Card restoration
Although card doctoring has been around for decades the original motivation was mostly for the personal satisfaction of the collector. Obviously there was some money motivation 30 years ago, but nothing like today. And I cannot help but see the irony that the grading companies offer an expensive solution to a problem they helped create. (I'm an attorney and we are good at creating expensive solutions to problems we created too). I have a 1956 Mantle psa 6 and a psa 9. (the 9 by the way is overgraded and about as attractive as the 6).
30 years ago the reaction to the cards would be those are two nice Mantles, I'll give you an extra $20 for that one. Now that psa has dictated that the two cards have subtle differences that justify an insane $30,000 difference in price, there is powerful motivation for plastic surgery.
I collect mostly vintage, but last year I put together a 1986 Fleer basketball set all psa 8. I paid $11 for my psa 8 Johnny Moore card. Somebody paid over $15,000 for a psa 10. Can you honestly tell me that the small differences in the card of a journeyman player justify a $15,000 price difference. Especially since if we broke the cases and resubmitted they might both come back a "9".
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