Its Great that you have personal interest in Rovells article, and with 2 million followers, I get it. I understand the power of an Influncer. The old dancer at a nightclub in my town has 19 million on YouTube. Color me impressed.

However, both cut by ESPN, Olbermann was pulling in 10 million a year in his hey day, Rovell left for "incentives" to the action network. Olbermann, although politically he might be a little charged, one cant argue his love and passion for the hobby.

Again, after I googled Rovell, i wasn't quite sure why there was so much attention given to him. I see he is just another mouthpiece for the cause, and that is great. But to say the 2 million Twitter followers is a "bigger fan base" than Olbermann when Ken command 10 million a year salary, I seriously suggest otherwise

I’ll believe that the FBI or other authorities are really involved and taking this seriously when the news comes from multiple media sources and has a little
meat on the bone. When it was Jose’s homemade cello packs with stars on top making there way into slabs a few years ago the FBI was supposedly all over it too.

As for stakeholders getting out in front, I was referring to examples
like the statement put out by Goldin Auctions. There have been a few others.
The response from PWCC, PSA and others more directly involved has left a lot of room for improvement. At the same time, I think we can all understand that they need to be very careful in issuing any statements. The original PSA statement by Steve Sloan was actually pretty benign and an introductory more-to-come kind of statement. The Joe Orlando follow-up was disappointing to say the least.

Ultimately we as the consumers in this market are going to vote with our wallets based on how the vendors in this market handle the current situation. I’m not suggesting for a moment that people shouldn’t be doing that whenever they feel it is appropriate, even right away.

All I am saying is that spreading unsubstantiated talk such as this is so much bigger than anyone’s knows, insider stock dumps, speculating on what happens if so-and-so does such-and-such is not helping anything, and may be distracting from what really needs to be focused on.

As for understating something I disagree. Even 1 altered card in a slab is wrong, but unless you have evidence showing otherwise right now there are several hundred cards that are suspected of being no good so far based on good, but not complete or infallible, investigative work. We did similar things several years ago investigating the homemade cello packs and it wasn’t sufficient to hold up to the evidentiary standards required to put away the bad actor involved then. From some of the uninformed frenzy that has been generated some think in reading message boards that its every third or fourth card. That’s just nonsense.

Perhaps Peter if it seemed that you had less of an axe to grind against PSA you would be a bit more controlled in attacking calls for avoiding misinformation and unsubstantiated statements that only serve to deflect focus from where it needs to be.

We all want to know what happened (or didn’t), how big the problem is, what will be done to make the victims whole, what will be done to prevent it from happening again and what consequences will the people responsible for it face. The issue is that those questions can’t be answered without first looking into it, and that’s not so easy when some of the players are trying to protect their livelihoods and/or their freedom.

Message board hysteria is not what is going to make the big players start getting us those answers. Only two things can; either 1) law enforcement authorities decide to go after this seriously (which is pretty hard for us to influence) or 2) the big players start hearing a groundswell from respectful customers that express concerns and ask, not demand, that these big players step up and lead on this. How does putting out BS speculation that Joe Orlando is dumping his stock get us what we need? How does some of the venomous stuff being written about PSA help get them moving faster?

The only other scenario is to try and cause a market crash so that it no longer matters if the big stakeholders get us the answers or not. Unfortunately that means that the bad actors end up winning this round because then there is no one trying to deter them until something else comes in to replace the TPGs, and it means the hobby gets hurt and a lot of collectors lose a lot.

That’s what’s really at stake here

From the FBIs own website, here is a list of crimes that they investigate. From this list, what category would this scandal fall under? White collar crime? If so, which specific one?

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate

So let me get this straight, Jeff Lichtman who is representing PWCC is not a credible source as to the existence of an FBI investigation of his own client? OK. Take it up with Jeff.

You are completely naïve about the extent of altered cards in this hobby. Several hundred indeed. I wish. I am not wasting my time debating it with you. Believe what you want. But just to give some context, people in this hobby love to talk. And when you're a good customer, and a lawyer who they trust to treat things confidentially, they will talk to you very candidly. I have had countless conversations over the past 25 years with auction houses and dealers and advanced collectors about the extent of card doctoring in this hobby and who is doing it, and I am very confident about what I am saying.

PS I didn't think the speculation about Joe's stock sale was appropriate, on that I agree with you.

fyp

When reading some of these posts, I keep getting a mental image of Clint Eastwood yelling Get Off My Lawn!!!!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

I just read through the comments,, and my only comment is I have known Darren for more than 20 years (we have not yet met) and I used to talk to him almost on a weekly basis about the hobby when I was at Beckett.

