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Plastic Dog When SGC grades a card, I am pretty confident (though I have seen a Nodgrass, formerly Snodgrass, SGC-slabbed card recently which made me wretch) that SGC has verified that:
1. The card is authentic and unaltered, and
2. That the card is of a particular condition
Here's the problem with an Authentic grade: if SGC doesn't go to the trouble of determining condition - how can we the collector if the card is already entombed in a holder?
So we see a scan of an "Authentic-graded" card on EBay, advertised as NM-MT, and we Buy it Now. Great, card comes, we go to take a look at it, and there's kind of maybe a print-line or light surface crease on the back. But I can't tell because I can't feel the card because the slab is in the way. Front is beautiful, centered, white borders (maybe too white, bleached? again can't tell because of the slab - SGC didn't say anything, but do they check for bleach? - I'm not sure, and maybe I can't locate it on their web site). Was this card ironed out? Hard to say. Maybe, but even if it was, SGC will still grade it (but knock off for the small, undetectable surface crease remaining - oh wait, this grade is "Authentic," and short of breaking it out of the slab I have no way to know for sure.) I saw an authentic (not "Authentic") PSA-graded 1952 Topps Mantle recently that was graded a 2. The card had been glued back together after having been torn in half in another era. The card is original and unaltered (though simply reattached). Does that get graded as Authentic? If not, does the top half of my Mantle - ripped from that unloving bottom - deserve to be graded by itself? I know half a Wagner (with the bottom conveniently missing) was graded as authentic by PSA. What's worth more? One whole Authentic Mantle, or a top and a bottom separately graded as Authentic? Guess it depends on your marketing . . .
Authentic sounds nice in theory, but I think it has too many holes that will never adequately be patched and will ultimately do the collector a disservice.