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Posted By: davidcycleback

In this hobby, people generally have two major 'condition' critereon for pricing a card:
authenticity and condition grade.

If a genuine card is altered-- recolored, trimmed, wrinkle pressed out-- the card
will still be authentic.

Assigning a condition of grade is dependant on whether or not the card has been altered.
A recolored card can't be considered Mint no matter how nice it looks. In fact many will
consider the card Poor or ungradable. Whether you think it's dumb or smart or silly or
good, a 'Near Mint' card that is known to have had a crease pressed out will be valued
lower than a Near Mint card that has had no alteration. If these two cards are laid side
by side, I know of no collector who would pay the same about for each card knowing one has
had a wrinkle removed-- and everyone removing a wrinkle knows this.

Fraud is when you intentionally hide information that you know would lower the
value of the card. If you have a Mint card and don't disclose what you did to the
card because you know the buyer would pay less if you did disclose, that's fraud.

For defining fraud, don't be concerned about whether this or that counts as or 'alteration'
or if this type of alteration is good or bad, focus on whether or not the alteration
effects the market value of the card and wehther or not the seller is hiding it
specifically because he knows disclosure will lower the value.

If one person thinks recoloring a 1953 Topps Mickey Mantle is evil and another thinks
the recoloring enhances the card and is morally good, they both have to disclose the
recoloring at sale as they both know recoloring lowers the market value for the card.
For defining fraud, the question of whether restoration is morally good or
morally bad is irelevant.