He might not be Olbermann but he is very familiar with the hobby and on April 15th he dropped a tweet presaging this whole event.

Rich

Thanks Rich, admittedly I dont know everyone in and around the hobby.

Have you checked your cards to see if they're altered?

I spent half the day looking through my house for all my slabs to figure out which ones I'm sending to COMC for sale on Monday.
On their way:
50 from HOF Autos Collection
170 of 1952 Topps Baseball
50 of 1952 Topps Baseball Autographed
150 cards of Mickey Mantle on the Master Set Registry
113 cards of the T121 World War I set
70 of the 80 cards in the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams set
Mattingly Rookie Set (plus Nestle and Tiffany)
Mark Teixeira Rookie Set (plus a bunch of others)
32 Bobby Jones
30 Christopher Columbus
8 N43
13 T6
Whole bunch of odds and ends, along with the 32 cards from the board bulk submission going straight to COMC.

Sending my complete set of R184 Indian Chiefs and some other odds and ends to the next Nonsports Auction.

So I'm clearing out 750 PSA slabs out of my collection. For now, I'll be keeping the #1 rated T51 Murad Colleges set and the T56 Fraternal Emblems. I submitted the vast majority of those cards from collections I purchased on eBay, and believe them to be good.

I was a pretty big PSA homer until this latest scandal broke, and the post on the CU board from 15 years ago where Joe Orlando said it's better to let trimmers/alterers continue to submit to PSA rather than taking away their privileges being dredged up really teed me off.

In order for this scandal to actually get PSA to change, I want to see a big drop in the value of PSA graded slabs. And less people to submit. And more people to protest. We've still only reached a minority of PSA collectors. I reached out to one guy who had 13 cards in one set exposed as trimmed by Blowout. This guy wasn't contacted by PSA or PWCC to tell him his cards were altered.

It requires the crowd-sourcing BO has been doing in order to make people aware of the fraud perpetrated against them.

Wow that’s pretty serious !

List them on here before they go to the wasteland that COMC has become. I know you are still a great seller over there. Sadly most others are listing at beyond museum prices.

It comes as little surprise that you revert to your usual tactic of attacking a different opinion than your own and then dismissing and belittling the other person as being wrong/uninformed/naive and not worthy of further consideration because you are so “experienced” and you’re an attorney and all of the ego-centric holier-than-thou attitude that we’ve seen here countless times before in your posts. Some would wonder how you manage to get through doorways without getting your inflated ego stuck on a regular basis.

Not going to fly this time. You are no more concerned than I or many others are about the implications of these allegations, but just because you have appointed yourself as chief defender of the faith doesn’t mean you get to put forth your opinions as confirmed fact. Even a first year law student knows better.

You are obviously a skilled attorney in some of the most important ways. Your ability to carefully parse words when trying to support your own point of view and counter someone of a similar but not as extreme view as your own is certainly well developed. But let’s put back the words you chose to omit that were included in my remarks about FBI involvement, “I’ll believe that the FBI or other authorities are really involved AND TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY...” was how I stated it.

The hobby has been down the “FBI is involved” road a few years ago with Jose’s homemade cellos. I was, comparatively, on the front lines of that one in discovering it. The same photo comparisons, cert verifications and eBay username identification techniques were used then that were used recently on BO, and the “incontrovertible” evidence that was put in the FBIs lap (and PSA’s lap), along with a lot of civil discontent being directed to PSA, got us exactly where? No transparent corrective actions. No accoubtability for Jose.

Just because the attorney of a known bad actor that is up to his neck in these allegations is spinning things to best represent his client does not mean that anything meaningful is really being done by the FBI. We’ve seen one example of how they handled an identical situation already. So my statement about belief was about both parts counselor; involvement AND showing us something that demonstrates they are taking it seriously. But that didn’t quite fit your narrative to present it in its entirety and honestly. Ironic given how fixated you say you are on “the truth”.

As for my supposed naivety, you again jump to a conclusion based on my remarks being limited to the numbers identified by BO so far. Is it possible that there are more? Certainly. Is is possible there are many, many more? Sure. Is it also possible that this is about all that can be identified as being suspect? Maybe. And is it possible that all of the BO detective work doesn’t rise sufficiently to the level of “beyond a reasonable doubt” so that the authorities and primary stakeholders aren’t willing/able to move forward on this? It’s already happened once before with the same kind of situation and several hundred items identified as suspicious. As an attorney you know quite well that there has never been a case that went before a jury that could not have been decided either way. The “I”s all have to be dotted andvthe “T”s all need to be crossed or something called reasonable doubt always enters into it.

