Done buying high end cards

[buymycards]

Originally Posted by wondo

Because the main page is:

Net54baseball Vintage (WWII & Older) Baseball Cards & New Member Introductions

Hi John, look at the main page. Most of the threads are in regard to Blowout, PWCC, PSA, and the scandals, including this thread.

Regards, Rick

[Leon]

Originally Posted by buymycards

Hi John, look at the main page. Most of the threads are in regard to Blowout, PWCC, PSA, and the scandals, including this thread.

Regards, Rick

And that is precisely why some get moved. It is called moderation.....I prefer all threads on the front page to be concerning WWII cards and before but that isn't reality. Some Important stuff gets left on the front page because it needs more eyes on it but my preference is cards we collect. Also, the further we get from WWII and forward the more likely something is to get moved. There is no rhyme nor reason as there is no telling what will be posted next. Some of the "slabgate" scandal threads have been moved as they are too numerous.

BTW John W (hey John) is absolutely correct in his above statement.

[jchcollins]

I do mostly postwar and am not able to spend anything approaching a lot even there, but the scandal has made me look back fondly at childhood days when collecting old cards was not only about evaluating minuscule differences between slabs and numbers on flips. Back then, say if there was a Willie Mays card from the 1950's in a shop - it was simply cool that it was an old card. Condition issues were a given; for my own collection I tried to avoid cards with major creases, but that was about it. Dinged corners and off-centered cards didn't make much difference.

Since then and the advent of professional grading, I have seen grading and condition as kind of a "sub-hobby" of mine - because it was something that I had been interested in even as a teenager before the PSA days - how do you really "accurately" grade a card even within certain tolerances - the fact that EX cards should not have creases, NM should be centered better than xx/xx, those kinds of things. So now what I feel like is that this scandal has cast even more confusion and doubt over the accepted grades because of what the doctors have done. There is discussion about trashing the 1-10 system in it's entirety and just going back to some version of Authentic only, or "Authentic - Nice Card" without so much detail and minutiae put into the system of half-points. How do folks feel about this? On the surface this would seem a hard system to buck quickly - just looking at how crazy detailed things got over in the coin hobby and their slabbing - which of course led to it starting here in ours.

Bottom line I will continue to find grading interesting - and I enjoy educating new collectors here and there on forums like this and maybe more so on social media as to the nuances of condition. It does feel like the PWCC mess has cast quite a shadow over even the legit practice of card grading - as it evolved in the hobby from the 1970's on to today.

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

I do mostly postwar and am not able to spend anything approaching a lot even there, but the scandal has made me look back fondly at childhood days when collecting old cards was not only about evaluating minuscule differences between slabs and numbers on flips. Back then, say if there was a Willie Mays card from the 1950's in a shop - it was simply cool that it was an old card. Condition issues were a given; for my own collection I tried to avoid cards with major creases, but that was about it. Dinged corners and off-centered cards didn't make much difference.

Since then and the advent of professional grading, I have seen grading and condition as kind of a "sub-hobby" of mine - because it was something that I had been interested in even as a teenager before the PSA days - how do you really "accurately" grade a card even within certain tolerances - the fact that EX cards should not have creases, NM should be centered better than xx/xx, those kinds of things. So now what I feel like is that this scandal has cast even more confusion and doubt over the accepted grades because of what the doctors have done. There is discussion about trashing the 1-10 system in it's entirety and just going back to some version of Authentic only, or "Authentic - Nice Card" without so much detail and minutiae put into the system of half-points. How do folks feel about this? On the surface this would seem a hard system to buck quickly - just looking at how crazy detailed things got over in the coin hobby and their slabbing - which of course led to it starting here in ours.

Bottom line I will continue to find grading interesting - and I enjoy educating new collectors here and there on forums like this and maybe more so on social media as to the nuances of condition. It does feel like the PWCC mess has cast quite a shadow over even the legit practice of card grading - as it evolved in the hobby from the 1970's on to today.

Well said, John.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by vintagebaseballcardguy

Well said, John.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Long time, Robert. Hope you are doing well!

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Probably been said before, but I don't understand the logic of the point of the thread. I'm not a seller of high-end cards for the most part so this isn't self-serving, but didn't we get into this hobby because we love cards, examining cards, learning about cards etc? Why have we abdicated so much of the work we used to do before a purchase? Is it trust in Auction Houses and TPG's or just laziness? I got burnt plenty of times before TPG's and each time I learned something new. While we go after the criminals and their abbetors and enablers (which I whole-heartedly support) let's use this experience like we would've in the pre-TPG days and learn from it in order to protect ourselves.

Steve you know plenty about cards. I'm sure with due diligence you could protect yourself on a high-end purchase.

I am just as frustrated with the situation as anyone. Can you imagine being the owner of a small auction house that is trying to grow in the midst of this? That being said I have increased my vigilance even on graded cards before they go into one of my sales. I am still struggling with how to treat altered cards. Not sure if I want to sell them even with full disclosure as I don't know what the next person is going to do with them. We already destroy fake autographs (with consignors permission) but doing that with cards doesn't seem like the right answer.

[Mark70Z]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Probably been said before, but I don't understand the logic of the point of the thread. I'm not a seller of high-end cards for the most part so this isn't self-serving, but didn't we get into this hobby because we love cards, examining cards, learning about cards etc? Why have we abdicated so much of the work we used to do before a purchase? Is it trust in Auction Houses and TPG's or just laziness? I got burnt plenty of times before TPG's and each time I learned something new.

Scott,

I can’t answer for the OP, but I did get into the hobby because I do love (well...really like a lot) cards. Personally though I didn’t get into the hobby because I like “examining cards” or really anything else other than I like the player/s I collect and cardboard was cool. I know I didn’t do much, as you stated, conducted “work” before the purchase. Maybe I’m lazy, but I thought it was a hobby and not a job. At this point I really don’t trust the grading companies, auction houses, or some of these resellers since the almighty dollar seems to be supreme. I’m sure I’ll begin to start to somewhat trust certain auction houses, but will be gradual. I won’t be purchasing high grade cards though. The thing you said that got me is that you’ve been burned plenty of times and learned from it; I don’t want to get burned at all.