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With due respect to what Travis may have said before or elsewhere nonwithstanding, this thread started out being about the Kurt's Card Care products. That is not doctoring or fraud in the state it's been presented, at least not yet. Folks may think it is, but I would challenge them to show me out of a huge pile of cards which ones specifically had doctoring perpetrated upon them or fraud then later employed in their sale if it was only Kurt's stuff that had been used on them.
Not saying it can't happen. i just haven't seen how it has happened yet with this particular stuff and the cards the products have been used on.
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Vintage Cubs. Postwar stars & HOF'ers. Last edited by jchcollins; 01-19-2024 at 12:10 PM. |
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The history here is obvious and we all know it. |
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Let’s please keep it civil so we can keep this thread alive
I have t seen anyone advocating for fraud and on this thread except for the post about what PSA did being good for business re: Wagner. Do you believe if only using water and no other chemicals but pushing down on a corner is altering and is fraud? We all have pushed down a finger corner with our fingers or a book or to try to make it look better. I did that at 8 years old. Honest question. Is using panty hose to get wax off the back of a card an alteration? Quote:
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[FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]CampyFan39 Last edited by campyfan39; 01-19-2024 at 02:11 PM. |
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The things are you asking have nothing to do what what I have actually said? I am not defining 'alter' in any strange, unusual, or unique way. When did I object to pushing a corner flat with your finger? When did I object to water or imply as such? Does not my first post suggest the exact opposite? Kurt's openly engages in practices almost everyone here, until convenient for it to change, has long held to be altering. Go check out their own advertising. |
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I'm simply ask for a definition of "altering"
Nobody on this thread has spoken in favor of adding anything to a card such as adding ink or rebuilding a corner using another card or trimming etc. Yet you seem to be very upset about the whole thing. I agreed with and quoted part of your first post but I was focused on your conclusion about what drives all of this. Looking back at it now you said in the first line "Kurts has done far more than this. I've seen their crease/dent/corner fixes on the Discords." Sounds like you believe that is altering when there is nothing being added? To me what he is doing is just an upgraded/modern form of using pantyhose for wax stains or flattening a corner with your fingers. Quote:
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[FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]CampyFan39 |
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The board is more than welcome to adopt a new standard gleaned from the modern crowd. It used to be considered that Dick’s operation was bad alteration. Now this stuff is growing in popularity here. It will probably help profit margins. |
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All fine and well, "that's alteration", except that you would not be able to prove it on a card 10 minutes later. Until you can, this discussion is entirely academic in the real world where people continue to add cards to their collections - oblivious now by what we have just said as to what may or may not have happened to them in the past to affect our perception of how desirable they should be considered.
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Vintage Cubs. Postwar stars & HOF'ers. Last edited by jchcollins; 01-19-2024 at 01:52 PM. |
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Every slabbed card has a story, don't it?
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Ok, but at the end of the day you and everyone else judging only on the act would have to admit that it’s a theoretical problem. If by definition you “don’t know” that you may be collecting an altered card - and that doesn’t stop you - well then it must not be too big of a problem. Right? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Vintage Cubs. Postwar stars & HOF'ers. Last edited by jchcollins; 01-19-2024 at 03:12 PM. |
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My avatar is a sketch by my son who is an art school graduate. Some of his sketches and paintings are at https://www.jamesspaethartwork.com/ He is available to do custom drawings in graphite, charcoal and other media. He also sells some of his works as note cards/greeting cards on Etsy under JamesSpaethArt. Last edited by Peter_Spaeth; 01-19-2024 at 03:11 PM. |
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I think the embarrassment / possibility here that we all don't want to admit is that someday fakes that good will be so common, that none of us know the difference. And that thought genuinely terrifies me.