Several decades ago I stopped collecting raw cards because so many were altered and being represented as original. Certainly many of these were submitted in hopes of getting them past the “experts”. About 8 years ago I actually discovered a person in Tennessee who had built a micro-trimming machine and was submitting cards and getting more than a few back in slabs. I provided that information to several TPGs. Unfortunately there will always be people trying to take advantage but despite the collective best efforts of all of us the fact remains that neither you, I nor anyone that is not principally involved in the submission and authentication processes knows with any certainty just how many of altered cards actually have made it through other than based on hearsay evidence. Why is it counselor that such evidence is inadmissible in our courts?

We also have very limited knowledge about exactly what technologies and methodologies are being employed by various TPGs in the delivery of their services. Perhaps that’s a shortcoming that really needs to be addressed, but I and many others are sufficiently versed in understanding what technologies and methods are available to know that it is largely possible to detect an overwhelming majority of the doctored items. Measurement tools, chemical detection technologies, magnification tools, etc. are sufficiently advanced to achieve this. Many of them can actually do the job with limited or no human involvement. Whether or not PSA or any of the other TPG’s business practices are taking advantage of these is certainly worth inquiring about, but the tools definitely exist.

We are all well aware that graders are also human and imperfect. Even with the best tools and practices being used there can be little doubt that there are some altered cards in slabs. And we also know there are card doctors and consignment operators in our hobby who are driven purely by greed. There may well be a fire where this smoke is coming from, but based on the solid info and evidence that exists so far very few, if any, of us really know how pervasive this may be.

Your OPINIONS may end up being validated, but right now they are still just OPINIONS no matter how many people agree with them. You can get as many media mentions about them as you can generate to try to create spin but 25 years of “conversations” isn't going to cut it when it comes time to getting corrective actions (if needed), pressing charges and attempting to get convictions.

From the 20,000 foot level that those of us on the message boards can see there are currently ~500 cards that have been identified as suspect out of a total population of several 10s of millions. We know that certain specific people have a history of being bad actors in this regard. We know there is a relationship between a major consignment operator and at least on of these bad actors. We have the “preserved” 1952 Mantle and Brent’s tennets and pathetic attempt to justify it as legitimate. We have a number of removed lots from recent auctions where the decision to remove was largely based on BO investigations that still have some gaps and assumptions baked into them that need to be closed. And of course we have the public statements and responses of the principals which are basically CYA in nature that provided very little. That is the accurate high-level summary of the actual facts we have about the current situation so far. It paints a concerning picture, but the scope/scale of that picture is currently still based on conjecture and fear, not fact.

From the perspective of most of us, if even 1 of the suspected cards proves to be altered then it’s too many. If the FBI actually does take this instance seriously and subpoenas the business records of PWCC, PSA, eBay, the major AHs, etc. there may finally be a way to confirm the suspicions and allegations. But until 1) that happens, 2) one of those involved decides to come clean, 3) a critical mass subset of those parties I’ve named voluntarily come together to reconcile their business records or 4) forensic examination of enough of the suspected cards can confirm the allegations then opinions about scope/scale cannot be fairly bandied about as facts just to incite a mob mentality to try to add pressure on the principal players.

I’ll stand by what I have said previously. Speculation about what might happen and how big this is doesn’t help to get the info and answers that all of us want to see provided. Further, there are a lot of concerned stakeholders who are at risk of being hurt, but not necessarily in the same degree or way, depending on what and how much ultimately comes out.

You seem to have made it clear that you are no fan of PSA and you don’t care who ends up getting hurt as long as “the truth” is told. You seem to be making it your mission to reach that goal and trying to create groundswell of civil discontent, but based on allegations, concerning but incomplete investigative work and a representation of the scope/scale that is only supported by hearsay.

There are others of us who also would like to see things investigated and addressed as is reasonably possible and necessary without creating a bloodbath of innocent vendors and collectors in the process. The serious risk of irreparable harm to the hobby has to be factored into things too. Those of us in this camp, which I most certainly am in, are not your enemies. We seek similar goals but aren’t so consumed by the injustice as to lose sight of the bigger picture.

Perhaps you may try on a few of the perspectives I’ve shared and choose to temper both your efforts. Perhaps not. Dissemination of properly identified facts versus other information that isn’t yet solid or is clearly speculation, in addition to approaching this is a pragmatic way that isn’t completely destructive, is all I have been commenting about.

