OK, I have a bunch of thoughts on the recent events, but I won't write them until a later date.
Suffice to say we all figured it had been going on, (at least in small amounts) but I think what is really bothering most people is its at a
MUCH BIGGER scale than what most imagined.
Forwarding past all that, think about this scenario.
Suppose you go to the National, and are in search for a
bigger ticket item.
You have saved your hard earned cash, and plotted buying something for a good while, and the time came to finally pull the trigger on card X.(insert your own sought after card here)
Let's face it, the National is the one time a year where you can get damn near anything.
Just as an example, lets say we are in search of a '52 Topps Mickey Mantle. Again, pick your pre-war poison if you like, say a mid grade T206 Cobb, or literally whatever you choose. At this point, it really doesn't matter what card you choose, as long as its something that is A - highly desirable, and B - possibly "doctored".
Let's also suppose we are going to spend $2,500 - $10,000.... so its not exactly pocket change, and we also know there is a "great chance???" this card may have been touched up over the years.
My question is this, for all you guys that have a ton of experience at the Nationals.
If you were truly looking to make a sizeable purchase of this nature, exactly how diligent would you be in examining the card you were considering?
Further -, it appears as though using a small black light, might be one of the cheapest, handy and easiest to carry and use "items" at the Nationals to examine any purchase you were thinking about making.
True, it isn't fool proof, but at least
some alterations can be picked up via black light.
For those that didn't necessarily know this, have a look here. ~~~~~>
https://sabrbaseballcards.blog/2017/...uthentication/
(I'm sure there are many sites on this, that is just the fastest one I could find relating to black lights and card alterations.)
I guess what I am asking, is did you ever do this "black light examination" when looking at a card at the National?
Even if you did, or did
NOT, how much more inclined are you to do this very thing at the upcoming National?
I was thinking about this tonight.
I can envision a scenario where bunches of people keep asking dealers to see cards.
THEN everybody and their brother pulls out a black light and proceeds to go over said card they are considering purchasing.....all the while the dealer is rolling his eyes and telling himself "here we go again", as customer after customer is thoroughly examining and scrutinizing cards they are thinking about purchasing.
Also note - This doesn't have to be about a '52 Topps Mantle, it could be said about a slew of cards now.
Personally, any purchase of this nature, I would have wanted to give it at least a cursory once over. But now I'm betting this is going to be a very common scene this year.
This has been something I considered, and it has been going through my head a bit lately.
FWIW - I have never been to a National, and I am not in a position as to where I will be going this year either.
I am just curious as to how much this is actually seen, and how much more frequent this may be happening from this year on at all the bigger shows.
I would think for any "bigger" purchase like this, it was already fairly common for the cards to be examined very thoroughly.
I can't help but think its going to be widespread this year in light of all the recent events.
Even though this is the pre-war side of the board, this should be something interesting to all vintage collectors as well, say everything up until the 70's and even newer.
EDIT - Leon, I figured this would be the better spot to originally post this, but if you want to re-post it over in the post-war section....feel free.