smart phones or tablets.

When that happens, we won't need slabs or TPGs anymore. You'll have an app that will grade the card and record every physical detail about it to the minutest level. Tiny variations in the grain of the cardboard or something like that can be recorded by the extremely high resolution cameras of tomorrow and act as a kind of "fingerprint" for the card, tying the physical card in your hand to the registered grade. When you sell the card on Ebay (or wherever) the seller can check the card on the App. Then when it arrives in the mail they can use the app to confirm the card is the same one in the same condition.

There are some issues with that business model, like what happens if someone damages a card after they've graded it using the app and then sell it without disclosing that change, but I think they could be dealt wit. It'd be way cheaper and easier to use than PSA or any other grading company and could put them out of business.