You can reply or not as you choose. If somewhat complementary perspectives like mine are unworthy of your self-proclaimed superior insight it’s not going to cause me to lose any sleep. But perhaps you might consider that there are better ways to play nicely with others here than the approach you have chosen to take both in this specific case and with many others who have opinions that don’t exactly match your own.

Dave, your first post said, "Whether ornnit legal authorities are getting involved remains to be seen." (typo in original) In that context I interpreted your second post as restating, not modifying, that message. If I misread it, I apologize, but I did not detect any shift. More importantly, as to whether the investigation results in serious consequences for the bad actors, I am hopeful but also skeptical. I am certainly not holding out false hope and yes the hobby has been disappointed before. My disagreement with you in this regard was over the existence of an investigation.

I won't respond to the ad hominem attacks other than to say you are of course entitled to your opinion of me. Whatever. I admit to being very passionate and vocal on these topics but I would not presume to appoint myself anything, I am one poster on a message board and there are many of us who would like to see things change.

I disagree with you strongly on your continuing attempts to downplay what is common knowledge at the highest levels of the hobby about the extent of altered cards in slabs, and to suggest some courtroom like burden of proof. It's far more than suspicions and allegations. I do think you are being naïve or perhaps willfully blind here, honestly. This has been going on since cert 00000001.

Finally, I'm not looking to hurt anyone. I'm looking for some positive change, as are many of us here, but I/we don't trust the powers that be to implement any, they've had decades and come up with nothing. Ever try to raise the issue of altered cards on CU? It's like looking to Wall Street in 2008 to fix itself.

70ToppsFanatic, when you minimize the scandal to the currently known "500" or so PSA cards instead of inching closer to the 11,000 cards on the tainted submission lists, you lose a lot of credibility yourself.
Did you read the pages where the BODA guys took apart the 1948 Leaf sets?
Say that there were an average of two per card in the sets exposed with visual evidence, so maybe 200 cards. Now I just ran a search of "1948 Leaf" in my google spreadsheet, and it was returned 2074 times.

What percent of those other 1900x 1948 Leafs submitted with known trimmed/altered cards do you think were not modified prior to PSA grading? Remember, all the ones where PSA detected the trimming or minsizreq issues were returned raw.

Maybe 30% which would be 800 total altered?
Maybe 50%, which would be 1150 total? Even more?

How useful is the 1948 Leaf set registry if hundreds to thousands of the cards are tainted?

If PSA isn't going to remove all these cards from their Pop Reports, in order to get them back in hand for review under their grade guarantee, how does any collector have trust in their product?

"It comes as little surprise that you revert to your usual tactic of attacking a different opinion than your own and then dismissing and belittling the other person as being wrong/uninformed/naive and not worthy of further consideration because you are so “experienced” and you’re an attorney and all of the ego-centric holier-than-thou attitude that we’ve seen here countless times before in your posts. Some would wonder how you manage to get through doorways without getting your inflated ego stuck on a regular basis."

Attacking a different opinion than your own

and

Dismissing and belittling the other person

It seems the quote above is the very definition of this. Please don't turn a blind eye to documented facts and please don't belittle the undisputable work that's been done to uncover the fraud and corruption. Minimizing the numbers and pretending there is no pertinent investigation will not help things.

This is the biggest scandal to hit the hobby/industry... Denial mode is not a good long-term strategy for Orlando, PSA and/or its defenders.

:D I actually read that whole post start to finish. I get 10 points and a gold star!

Ask WhenItWasAHobby how interested PSA was when many years ago he presented to them conclusive evidence of cards being doctored by a Houston area dealer.

Ask anyone who remembers how forthcoming PSA was during the WIWAG debacle.

Ask anyone who has tried to post his concerns on CU and been poofed instantly how open to "civil discourse" PSA is.

But we should wait patiently for the "stakeholders" to sort this out among themselves. No thank you.

See.... Gai, Acu-card.... and a bunch of others that just couldn't get it right.

+1 - I would take a peek at any Bobby Jones cards

PSA won't go out of business.....check out the lines at the National.

The masses do not care ......it's all about money to them.... Registry Guys, Dealers, Auction Houses, Flippers, collectors, and ebay sellers have all made money using PSA ...right, wrong, or whatever that won't be stopping anytime soon. Maybe a temporary pull back in prices.... that will be about it....

I will Highly Scrutinize any PSA Cards that I'm interested in buying.

PSA does a nice job of fixing damaged corners, eh?

See especially post 35 here.
http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...09#post1903709

[QUOTEIt is the responsibility of the major stakeholders to get to the bottom of things in a timely manner and then transparently let the hobby know what they have found and what they plan to do to address it and prevent similar episodes again in the future.

