I guess I'm in an odd minority on this.
I think both doctoring and shilling are fairly common.
I think both are wrong.
I may have a looser definition of doctoring than some, soaking to remove scrapbook residue I think is ok especially if the scrapbook paper is very acidic. I think anything up to a light surface cleaning is ok. emphasis on light. Making a card with "stuff" on the surface look like a new card is going too far, removing stuff that will cause issues later on is fine. (I've done both, and I've been very open about it here. None of the 3-4 cards is for sale, and I'd disclose the cleaning/paper removal if I did sell them.)
Altering the card- trimming, removing color, altering text, etc are all right out. If I tried I could probably do any of it so it was nearly undetectable but then I'd feel the card should be destroyed. Knowing the technical end of things comes with responsibility not just knowledge. (I won't even clean up the Hostess cards I cut out with a pocketknife as a kid. Original is original. Others may feel differently about tidying up hand cut cards.
I also believe that currently any alteration can be detected. The only thing preventing it is the cost of doing it and the desire to do it by people in the hobby.
Another hobby of mine is currently seeing a lot of use of spectrographs of different sorts to determine the makeup of inks used in the mid 1800s through around 1900. It's either fascinating or horribly dull depending on if you like that stuff. I do. And it answers a lot of questions that have been unanswered with any certainty for over a century. Like was the red-brown ink actually made using powdered rust. For over 100 years that's been the belief and what's "known" --A couple trips through the spectrograph and that's gone, replaced with provable knowledge that the ink contains no iron at all.
Could an oil based solvent be detected? Yes.
Would it be time consuming and expensive to tell? Yes.
Can trimming be detected in the slab? A qualified yes. It is for many sets. Perhaps not all.
Can fading be detected as fading instead of a missing color? Perhaps. I can't do it reliably with the equipment I have. It may not be possible on very modern cards, earlier postwar it should be possible and I believe it is possible with some prewar sets especially T206. (I'll have access to a SEM later this year, that will hopefully change a few things
)
Can an altered bit of print be detected. Obviously yes if it's not exactly like the original - with the Magies it was done only from scans without the cards in hand and without an original in hand. (Ah technology!)
The real problem is that those detections take skill and time, and in some cases expensive equipment.
And our entire grading system is backwards. Why does a 1981 Topps common take 20 days to grade? (supposedly only 10 with PSA) And yet, anything over 7500 or 5000/10000 only takes a day or less. Shouldn't the valuable stuff get more scrutiny than the very common?
Yes, dealers don't like tying up cash waiting for authentication/grading. But I bet they like buying cards back even less.
I'm sure insurance is part of that, the longer something is in the graders shop the more chance of problems.
But other hobbies have it worked out. Stamps cost a minimum of $30 through the APS and it typically takes 45 days and they say to allow 90. Special cases may take longer, and there's the possibility of getting a cert that says "we decline to render an opinion" That's with an average of 615 items a month, hardly a big workload compared to Any of the big grading companies.
Change the effort expended change the expectation, and that's how authentication becomes a lot more valid. (The graded stamp guys have the same complaints about big dealers getting better grades. I'm not sure it's true consistently, but might be. Very few outright fakes get through no matter who submits them. )
Steve Birmingham