I don't know of any profession where perfection is the standard, but why would he examine and authenticate something that isn't in his wheelhouse? That just doesn't make sense to me.

Agreed.

If you watch the video, before the case is opened, his justification for authentication is based on 2 things: (1) he says the factory tape is aged to the case and (2) he points to the manufacturer's label (Wizards of the Coast) showing wear that is consistent to the lines in the cardboard.

The fact is, the tape obviously isn't aged to the case. It's not like he just made a simple mistake. He flat out said the tape was aged to the case. That proves that when examining a case that is supposedly factory sealed, he can't tell the difference in tape that is aged to the box or something that has been re-taped. That's scary given the number of factory cases he has authenticated as well as boxes that were supposedly FASC.

As others said, I wouldn't really question everything hes ever authenticated, he does seem to know baseball, just not sure why he dove into something he isn't an expert in. I assume it has something to do with him bringing in a huge fee to authenticate it, but this clearly isn't going to help his reputation in the hobby, especially outside the baseball community.

Speaking more broadly, I've never really been a believer in buying sealed wax. I mean, I get why prices are really high, I just don't think it makes a ton of sense, and the downsides far outweigh the upsides.

Where is Mark Murphy now? He burnt down his own inventories and made millions from insurance, didn't he?

$. I believe the fee is based on a percentage of the value of the item. So, if the case is $3.5 M that’s a lot of coin. I would be shocked if this video was legitimate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...hing%20gif.gif
https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20Ha%20Ha.gif

scha·den·freu·de /ˈSHädənˌfroidə/
noun
The pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune.

Hmmm, docking into the space station calls for perfection! lol

lol
 

When I see this thread "BBCX" I cringe......as some others have pointed it is:

BBCE

BBCE

BBCE

ughhhhhh

I keep thinking its a motocross thread or something!

There is an "edit" button! ugh

:cool:

PS I don't usually take a thread seriously when the main title is in error! It's not rocket science really. Baseball Card Exchange.... I see the X but really? BBCE thank you, and yes, I get fired up over silly stuff lol~!

Any appraisal is just one person's opinion.

Caveat emptor.

Peter is right.

Have you guys heard of a perfect doctor? Perfect basketball player? Perfect card grader? Mistakes happen. The hobby is much better with Steve in it.

Now, here is my concern: we all know that nobody is going to commit fraud just once. For example, if somebody trims a PSA 7 and turns it into a PSA 10, and makes twenty-thousand-dollars from that one sale, then we all know that he is going to do it again and again and again. So, whoever screwed around with this Pokemon box has definitely done this with many other boxes, packs, etc. Just think about it for a second. All those 1952 Topps baseball wax packs that you were drooling over at the last National could have GI Joe cards in them! LOL!

My wife is perfect. she told me so herself.:D

I don't visit this forum as often as I used to, so I just saw this thread. I wanted to go back to the original post and make some comments.

First, I want to be totally transparent and state that I have done a lot of business with both Steve Hart at BBCE and Brian at REA. I believe they are two of the most honest people I have ever done business with in my 40+ years in this hobby. You simply don't find very many people with their kind of integrity in this hobby. I also believe that Steve Hart is without question the foremost expert as it relates to unopened material.

As far as the 1989 Score Football Set goes, I wanted to shed some additional light on this. With factory sets like this, Steve Hart has three different designations that he provides: (1) Factory Set; (2) Tape Intact; and (3) From a Sealed Case. Obviously, the Tape Intact designation only applies to sets such as Topps Traded sets that sometimes came from the factory with a piece of scotch tape applied as a seal to the individual set. As previously mentioned, From A Sealed Case means that the Factory Set came from a Factory Case that was still sealed as it came from the factory and then opened by Steve and wrapped as "FASC".

I actually own several 1989 Score football sets that are BBCE wrapped with the designation "FASC", meaning they came out of a sealed case and were immediately wrapped without being opened or searched. If I were to sell these sets, I would get a significant premium over the price of a set that was simply BBCE wrapped as a "Factory Set". The unopened collector community understands this difference and pays for these products accordingly. Personally, I would probably never buy a Factory Set that was BBCE wrapped and did not either have the "Tape Intact" or "FASC" designation. If I were to buy such a set, I would do it knowing and probably expecting that the key cards were not perfectly gem mint, centered, etc. This is why collectors pay a premium for the Tape Intact or FASC designations.