A few months time seems woefully insufficient for getting that done, but I would expect that it shouldn’t take more than the time that has elapsed already for some concrete information to be provided.

As for those who continue to create suspicion and doubt through unsubstantiated claims and speculation, that only defects from getting to the bottom of exactly what is and fuels an unhelpful, and potentially damaging, mob mentality.
][/QUOTE]

This is hilarious. I got to wait for a stakeholder to get to the bottom of things
whatever that means.

I've read your posts on CU and I recognize your opinions are on the opposite
ends of the spectrum with mine. Thank goodness!

What was the result of the WIWAG card sale by the way....i believe that card was outed during the auction and the poster that was selling the card got all mad i believe.. but did it just sell and that was it?

Google WIWAG. It was a whole scandal with stolen PSA slabs, inserting lesser grade cards, etc. 2003 or thereabouts I believe. PSA refused to release the certs of affected cards.

ah i was confusing that with the outed Gehrig during the auction where the poster got all mad it was 'outed' during the auction

When It Was a Game. Used to be a fairly big player in the market.

Who are the major steakholders???

I don't know what is meant, but don't like the sound of 'stakeholders.' Sounds too much like what is meant is PSA, Registry members and shareholders.

But I'm not putting words into the mouth of the person who said stakeholders.

Stockprice arguments in this matter mean nothing to me.

They are the LAST people who should be called upon to fix this. Ya think there may be a slight conflict of interest there? Only law enforcement can begin to fix it, and there will still be tons of tainted cards in circulation.

Agree I just had no idea what he meant by "steakholder" to me that is much different then shareholder...

Corporate speak for the persons/entities with the most at stake. TPGs, major AHs and dealers. Yeah, they'll get together and get to the bottom of this and we'll put those 300 pesky cards behind us.

Right we all know know they will do this ....they have been doing this since 91....

My theory initially was that PSA was taking care of PWCC behind closed doors off the record on the refunds....

So many crooks in this Slime Ball Industry

Dave could have been the spokesperson for the government during the Great Plague. "Some citizens appear to have some signs of infection."

Shit, there I go acting all superior again, I really have to watch that ego thing.

Seems like everything getting resolved...still no civil lawsuits..

Corey,

I'm with you. There has got to be a better way to look at and grade/authenticate these cards, and to pay attention to alterations and such to them. With all the advances in technology and computers and so on, you would think someone could come up with a slightly more automated way to view and assess these cards than someone just spending a minute or two at most in looking at them. The human error factor is too great and allows for too many errors and mistakes, even without the altered cards that are being pushed through the system. Again, the idea of having a single, hobby collecting group that runs things and sets standards, including the licensing of TPGs to do grading, would also include standardized testing and procedures all the TPGs would/should have to be doing, at a minimum, in looking at and authenticating cards, as well as the grading of them. I'm not just talking about a hobby/collecting group setting single grading standards for the TPGs, but also establishing rules for how they do their work and what efforts, procedures and such they need to perform. The TPGs need to be transparent in what they do and how they do it, and also need to have some centralized rules to follow. Same thing goes for the actual graders. Who exactly certifies them as "experts", and what exactly did those so-called experts do or learn to get such a designation? As best as I can tell, the TPGs hire people with some card knowledge and then teach them what they want them to look for and do in grading and authentication. I may be wrong, but that sure seems to be how they work things now. I would also have the hobby/collecting group be the one to set the standards for determining and licensing card graders, and not leave that to the individual TPGs to just hire and train whomever they want either.

I also find it quite fascinating that throughout this thread, different people have criticized the Rovell article author about his putting out ideas and such to stir people up and sensationalize the issue with his supposed unfounded opinions and ideas. If that is all a lot of people responding to this thread are getting out of this article, they really aren't doing a good job of reading and comprehending everything that is being said in it. What most amazes me is that no one else seems to have picked up on that one quote from Joe Orlando's letter to his customers that was included in the article where he basically chastises people in the hobby for just complaining about things and trying to blame others (ie: PSA) for these problems. He calls them out and sort of insinuates they are more or less a fraction of the people in the overall hobby community who are just whining and complaining, and don't offer any solutions or ways to make things better. And then even more over the top was the follow-up quote from his letter where it states, "Their expectation of human-based opinion services is simply unattainable." I wonder how many people who actually read that article really paid attention to that line, and nearly choked while reading it?!?!?

