[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by gunboat82

I'd still quibble with your premise that set registry owners don't care if they discover that one of their PSA 9 cards is trimmed, and therefore should've been slabbed as altered.

Even if we assume that the registry owners wouldn't remove the PSA 9 from the set, all it proves is that registry owners will act in their self-interest and carry on the ruse for reputation and money, rather than take the bullet for the original card doctor and the corrupt and/or negligent third-party grader.

Instead of polling registry owners to see how many would give up the cards they knew were trimmed, poll them to see how many would replace the outed PSA 9 with a legit one, if presented with the option at no additional cost. Or ask how many would've paid the same price for the outed PSA 9 if they had known it was trimmed. Those kinds of questions are a better gauge of materiality for fraud purposes.

The counterargument that slabbing changes the perception of value doesn't negate the materiality element of fraud; it speaks more to damages.

I think it's a fair argument that if something has no effect on value, it ain't material. I suppose you could go down the rabbit hole of a concept we sometimes see in law called qualitative materiality, but that's a reach. Here is a hypo for you, in the spirit of those you proposed. Ask a registry owner with a trimmed 9 if he is willing to pay MORE for one that isn't and replace it.