I hope that sheds some additional light on this for folks who don't normally collect unopened material.

This stuff is Schroedinger's wrapping: the case was both authentic and fake until it was opened.

I've had several dealings with Steve Hart, and he is a stand up guy. As the saying goes, Shit Happens. No one is perfect all the time, and anyone who says they never made a mistake is a liar. He is the best at what he does .......

It appears to me Steve was simply applying his understanding of sealing techniques to cases he has seen over the decades. He may very well have been correct that the tape was aged with the box. It seems he was outside his wheelhouse because there are things specific to Pokemon that were apparently not right with this case or at the least, questionable. He is the best the hobby has. Far better than Murphy, imo.

All TPG have made millions of dollars of errors. Most likely 10s of millions. Go ahead and break out any pre war card in a PSA or SGC 8 or above and come back and tell me if you ever got it back into a PSA or SGC holder with any number on it. Same could be said for many post war cards in 9s and above.

His exact words were, "The tape is aged onto the case." That's physically impossible since the case had been resealed. If he can't tell the difference in tape that is aged to a case and tape that is not, how can he authenticate cases that are supposedly sealed?

This one's for you...

128. Syntaxperation
Being driven absolutely bonkers with frustration whenever you see a blatantly obvious misspelled word in a thread title...and it never gets corrected by the OP, even though it’s been there for days, weeks, months or forever!!!

BBCE means this, when you sell it you will get more then if it wasn’t wrapped and authenticated. If you Croke with it your heirs will have a much easier time liquidating. To me it’s a no brained. This small blip will be meaningless in the long run. I have full confidence in BBCE resale value and ease of sale.

Getting millions of cards wrong hasn't hurt PSA resale any.

Your statement proves my point. It will go only go up, people are gullible and googly eyed over cards in slabs or authenticated.

So PSA got the very first, and probably most expensive (at the time) and well-known, card they ever graded wrong.

Now BBCE has not been able to detect fraudulent activity on one of, if not the, most expensive unopened case they've ever authenticated.

We saw what the bogus grade did to PSA's business; time will tell what the Pokemon case fiasco does to BBCE's. Time to invest in BBCE.

I am not a case, pack or box authenticator...I am guessing that you are not either. You apparently feel qualified to voice your opinion that Steve should absolutely know the difference. These cases were issued in 1999. If it had been resealed in 1999 should Steve been able to tell? What about in 2003? Maybe the art/science of authenticating needs to be be able to distinguish with certainty so that is not something which is relied upon. Maybe the authentication of unopened has gone too far and should have stopped with packs?

Steve does not look good here but that was due to stepping outside his wheelhouse on a very significant item. The aging I don't think was the tip off to Pokemon experts who felt the case was bad when it was on ebay.

I will again state that I feel this was nothing more than a publicity stunt by Logan Paul simply going by the work of fiction he posted yesterday.

lol
 

That's me! You got me! Sometimes it stays forever just to tease me! ugh!

:eek:

Peace, Mike

I haven't followed this over time, but my gut instinct about the video was that it felt staged and the reactions did not seem authentic/spontaneous. I suggest watching it with the sound turned down and just focusing on facial expressions and body language.

I feel like it was more of a publicity stunt rather than being staged. Logan and the others probably had a strong suspicion that the case was fraudulent before it was opened. But he wins either way. If the case was real, he looks good, it brings him attention. If the case is fake, he looks like the victim, it still brings him attention. But the entire thing couldn't have been staged IMO. Steve Hart wouldn't have been a willing participant.

Right, they played Steve IMO.

Sure, just make up any old story; I guess that's what we do now when we don't like what actually happened.

Some reading material if you're bored...
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=162027

I made this statement on this forum almost 5 years ago (06/26/17):

"I don't think Steve is dishonest at all. In fact, I would trust his products over most any other dealers. However, he does make mistakes and I don't think he has near the knowledge that most here give him credit for."

I sure nailed it.

How do you know the tape isn't aged to the case?