Talk about insulting people in the hobby and putting them down! He more or less just dismissed everyone who is bringing up these these issues and their concerns and questioning PSA's part in it by not being able to detect the alterations, deflecting any guilt or liability on PSA's part, and basically saying that unless you people have a better idea on how to do things, stop complaining and whining!!! And I don't know about everyone else, but I thought the reason and expectations of buying a card that is graded by a TPG is that the card itself is authentic, and it is properly graded, including the identification of doctoring or alterations and the reflection of such work done on a card to its grade. And that following such a review and grading process, the card is then encapsulated in a tamper resistant holder for protection and given a unique identifying number for identification purposes. If those expectations of people in the hobby are simply unattainable, then what exactly in his mind is the purpose of a TPG company in reviewing and grading cards and what is attainable??? And notice he specifically used the phrase "human-based opinion services" to accentuate the fact that PSA only gives someone's opinion, and that it only a human opinion and therefore subject to typical human error.

I've only been hearing about how people have been taking their altered/doctored cards back to PWCC to receive refunds. Has anyone actually started or tried taking their PSA graded cards that have been shown to be doctored and/or altered back to PSA yet? And if so, what was the result, are they getting the chance to either have PSA buy back the card, or refund the difference between the incorrect and correct grades? People may be opting to just go to PWCC because they seem to be refunding people's money without too much, if any, hassle. But that just possibly play's into PSA's hands by not subjecting them to their possible warranty guarantee and doesn't give them any financial responsibility. Unless of course after refunding people's money PWCC is then taking the cards they now own back to PSA for the warranty guarantee themselves. That is probably why some people have speculated and made suggestions that they think PSA may be working with PWCC in funding them for these refunds PWCC is making. Or does PWCC then try going back to the people that consigned the card's to them originally to get back the money they received for them. I guess at the end of the day it would be nice to know what happens to these altered cards. For all we know, they could end up in someone else's hands out there and be sold to an unsuspecting and unknowing collector. Or they could be sent back to a TPG for proper grading as altered/authentic. I would hate to think they would end up being destroyed by someone as they are still actual, authentic cards, but who knows for certain what is happening to them?

There is a whole thread on Blowout critical of Joe Orlando's column.
https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1308245

The problem with technology being added to the process is the additional timeline and cost. IMO, you can't add it only to higher level submissions. It has to be all or nothing. A major part of this issue is the submitter slipping high dollar cards in bulk submissions so they'd be graded by less experienced (theoretically) graders. Plus, you can't have a split registry concept where only high value or high grade cards are properly authenticated for one "vetted" registry, and everything else in an "unvetted" registry. A registry divided across itself cannot stand.

So if PSA or Beckett or SGC now have to charge a minimum of $25 to grade any card, will people still submit cards? Will PSA Set Registry collecting die or decrease?
People have already howled about bulk submissions going from $5.50 a card or so to $8/ea in the past three years.

NO we responded to BS posts like this.

Oh, and the other comments in that Rovell article about the significant sales of stock by the PSA CEO are factual statements. As a publicly traded company, in accordance with SEC rules, they have to report such significant sales of a company's stock by their owners/officers to be fair to the investing public and so they can't supposedly take advantage of insider knowledge to the detriment of investors at large. Collector's Universe, though actually a very small company in relation to most publicly traded companies, had recently been added to the Russell 2000 index, which an investor would normally see as a positive sign for the business and would likely help to see that stock going up in price. The fact that a main officer of that same company would then be selling off a significant portion of their stock could simply be him/her taking advantage of a recent price rise and pulling some profits off the table, or they could have had some recent personal cash needs that prompted them to sell part of their ownership to fund the cash need. Of course, if there was also some potential bad financial news coming down the road that they were aware of that could negatively affect the company's stock price, they may be selling so as to cash out as much as they could and cut their losses before the bad financial news becomes mainstream public knowledge and the stock price takes a serious hit. I'll give all of you three guesses as to the possible motivation for Mr. Orlando's sales of his stock in CU, and the first two guesses don't count!!!



You seem like a well informed person. I am surprised you would make this post without attempting to check facts.


I confirmed with Joe that this was indeed a cashless stock option exercise. He has not sold a single share above the amount needed to pay the taxes and take delivery of the remaining shares.

Nice try but you completely failed.

The Form 4 says the sale is to pay taxes look at the FN. This is a public document.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/d...X03/rdgdoc.xml

And Dave it does look like he has a trading plan.

"Explanation of Responses:
1. Sale of shares under 10(b)5-1 Plan to satisfy withholding taxes on shares that vested on June 30, 2019."

Rovell should have checked his facts. There is plenty IMO to fault Joe for these days but dumping stock is not one of them.

