SGC's stance on alterations- revisited

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Posted By: leon

So there is no misunderstanding I cut and pasted this from several months ago....This is from Dave Forman of SGC...I posted it but they are all his words.....Hope this helps.....





I've been reading the recent threads on Net54 with great interest, and thought I would take some time to respond to some of your concerns. Clearly, these are important concerns for collectors, myself included.

In response to Doug Allen’s questions, we do not feel that it is the job of a grading company to tell any submitter what to do or not do to a card. We consider our role in the process to be simple: it is our job to review cards for authenticity and detectable alterations, assign a grade to the card, and encapsulate it into a holder. It is also our job to be the best grading company in the hobby, and to earn our customers’ trust with each and every submission. We understand that when a collector purchases a card in an SGC holder, they are placing their trust in our opinion as to the authenticity and grade of the card. That’s not a responsibility that we take lightly.

It is only natural that I feel that SGC boasts the most talented, experienced, and well-trained graders in the industry, and we make every conceivable effort to remain on the leading edge of our hobby, particularly when it comes to detecting card alterations. This is an area of constant education and training for us, and we feel that our team is the most skilled in the industry. At the same time, we also recognize that human errors occur – this is why we have a written guaranty.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough that if you feel that you have a card in our holder that you may feel may be altered or overgraded, we want you to review it with us. It is important to us that we get it right every time – and if there is a problem with a card, we want to buy it back from you and get it off the market. That’s part of the commitment we make to our customers, every single day. It is our job to be the best grading company in the hobby in every respect – and our guaranty is a big piece of what makes SGC special.

To address some of the other issues we’ve seen this weekend:

When it comes to restoration of cards, we break the issue down into three categories. The first category includes things like erasing light pencil marks, wax/gum removal, corner flattening, album/glue removal, and wrinkle removal. These are examples of procedures that, if done carefully and properly, are unfortunately undetectable. When done properly, cards that have undergone these procedures can find there way into SGC holders, because as I mentioned, there is no way to detect that it has been done. Often these procedures are done improperly, they leave telltale signs that we consider to be evidence of tampering, and we reject the cards. Some of these telltale signs include but are not limited to a change in the cards texture, unusually flat surfaces, and at times there is a slight transfer of a foreign substance to a card.

There is, however, a second category of restoration that we feel is far more problematic, that we see far more frequently. This category involves slight trimming, adding tiny amounts of paper to corners, touching up corners and/or touching up minor areas in the background to hide surface wear. An astonishing percentage of high-grade cards that we see have undergone procedures that fall into this category. I have complete confidence that our graders have the knowledge and ability to detect these types of alterations and reject the cards. However, as mentioned above, in the unlikely event that such an alteration gets by our graders our written guaranty will protect you. SGC rejects these cards on a regular basis.

The third category involves extensive restoration, such as major corner rebuilding, pieces added to cards, rebacking, and creating variations. While these types of alterations are seen less frequently, we also feel completely confident in our ability to detect them. Obviously, we reject these cards.

Based on some of the feedback we have received over the weekend, we have decided to devote some space in SGC Collector magazine to a series of articles that will help collectors better understand how to detect certain types of alterations themselves. Part of our role as a grading company is not only to provide you with a trustworthy opinion on cards, but to be a resource for you to help increase your own knowledge as a collector. With card values skyrocketing, it is more important than ever that you purchase your cards from a trustworthy source, using a grading company that gives you confidence – but it is equally important that you consistently work to build your own base of knowledge. As such, you can look to the upcoming issues of the magazine to add to your reference materials. If there are any specific areas you would like these articles to address, feel free to email us and let us know.

As always, if you ever have any questions or concerns, my staff will be happy to help you with whatever we can. Feel free to contact us at any time – and we hope to see some of you at the upcoming Philly show in Reading.

Regards,
Dave Forman


edited 1 word for spelling

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Posted By: Zach S.

I must have missed the first run of this post several months ago. Interesting reading and I like SGC's buy back policy. Thanks for posting it again, leon.

Zach S.

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Posted By: jay behrens

ok, so 3 categories became 3 tiers. Explains why no one would ever be able to find it in a search looking for tier 1 etc. Thanks

Jay

The richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

"These are examples of procedures that, if done carefully and properly, are unfortunately undetectable."

Unfortunately undetectable. Note Unfortunately. Not just the word undetectable. Summs up everything I feel about the practice too.

So then I would ask the erasers and soakers and corner flippers/wrinkle pressers of the world, one thing:

What about all your unsuccessful work? The stuff that doesn't pass grading muster, the efforts that leave visible damage and change.
When you attempt a corner flip and weaken the area, cause some flaking or encouraging a crease, how do you feel about intentionally weakening and diminishing one of the small reserve of extant examples of our hobby?
When you soak and clean off boogers and dirt, stains and whatnot, gently using a cue tip and whatever else, and you've physically rubbed paper away however miniscule in conjunction, do you really feel the right to thus create damage on the card?

Why the need to make the card look like it hasn't suffered the slings and arrows of ownership for 100 years? Why does everything have to look new and shiny? If I want shiny, I buy 2007 hobby boxes. Seriously, what's the deal?
It's been done before? Is that all you got? Because truthfully, the only reason to do cosmetic stuff is to make some money in your pocket when you sell. And in doing so, you've done the equivalent of getting some lysol and removing the patina off an 1830's ladderback chair because it's gotten a bit 'grimy'. Seriously, I just don't get what the altering crowd is thinking....

There is only one area I see use for alteration in the card world, and that is where a card structurally will not survive without it and is disintegrating because of contact with destructive agents. And even here, I would save efforts for where the know surviving number of that card is less than say 20.

The rest IMO is just bush-league with people saying there's nothing you can do about it "so there". Absolute Bush-league.


I apologize ahead of time for my hot-headedness in tone re this topic.


Daniel

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Posted By: leon

You seem like a great guy in person and fairly level headed on the board....I do disagree with you though. Recently I took some gunk off of the back of a card as many words couldn't be read...now they can be read. I think that is a good thing. I am sure you disagree with what I did but that's ok....we can still get along together..Your opinion is relevent just different than mine......best regards (ps...the card is not for sale)

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Posted By: E, Daniel

You're so damn disarming you almost have me wanting to give my cards a nice lavender bath and some expensive spa treatments .

I'll fully accept that because I feel so strongly on this issue there's every chance I'm completely wrong about it.
So, in this one instance the effort of cleaning was to make text on the back legible. It's a good reason. So as a follow up, do you need the text legible because you'll want to read it from time to time when you pick up the card, or because the card 'should' have the text legible as intended?

BTW, I'm disappointed I didn't make more of a pain of myself and hang around your table until you were free to jabber. I was oddly shy of forcing myself into other hobbyists space at the National - being completely new to most of you in person, and really deprived myself of more laughs and greater knowledge. Next time I'm gonna tell everyone you're my older brother. Hope I don't get thrown out .


Daniel

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Posted By: Kevin Saucier

""and we make every conceivable effort to remain on the leading edge of our hobby, particularly when it comes to detecting card alterations. This is an area of constant education and training for us, and we feel that our team is the most skilled in the industry.""



We shall see