Quote:
Originally Posted by topcat61
Bleach is easy enough to detect with a black light and a little common sense. I've notices quite a few auctions where their card's borders are a little too clean and crisp. Anyway, Auction Houses have sold stolen, altered and forged material before and only come clean when the get busted.
In Boston the state house has been pilfered several times and in one case, the state's charter was found at auction. In another case, Walter Johnson's Opening Day baseballs signed by presidents were stolen from the Hall and found in a Ron Oscer Auction.
What could cut this in half is if the grading companies took more that 60 seconds to review their items. Grading companies are opinion makers based on what? We don't know who they are or if they have a background in document forensics to adequately determine if what they're handling hasn't been tampered with?
They started adding brightening compounds to bleach in the mid 1950's and this I suspect could dissipate with time but brighteners added to paper stock in the 1940's doesn't. You could do a test and see how long it takes?
As they say, work smarter, not harder for the things that you want. Card collecting is and should be fun but it also requires some research, and if you dont know something, ask questions -there's no such thing as a stupid question. We're all here for the same goals and to help.
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Responding to the portion in
bold...
They are purely "self-appointed" experts, and have no credentials to speak of (aside from what they claim, in order to garner the most profits). It's a scam that people have mindlessly bought into, hook, line and sinker.
Realizing it is not purposeful to complain without proposing a potential solution...
Perhaps someday there could be an
independent agency that would certify Professional Graders after they pass enough seminars, courses or tests to qualify. They would subsequently earn a degree of sorts. An important aspect of this would be to ensure PSA has no involvement in the certification process. Their is ample evidence that they cannot be trusted, and that their intervention would taint the entire process.
So the Certification Entity could not be the PSA School of Authentication (or Beckett or SGC, for that matter).
Would it be profitable, or even a good business venture? Probably not.
Would it benefit the hobby? Definitely