1. Sale of shares under 10(b)5-1 Plan to satisfy withholding taxes on shares that vested on June 30, 2019.


As easily as you found that Peter obviously Darren could have too. I bet he knew why and just wanted to add some gas to a fire because most would believe his BS.

I can't speak to that Dave. Most people don't know what a Form 4 is, etc.

I pieced this together simply looking at data from the past two years of insider activity. It was beyond obvious. You don't need to be in the business to see what occurred.

It is one thing not to like a company but to accuse someone of something that is not only false but essentially securities fraud is serious and shameful and hurtful on a personal level.

It is not cool.

Form 4...441. Whatever it takes.

Agreed, and this is where PSA has their head entirely up their ass. The lower tier does work, just make it clear what the process is. Lower tier grading involves no warranty, no checking for trimming, no reviewing of alterations, etc. Take 5-10 seconds looking at the card, then encapsulate. Lots of folks just want their card graded/slabbed, and for the most part, those cards are not altered anyway (commons/modern). The market will determine the value of those cards based on the disclosures of the process for grading. At least we all know what we are buying. No doubt if you have a '55 Clemente, you're not using this process

Then offer the premium service with a different color label. Charge big money for a through review, a real warranty, latest technology, etc. The review would be a flat fixed fee, with a sliding scale for the warranty liability. Disclose the process in detail for the market to digest. You'll have thousands of re-submitter's because the red-cert cards are tainted. Buyers will be wondering why you haven't re-holdered that red-cert vintage card. The cream will rise to the top, and eventually, the unaltered authentic vintage cards will make their way to this high-end label.

The biggest losers of this entire fiasco are card owners with authentic unaltered vintage cards in red-cert slabs. I say this with peace and love, but if your paying anywhere close to retail for any vintage red-cert PSA card right now, you're an idiot.

John,

Thanks, had not seen that. Glad to see someone else was taking some exception to the quotes from that letter and what was being said about the collecting community.

Don't disagree with you at all about the technology issues and additional potential costs to grade cards. And that is part of the problem/issue. The TPGs are all for-profit companies. Especially PSA which is part of a public traded company and has all of those shareholders to whom they are accountable to be profitable and make money and the stock price go up for. At the same time, they are supposedly providing a service as a TPG that people in the hobby expect certain things for in return for the money they are paying to PSA (or any other TPG). From all the latest issues and accusations, it seems that whatever the TPGs are doing in their grading of cards, it is not enough to actually be able to detect and point out the doctoring and alterations being performed. So if the TPGs basically can't detect all the alterations being done, or won't do the additional work necessary to find and report it because it would eat into their profits, then collectors have to stop and ask themselves if it is worth it or not to keep paying them for their grading services. But if we pay such a small fee to TPGs so they just basically go through the motions of grading cards and let so much fraud through, we have no one to blame but ourselves for allowing it to happen, and Joe Orlando's comments unfortunately become all the more true.

There is no quick and easy fix if the majority of the hobby really wants more accurate grading of cards and better work at detecting and reporting on alterations and doctoring. But as for requiring grading costs to go up to achieve that, that may end up being a necessity to get more accurate work being performed by the TPGS. One of the pluses behind having a single hobby group determining grading standards and techniques, and then also requiring TPGs and their graders to be authorized/licensed by the hobby group, is that you then get more standardized grading among all the TPGs, not just this one or that one that caters to a particular collectors needs or whims. And if there is a standard grading system among all the TPGs, they can then be more competitive in the pricing of their services. Currently one TPGs card in say a 6 grade sells for more or less than a similar card graded a 6 by a different TPG. So naturally people will look to get their cards in the TPG holder that will sell for the most money. But if the TPGs all have to abide by similar grading standards, the differences in values assigned to similarly graded cards between the TPGs should be minimized and there should be no significant difference in which TPG someone uses then. In that case, the TPGs will end up having to possibly be more competitive in pricing to gain business, and thus help to control costs to collectors. The PSA registry was a great marketing idea by them to develop a unique customer service and niche whereby people would gravitate towards them because of the perceived (and in reality actual) additional value having their card in a PSA holder would bring.

