Posted By:
warshawlawI have given long thought to the authenticity question ever since I saw the "authentic" T206 Wagner. I don't believe that there is a place for such a grade. It is both superfluous and too confusing.
The problem that leads to the desire for the authentic grade is that the grading services preach "zero tolerance" for alterations but do in fact grade "altered" cards. The pinhole example is a great one; I know for a fact that PSA and SGC both will grade a card that has a pinhole. I've seen a PSA-graded card with a pinhole (it got a 2 grade but looked near mint to mint until I held it up to the light at the urging of the dealer). I've also handled graded cards with portions of the reverses missing from album or tape removal (my N28 Dempsey got a "3" from SGC in that condition), or with writing on them. Heck, I just had SGC grade a really nice T205 with a small "divot" on the front because I didn't quite know how to list it (they gave it a vg grade). These cards are undoubtedly "altered" but they have always been readily graded.
I think where we all get hung up, properly, is on the issue of restoration. I don't think anyone objects to a damaged card being graded, but nearly everyone objects to grading a card that has been restored. It is all alteration of the card, but I call the first situation damage or mutilation, the second restoration. Ee don't need a separate category for damaged or mutilated cards because we already have categories: vg-good-fair-poor. My view is that a card that is authentic but badly damaged or mutilated should be graded "poor", period. No "authentic" or "original" grade is needed. The buyer knows it is filler and will price it accordingly. The innocent buyer who can read English knows it is crap also; I've never heard of poor being a good thing, and we are all familiar with the 1 to 10 scale. If the card has been retouched, trimmed, bleached, etc., however, it is the lowest possible form of card "life" and should not be graded, period.
There is another major problem with "original" which my legal mind would absolutely jump at if a client presented it: by trying to reject all alterations but grade damage, the services set a goal that is hard to quibble over. However, we all know that the services can be beaten and are regularly (look for my article on the subject in the upcoming VCBC). If they were to try to label admittedly dodgy cards as "original", it is much more likely that many altered cards would slip through as original cards. The services would be exposing themselves to major liability for the inevitable "altered" cards that slip through, unless they printed a disclaimer so boldly and efficiently that the service would be rendered worthless.