Baseball Card corruption

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Posted By: marshall barkman

I thought this should be a follow up post to Bruce's concerns about who and what the government is investigating because i find it odd that people actually think the baseball card world is legit. I have been buying and selling baseball cards for 20 years and not the nickel and dime type cards. I have also attended several major card shows that bring out PSA,SGC and all major card dealers. The entire hobby is corrupt and the amount of honest people in the high end card game is very slim. Here is a prime example. I recently got into a riff with some of the members on this board and they basically called me out over some clown named Billy who i did not know and acted like i did not pocess alot of T-206 cards and actually questioned if a imposter was posting for me which i found amusing. I will say that Leon is a class act and sent a personal e-mail which let me know he does actually care and has a passion for cards and the people that own them. Of the 1500 T-206 cards that i own i decided to send a collection that i bought which consisted of 250 cards and they had some real strong Southern Leauguers in it. I have always suspected that the card graders such as PSA are totally corrupt and will always give better grades to dealers and also in regards to PSA protect graded cards which are in their set registry. I sent the cards to a auction house and allowed the owner to send them in, we spoke over the phone before they were sent and out of 125 cards my personal grading was off on only 2 cards when they got slabbed. The cards were sent to PSA and the grading was correct. After the auction ended i had to basically get rude in order to recieve my money so i decided to skip sending anymore of my cards to auction because it was a very uncomfrotable scene and i am very old school so without saying anymore trust me my friends somehow someway i am gonna get Paid. I spoke personally to Joe Orlando who is the CEO of PSA and told him about my concerns because i am not a dealer and also spoke of the cards i own and that i would like the same consideration as other high end dealers when submitting cards, we worked out a arrangement but i am no dummy so instead of sending in some T-206's i started with some 1944 Gum Inc American Beauties just in case old Joe and the graders brought their Brett Favre game. If the cards were graded honestly their value is around 7,500. These cards were cello packed pulled and out of 48 cards their was at least 2 10's and about 7-10 9's some of which would have been the first ever found 9's. The cards basically never saw the light of day for 60 years because they were in a chest in the attic on a board which had 12 cello packs attached to it and a dealer who saw my post in the non-sports section offered me 5 figures for the cards and the board . Let me also state for the record that i have submitted to Beckett about 200 cards of which over 175 have been graded BGS 9.5 and some BGS 10 which is not easy to do and up until these cards i have submitted to PSA about 9 cards of which all came back PSA Gem-Mint 10 except for a Pujols rookie and Billy Butler rookie which i knew were 9's. I just got online and saw that the grading for the American Beauties and out of 48 cards only 1 came back a 9 and isn't it odd that the particular card that got a 9 has 15 other 9's on the pop report which is no coincidence, how nice of PSA to throw me a bone. A majority of the cards were graded between 7 and 8 which is almost laughable due to how nice and clean the cards are and the fact that the cards were razor sharp with nothing on the back. There is no doubt in my mind that the cards were snubbed because i am not a dealer and that the cards in the set registry were protected, if a well known dealer had sent in the cards then they would have been graded correctly. Basically PSA just cost me about 5 thousand and Mr. Orlando will not return my phone calls so instead of taking it on the chin i think i'll take the shot and now start throwing some myself. I ask all the members of this board to ask this question- How many times have you cracked out a card from a PSA holder and then re-submitted it and the grade comes back 1 or 2 points lower? How can a 8 come back a 6.5 and a 6 come back a 4.5? How many times have you been at a card show and watched certain people get grades and then look at the card in the holder and just laugh? The answer is obvious the company is bogus and their is shady things going on all the time behind the scenes especially at the major card shows. I hope the government is investigating these fu#$%king goofballs and does something to clean up the hobby because i'm trying to figure out if Joe is friends with Bernie Madoff (-: unlike most card buyers who really don't want to express their opinion due to the retalition i have plenty of cash and alot of super nice cards and i'm not intimidated by any of these suedo auction houses or grading companies. PSA should change from Pro Sports Authenticator to Pro Scam Alliance. Good day Joe and i hope you and the rest of the snots that work for you read this post because your holders are not worth the plastic it cost to make them because of your inconsistent and manipulative grading.