[Peter_Spaeth]

is the hobby's dirty little secret. It is interesting to me that so many of the newer collectors (and some of the old) including those spending large sums of money seem to think that if one of the major TPGs slab a card, it's legitimate. And the logical corollary of that is sellers are judged only by their customer service --if they get you the card you bought well-packaged in a reasonable time, they're a superstar.

But it ain't necessarily so. Many of us know better and know that doctoring is rampant. To an extent, one could say, well who cares, once slabbed a card becomes a commodity and the alteration is irrelevant. On the other hand, I suspect a fair number of collectors would not buy even slabbed cards if they knew they had been altered, or deal with sellers who traffic in altered cards.

But the dilemma is this. Those who know are just not going to go on a public forum and name names. And the reason is this: for the most part, we don't have incontrovertible proof, we didn't see anyone do it or overhear an admission, it's more in the nature of knowledge from our long history in the hobby, the reputation of certain people among graders and honest dealers we know, observation about the cards certain people buy versus those they sell, observation about cards purchased that to a trained eye appear altered, and so forth.

So what's the right thing to do? I guess you could say I and others are (plural starting with p) for not coming forward and naming names and only making statements like the above in general terms. And maybe that would be correct.

Anyhow, at the risk of being vilified, I put the topic out there for discussion.