[Snowman]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

If undetected alterations are still alterations, or cards that are literally physically unchanged are capable of still having been "doctored", then prove to me that every vintage card in a numbered slab anywhere isn't somehow altered? Or taking it a step further - that every raw card you've ever had in your possession in your collection since you originally pulled it from a pack is not altered? Did you have surveillance cameras on every card every minute to see what did or did not happen to them while you were not physically present? Absurdity.

This whole thing seems to be much more a slippery slope about people being po'd at the INTENT of messing with cards than it is what was actually done in the final analysis to the physical card.

Just based on the "act" of someone doing something which may or may not be illicit - then what is the point of all of this empty discussion? Alteration has to be provable on a card later, or it isn't alteration, by any practical or realistic judgment. Period. If Kurt's alteration cannot be detected later, anymore than 9 year-old Billy immediately wiping a booger off of a card in 1957 can be detected in 2024, then neither should be realistically considered "altering" cards. The cards as ephemera / artifacts are not logged upon some blockchain of history where you can go back and see what was or was not done to them over the course of their existence. They are not conscious beings who can say "Hey, a dealer pressed my left corner back down for a little bit too long at a show in 1982, maybe you should tell PSA I'm altered!"

To me this starts to cross a strange boundary where realism / sanity in the judgment of "what is" is no longer a factor. And that is where I cannot continue to follow the script.

Well said