Quote:
Originally Posted by glynparson
They were slabbing cards and putting in packs back around 2000. You are late to the game sir. I also do not see PSA as price manipulation, shilling yes, simply slab bing not even close. Psa advertising crazy prices for their cards is just good business, after all that's what they are a business. To answer the original question it depends, not if you want certain cards or issues but if you just wanted nicer raw and were not overly focused yes you could still build a decent raw collection. I do feel there would be more altered cards in the average nice raw card collection than would be in holders. I know I have seen collections of many people over the years that ripped grading. All too frequently there collections were not as high end as they thought and very often had a number of trimmed or worse cards in the collection.
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This is right on, and was indeed a common scenario in the early to mid '90's. As Tony Galovich used to say as a sales pitch in his mailings,a card buyer spent 400% of high book and got the card of his dreams (before grading began to police putting cards through a paper press, slightly enlarging them, and then trimming them down to proper size)! However, when the hobby learned to examine the edges under magnification, this process became readily detectable, and a number of dealers (not Galovich) specializing in such shenanigans were forced out of business. I remember going to the regional shows at Rosemont in the Chicago area in the 1990's, and many dealers were looking at the edges of raw cards with a high-powered loupe before they would even offer to buy them, just as I was when purchasing raw after grading had come in. If you weren't careful, you could easily get a trimmed card that was properly sized, and appeared NMt-Mt or better. It did indeed turn out that a number of these "dream cards," which were gem mint to the naked eye, had been altered and rendered ungradeable, beyond "authentic."
IMHO, stick with graded cards for more expensive purchases. Anywhere there is money to be made without a lot of work, there will be a scam artist lurking in the shadows.
Highest regards,
Larry