Posted By:
Corey R. ShanusHow much added value would a thumbs up from Kevin add to a card I am considering purchasing? Until I can get some sense of how effective such an examination would be with the card still in the slab, I don't think I can answer that. There are different kinds of alterations (trimming, rebuilding corners, adding color, etc.) and I suppose some are more easily detectable with the card in the slab than others. To me the effectiveness of Kevin's examination would be more to prove the negative than the positive -- if he gives it a thumbs down, then assuming I have confidence in his expertise (and I don't know Kevin but from what I read he seems a pretty knowledgable person), I would regard (much of) the value taken away from the card.
Also, separate from what Kevin can and cannot do with the card still in the slab, I would also want to know when the card was graded and its provenance. If, for example, it had been recently done by SGC, then inasmuch as I am comfortable with their expertise, to me there is not much potential additional value out there that Kevin could add even under the best of circumstances (i.e., examining the card outside the slab). Same too goes with provenance. If the card went straight from an old time collector straight into a slab (e.g., Lionel Carter's cards), then the only issue to me is the grade, not the whether the card has been altered.