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Vintage Cubs. Postwar stars & HOF'ers. Last edited by jchcollins; 01-19-2024 at 03:19 PM. |
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I own a stainlees steel Daytona there are copies that are very scary now very scary,box and paperwork look scary
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fify
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Let's just assume this assumption is true, even though it quite obviously is not. If I can make a fake $100 bill so good that you can't detect it and the authenticator you bring it to can't detect and the US Mint doesn't catch me, is it okay for me do this? Is it okay for me to pass off this item when I sell it or use it in a commercial transaction as a real $100 bill? Is it not "too big of a problem" because you can't see it's fake? I don't think it takes a moral high horse to see the massive problems here with this train of ethics, or lack thereof. |
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Make no mistake - my line is the physical proof. If a method is devised 240 years from now to tell exactly what was done to each of our cards at each perspective point in their histories - then yes, fine. Bang, you got me. You got Kurt. But if you cannot provide physical proof that a card is in fact altered - the world we currently live in will conclude that it hasn't been. Frowning upon more than that at this point is an exercise in futility and kind of pointless, IMO.
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Vintage Cubs. Postwar stars & HOF'ers. Last edited by jchcollins; 01-19-2024 at 03:29 PM. |
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A total non sequitur.
You would be creating a fake Rolex or fake $100 bill from scratch. Those are counterfeits. Nobody is advocating that so you are fighting a straw man. Kurts is not producing fake cards Quote:
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[FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]CampyFan39 |
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If it's not perfectly centered, I probably don't want it. |
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Spray distilled water on my card - maybe I don't care. Alcohol - eh, maybe I'm not so sure. Acetone or bleach - OK, please drop the bottle and step away from the card. Focusing on whether the card appears doctored when Kurt is done with working his magic is beside the point. Undetected alterations are still alterations, so the eyeball test isn't dispositive. All you'd really prove is that he's good at doctoring -- not that he didn't do it. |
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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.
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Vintage Cubs. Postwar stars & HOF'ers. Last edited by jchcollins; 01-19-2024 at 02:09 PM. |
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If it's not perfectly centered, I probably don't want it. |
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I'm not advocating for the unsuspecting guy who bought an improbably sharp PSA 9 from Probstein to flog himself and surrender the card to local authorities. I am advocating for full disclosure of known facts whenever possible, with varying degrees of moral culpability along the "blockchain." Hypothetically speaking: If Evan trims a card and sends it to PSA without disclosing what he did, then he's a cheat. It's clear-cut. "PSA will not grade cards that bear evidence of trimming, re-coloring, restoration, or any other forms of tampering, or are of questionable authenticity." If PSA knows Evan trimmed the card but gives it a 9 anyway, then PSA is complicit in the fraud. If PSA doesn't know the card is trimmed and gives it a 9, then PSA's actions may fall somewhere on the negligence spectrum, but there's no ill intent. If Probstein knows Evan trimmed the card and sells it as a PSA 9 without disclosing the known alteration, then he's complicit in Evan's fraud. Probstein might be tempted to argue that PSA's failure to detect the trimming absolves him of blame, but he'd be wrong. Another party's negligence doesn't mitigate Probstein's own knowledge and intent to deceive for profit. On the other hand, if Probstein suspects Evan trimmed the card but takes a "see no evil, hear no evil" approach, it becomes a moral gray area for Probstein. If I buy the card from Probstein without knowledge that Evan trimmed it, I'm a blameless victim in the scheme, even when I go to re-sell it as a PSA 9. Now, if Evan tells me he trimmed it and I turn a blind eye because it's his word against PSA's, we're venturing into that gray area where self-interest leads to lame rationalizations. It might not be fraud, but it certainly raises an ethical eyebrow. Finally, let's say Evan tells me he trimmed it, shows me a video of him doing it, and even points to unique markers that leave no doubt that he chopped that particular card before sending it off to PSA. If I sell you the PSA 9 slab without disclosing what Evan showed me, then I'm a PSA-10, PWCC-S Top 5% Certified scumbag, and I deserve to be tarred, feathered, and strung up by my thumbs. That might not be a popular viewpoint, but I'm a little more Kant and a little less Rand. |