But does the majority of card collectors actually all participate in and utilize the PSA Registry to have all their cards listed and compared against sets of other collectors? My guess is the answer is no and that only a fraction of the total card hobby collecting community fully participate in everything the PSA Registry has to offer. I know I personally couldn't care less about the PSA Registry and have no need or desire for it whatsoever. However, if you had a single, collector backed hobby group that standardized everything and kept its own registry across all the different TPGs, that to me would be much more meaningful for all collectors as there would be a single database people could look at to determine how many of a particular card have been graded and are out there. They could also show off and compare their graded cards/sets despite not having all their cards in just one specific TPG holder. It would/could also help to eliminate the need, cost and hassle of having to cross-over cards to get them into a specific TPG registry, and so on. Now you could set up a registry like that for all collectors through a hobby based group, and a TPG like PSA could still keep and maintain their own, PSA only, graded Registry. So if someone really wanted to just participate in the PSA Registry experience, and didn't care if their highly graded cards were altered/conserved/restored/whatever, that would be their business, and they could do what they wanted to.

Truth is that too many people have too much tied up in their cards that they will not want to change things dramatically from where they are now. Purist card collectors who do not want altered/doctored/conserved/restored cards being given numerical grades and devalue such altered cards, treating them as merely authentic, will potentially look at cards graded by such TPGs that don't seem to care about their inability to detect and report such alterations, and value them less in the future. They would view that TPGs cards as more suspect as to unreported alterations, especially for higher grades. But there are a lot of people who get into cards for the investment/profit to be made. They're just looking for the $s and don't care as much about the purist collectors ideals. Sadly, I think the purists will lose out to the sheer numbers of those who just want the nicest, highest graded cards, and don't worry as much about whether or not the card was somehow doctored. They figure if when they look at it they can't tell or see any alterations, and a reputable TPG didn't find any issues, who else is going to having issues with such a card. And therefore, the card is good to go in their eyes. Eventually what I think will happen because of the pervasive and prolonged history of card doctors operating in the hobby is that no one will be able to definitely prove or disprove if every doctored/altered card currently in a TPG holder, is actually altered/doctored. Instead, TPGs may finally start (reluctantly) to address the card alteration issue and spend more time to detect and report such work done by the card doctors. Then over time, the collecting community will become more aware of these changes and certain TPG holders will be recognized as older, before the crack down on alterations started, and those older. graded cards will be valued downward by collectors accordingly. Kind of like how when people now see a card in an old holder, say GAI, and they bid less for it than if it was in a comparably graded holder of one of the current main TPGs. We shall see.

I'm not sure what in my post you're agreeing to. I don't agree with anything you wrote in the first two paragraphs after "Agreed."

While I agree that one should not speculate why an officer decides to sell his shares, in the same fashion I would not put too much stock (no pun intended) into the accuracy of his/her legally mandated public explanation. If the real reason is concern that the price is about to plummet, regardless whether for known or as not yet publicly disclosed information, the officer is unlikely to list that as the motivating reason. In saying this, I am in no way implying that is the explanation for the sale in this instance, but simply opining that a publicly disclosed sale and explanation in and of itself means very little and that no inferences should be drawn from it.

Bob, as to your question whether PWCC ultimately decides to invoke the PSA grading guaranty and seek reimbursement from PSA, I think they would have a lot of trouble doing that. The guaranty proscribes the original submitter from invoking it. So to the extent that the cards at issue were cards Moser bought from PWCC and then had PWCC submit for grading, by the technical wording of the guaranty, PWCC would be out of luck. If Moser on the other hand was the person who submitted them to PSA, I suspect PSA would still resist payment arguing that PWCC and Moser were in cahoots over the doctoring scheme and therefore should be legally regarded as one and the same.

So Joe and CU might have lied on a Form 4 filed with the SEC? Is that what you're suggesting as a possibility such that we shouldn't take it at face value? Should we not take at face value the date (the prior day) on which the shares on which he owed tax vested? Should we not take at face value that the sales were pursuant to a 10b5-1 trading plan? And who ever lists their "motives" for selling on a Form 4 anyhow? Certain specific circumstances are typically noted, such as sales pursuant to trading plans and sales to satisfy tax obligations, but generally speaking there is no "legally mandated public explanation" of the reasons for selling.

By the way, look how many shares Joe retained versus how many he sold. End of discussion.

PSA reprucussions
 

Couple of questions and comments:

So i'm already seeing a PSA overaction to trimmed cards., which kinda like an umpire calling balls and strikes, just want to see consistency. So the bad guys get away with huge upside, while we get stung paying fees for trimmed cards..Feel like PSA shouldn't charge for "trimmed cards" if they deem trimmed as they are seemingly overreacting at high rates.

Example: we buy cards direct from the source all time. i.e. a guy in his 60's selling a shoebox from the 1960's. PSA has viewed some of these as trimmed. Completely impossible, these cards haven't seen the light of day for 50 years, unless they were trimmed for their bicycle spokes :)


SIDE Q: Can PSA actually detect if chemicals were used?