Seriously? I've answered that question several times in both threads, but here it goes again. Because the case has been re-taped...even with a different kind of tape that wasn't originally used by the manufacturer.

If you still don't understand, I can provide pictures. That's not a jab, I'm being sincere. I can provide you with pictures of what aged tape looks like on cardboard compared to what fresh tape looks like on cardboard. Would that help?

Yes, seriously. I have not seen the evidence that the case was retaped. Are there photos you can point me to that show this? I just watched the video, and Steve points out that the tape appears to be legit and aged to the case. I paused it several times where it showed the case close up and I don't see any evidence of it either. But you seem pretty confident that it was in fact retaped. Can you share why you think this?

The case wasn't retaped. It is a total fabrication. The box isn't the right type of box, the label isn't the right size, the barcode isn't right, the tape is even wrong. This isn't a simple matter of repackage case, the entire case was a fake.

Yes there were repacked boxes in side the fabricated case, but that wasn't known unit the fabricated case was opened.


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This was my impression as well when I watched the video. I assumed the entire case was fraudulent. But VintageToppsGuy is claiming to have evidence that this was actually a resealed case, implying that the original tape was removed and then it was retaped or that it was simply taped over. But I see no evidence of that claim when I look at the pictures and videos of it.

Note, this isn't simply a distinction without a difference. If Steve can't tell the difference between a box that has had its original tape/seal removed and then later taped back over, then that has different implications for his ability to identify bad boxes in the sports card market than if he was right about the tape/seal and stickers all being aged correctly with the cardboard box, but was just ignorant about what that box was supposed to look like to begin with. Having the wrong tape correctly aged to a fake case is one kind of mistake, but having the right tape on the right box having been removed and then resealed is a different one.

There is a difference, and I would say authenticating a fake case is worse. Missing an altered, authentic, case is bad. But authenticating a fake case is worse.

This means all someone has to do is buy a generic box from the store and put any label on it and Steve Hart will think it is real because the tape wasn't altered?

He is the supposed expert and can't even tell a fake from an authentic. Not even a good fake mind you. This was so bad that others online could tell it was fake just from some photos. He has it in hand and still couldn't identify it as fake.

å̵̧͇̭͉͙̜͠n̴̨̻̬͙̯̗̋̎́̒̾͛̈́̾̕d̸̳̱̗̖̖̟͆͐̂́y̵̆͗̓̋̿̋̉͗̈ ̩́ ̷̢̧̗̳̫̭̼̒̒͗̇͐̉͒͠͝n̴̨̬̣͋̌͌̀̌̄e̵̘̞̙̯̯̰͋́̀̋͘͜u̵͌̾̉̇͐͂ ͙̜͙̤̗͍̤̥̽̈́b̶̡̛͕̋̃͒̒͛̐e̷̥̠̟̓͂͋̐r̴̗̜̲͇̘̙̾̾t̴̛͗͋͌ ̹͙̠̎

I never said or implied that I had any such evidence nor am I claiming that it was a resealed case. I saw the video, I only know as much as you do.

Please try to follow me. It doesn't matter if it was the original factory case or just some random cardboard box that someone found somewhere to fabricate this product. Likewise, it doesn't matter if it was the original factory tape or some aftermarket tape bought at Wal-Mart. Here's is my point (that for some reason you just can't comprehend): The box and tape (irrelevant if they're actually factory or not) in question are supposed to be nearly 23 years old. Tape applied to a box 23 years ago is going to show wear consistent with it's age. The case in question did not. Therefore, I think common sense tell us this case wasn't sealed 23 years ago.

I have boxes in my climate controlled storage unit that were sealed 20+ years ago. They're not cases of sports cards, but the contents inside are irrelevant. The tape is still aged to the cardboard boxes. Tape that is aged to a box shows certain characteristics. The actual case in question didn't show those characteristics.

At this point I'm finished discussing it with you. It's apparent you just want to argue (such as in the other thread) and just make stuff up that I didn't actually say.

Thanks to a Blowout member, here's a comprehensive article on this mess.

I'll post in both threads since we can't seem to unify them.

https://www.cardlines.com/logan-paul...hensive-guide/