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Yes, if you don't say that you did it, and I can't prove that you did it, and some grading company either can't prove it, or more likely just doesn't care - that doesn't make things right, but my point is how often is this a situation of consequence in reality? Are you going to stop collecting cards just because you don't know either way on all the new cards you buy? I'm not. How often do you know the person or history of the specific piece of cardboard you are buying? Whether that is from Rick Probstein or Greg Morris or your LCS dealer 10 minutes away? How often do THEY know? They don't. People can fret over this, or they can get on with life and collect cards and enjoy the hobby. The truth is that the vast majority of time - you aren't going to know. All of your Evan scenarios aside from I think 2B (PSA knows it's trimmed, and labels it as such - Authentic Altered) are in theory true - but in reality highly improbable. Neither of the two largest graders that deal with vintage cards (PSA and SGC) are in the business of detective operations to see who "intentionally" submits altered cards to them. It's a policy that's buried in the fine print somewhere, but realistically impossible to enforce unless they take time and resources away from their grading operations to go on an improbable witch hunt for card doctors. Ain't gonna happen. The rest are the same. Yeah, if we hear of impropriety in the process somewhere, we should probably throw up a red flag. But how often in reality are folks going to do that? You have to temper this whole "Card Doctors Bad" with reality. This is why the physical proof to me is so important. It's the whole essence of the extent to which people care or do not care about alteration as a real issue in this hobby, with some chance to actually DO something about it and not just be pissed and post on message boards about card doctors whose names we don't know being so awful. Graders certainly aren't perfect but they at least attempt to set a standard for authentic and unaltered cards based on physical proof that isn't reliant on the telephone game and unrealistic proactive honesty for collectors such as some on this board to out bad characters and altered cards that otherwise we would never know about. They are if nothing more - a starting point for now despite their flaws, given the percentage of collectors that continue to heavily use them and collect / invest in cards that reside in their slabs.
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Vintage Cubs. Postwar stars & HOF'ers. Last edited by jchcollins; 01-19-2024 at 06:23 PM. |
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Don't be the paranoid schizophrenic of the hobby screaming at clouds.
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If it's not perfectly centered, I probably don't want it. |
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We're not going to see eye to eye here, so I'll just respond to your direct points and move on.
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Frankly, I'm not that fussy about cards for my personal collection. You can soak them, spray them, glue them, tape them, roll them, dip them, or touch them up with crayon. But I respect that other collectors might not feel that way. If I know something's been done to one of my cards that might make a prospective buyer/trader uneasy, I'll disclose it. Quote:
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All that said, I'm an imperfect being. I probably wouldn't lose sleep at night if I trimmed a card to 50/50 perfection, fuzzied the corners a bit to bring it to that PSA 4-5 sweet spot, snuck it through their alteration detectors, and sold it to you at 500% comps. You'd be happy as a clam and I'd have money in my pocket. It's not actually fraud if we all look the other way, right? Trees falling in the forest and such. |
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The market clearly values cleaned cards more than it values dirty ones. The used car market is no different. Clean used cars sell for more than dirty ones. The only reason you see fewer dirty cars for sale is because everyone knows how to clean a car, but not everyone knows how to clean their cards. As more and more people learn how to do it, it'll become less and less taboo. People are simply afraid of what they don't understand. They think soaking a card should damage it somehow. But they're wrong.
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If it's not perfectly centered, I probably don't want it. |
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Having been priced out of a big chunk of the hobby, I really hate these threads.
Rather than go over to the dark side, lets do this. If you believe the alterations done with the magic spray, a stick from the art store and a meth pipe are undetectable, send one my way and lets find out for real. |
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Respectfully, I don't think you realize how ridiculous this sounds. If you pour a beer into a glass, and then later wash that glass, you have not altered the glass. It's still the same glass. In order for a card to be altered, you have to actually alter the card itself, not just remove something from it. You can't just call it "altered" because you dislike the practice.
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If it's not perfectly centered, I probably don't want it. |
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For those who’ve been following this for a while… Brent Huigens’ “tenets” now prevail. He never should’ve been an FBI target… he was a hobby trailblazer!
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Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel, The Stuff Of Greatness. New videos are uploaded every week... https://www.youtube.com/@tsogreatness/videos |
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