Quote:
Originally Posted by irv
I understand what you are saying but I honestly didn't realize there was so much blind faith/hope in the hobby, especially when large amounts of money are being laid down for said cards.
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To me this is the biggest reason stuff like this can happen. People abdicated the responsibility for doing their own research and the healthy skepticism needed when vetting any item just because a Third Party Authenticator gave their stamp of approval. As people learned, this goes the same for cards as well as autos.
What having a TPA did was make cards and autos commodities that required no expertise to buy and sell. In the old days, G-VG-Ex-ExMt-Mt could mean widely different things to people. Having a TPA was supposed to make all cards graded a 5 be in roughly the same condition. The likelihood is that card commerce on the internet has been greatly helped by the fact that people don't feel the need to inspect cards as closely before sale when they are slabbed as X grade. We know this does not always work and that is why so many people keep repeating the saying "buy the card, not the holder."
IMO, If all anyone ever looks at, is the slab or cert, it increases the likelihood they can be fooled based on that slab or cert. If you use the TPA opinion as one of MULTIPLE pieces of evidence, this would then have the possibility of increasing your safety margin. More data = opportunity to make a better decision. Now, we still might make an incorrect evaluation, but having more data points allows for higher probability of getting it right.