Well, that's it in a nutshell. If a card is trimmed but makes it into a graded holder, everything is cool.

Jeff put it a bit cynically, but I believe this actually does reflect the state of the hobby. And, I believe that the potential for trimming, even in slabs, affects the market value of cards in a way that is similar to the potential for authenticated forgeries. The risk is built into the price.

Put another way, before I'd spend crazy money on a PSA graded card with minty sharp corners, I'd want at least one other market-accepted expert to look at it first (i.e., SGC). It's the same way for me and autographs, albeit it with higher risk associated with forgeries.

I always assume that PSA and SGC and JSA and PSA-DNA will be defunct or unaccepted by the hobby in 30 years from now (or quite probably much sooner). One had better have a safety net if you are considering selling these little treasures beyond the expected lifetime of any of these companies. For the time being, that means having your best cards/autographs dual-graded or dual-authenticated, which I actually do.

agreed, the faith that people put into grading is almost as crazy as auto authentication.

The way I look at it, the highest bidder on that Cy Young will be the bidder who was willing to accept the most risk that the item isn't real. But at every price level, every autograph that is sold carries risk with it. If you are not interested in making leaps of faith, both small and large, then autograph collecting isn't for you.

If SGC makes a mistake and holders a bad card, I believe that they make good on the purchase price of that card. I wonder if JSA would have the same type of money back guarantee for their authentication of this Young?

Does Goodwin think the W600 Young is rarer than the 1893 Just So?

If I recall, JSA divorced from SGC well before he issued this cert# - does anyone know if you can now submit JSA certs to SGC and have them slabbed with the cert on the flip like this?

I stopped collecting autographs when the players started writing like hurried doctors, and I'm quite handy with a kitchen knife in removing cards from slabs, but I have a comment that may have a bit of relevance -

I work for a fairly popular band. They get asked for their autographs frequently. Every night I have them sign some posters from that nights show for the local promoter. If they sign 10 posters, two of the guys will have pretty much the same signature 10 times, but the 3rd guy's signature will vary widely enough that if I sorted them likeness, I would probably have 4 groups.

Two of the guys have a completely different signature for legal documents, and have been known, on occasion, to sign the wrong version.

My point is that if Cy Young tended to use DT Young in some situations, he could very easily have signed the W600 in that way. After an entertainer has signed their name as many times as my employers have, or Cy Young did, they have very little regard for the act of signing. He may have been asked to sign the W600 by the clerk who was checking him in at a hotel, so signed both the registry and card in quick succession.

Doug

"I want to believe, I really do."

The problem is that baseball players were not really being asked for their autographs in 1902-06 or whenever this card was "signed". Pretty much the only autographs of Baseball players from that era are letters, documents, and the occassional team signed banquet menu or something like that. When a Baseball player signed a photo from this era it was almost always with a long salutation to a sports writer or family friend or something. The context of when this was supposedly signed simply does not match up with all the possibilities that have been brought up to create a scenario where this could be a signature and not just an identification.

A Baseball player from this era might have been asked for his autograph 10 times in an entire season, and even then only if they were a big star. I would think they would take their time when such a rare showing of admiration would display itself and not scribble an illegible little thing on the bottom margin!

Just my opinion.

Don't look now, but this one is now going through the roof in Heritage. $26,000 with 22 days to go. Wow.

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c...Auction-120115

I'd have to be pretty confident that the signature is going to be passed off as good if I was forging a Cy Young signature on his W600 card...