Uh, Jim, a couple of years back weren't you leading the charge against altered cards, calling on auction houses to state their policies, demanding that grading companies improve their quality control, stating that you would not buy an expensive card without Kevin Saucier's independent assessment, and so forth? I am sure I can find some of your old posts in that regard. Why the change of mind?

E.g.:

07-23-2007, 08:02 PM
Archive
Administrator Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 58,918

If you could improve the hobby, what would you do

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Posted By: JimCrandell
1)Force the large grading companies to improve their standards.
2)For those caught restoring or trimming cards mandatory jail time.
3)Force the auction houses to disclose whether they have altered a card before it is up for auction.
4)If dealers knowingly sell altered cards, they are banned from the hobby.

Peter,

Absolutely and I believe all those things today:

1)Auction houses should state their policies--still firmly believe this.
2)Grading cos should improve their quality control--always room for improvement and I believe that psa and sgc have become more consistent over this period
3)Would not buy expensive card without Kevin Saucier seeing it first--yes--this still applies--there are altered cards in holders just nowhere near as many as some believe.

Also I still believe the four other points you list--don't you?

Thank you for bringing these up.

This would make a great poll question. My guess would be that far more than a few people on this board think a substantial percentage of pre-war psa 8 and sgc 88's have been altered.

Jim, I think the difference between us is I believe trimming and other alterations are significantly more widespread than you do, particularly at the higher grades in prewar and in low pop commons. I state this based on personal observation of many cards, limited crossover/crackout experience as well as the experience of others which I assume was accurately reported to me, common sense, and conversations with many knowledgeable people that I might be inclined to discredit singly but that corroborate each other as to who the culprits in the hobby are and the extent of what they have done. What is the basis for your belief?

Anthony,

Maybe so--I was not following the board for 18 months. I guess a better point would be is that since net54 is generally an anti-PSA message board, that the percentage of high end psa graded cards that are bought from posters here is very few. So from the standpoint of the market it doesn't really matter what people here think as they don't buy the cards anyway.

Jim

Jim, I didn't mean to suggest that you have any inappropriate relationship with a grading company, I just was responding to what I thought was your implication about special treatment due to you being a great customer. As to my claim that there is a flood of high-grade trimmed cards in the market, this is based on first-hand knowledge, not speculation. Of course, when I speculate sometimes I'm even right such as the time i claimed years ago that Mastro Auctions was engaging in massive shill bidding and I was shouted down here by every high and mighty idiot on the board.

And yes, you missed my damn show yesterday--and I even talked sports for a couple segments! Every Saturday now from 10 to noon.

Jim- did you get a chance to read the book "Mint Condition" by Dave Jamieson? There's a chapter in there where Jamieson and Kevin Saucier spend a day together. The whole book is good, but if you read only a part of it read that chapter. It's quite interesting.

And you made a point worth merit when you related a conversation with a top collector of 8's and 9's. You said he knows some of his cards are altered, but he doesn't care. That says a lot to me about the phenomenon: some collectors just don't care. If the label reads "9" all is well in the world.

Welcome back to the board Jim, lol. Unfortunately, you collect in a universe few of us lower-budget collectors can even comprehend. I know I've only ever owned a handful of psa 7-8 cards, so it would be difficult for me to have an informed conversation with someone that owns 20,000+. It would be interesting to know how many of these cards have been altered in the past, or even how many of them were produced years later (fro joy plate rumor). Perhaps one day, there will be a need for a professional forensic service if the collecting public demands to know the truth. But at the end of the day, it still is just an expensive hobby where people are simply trying to keep a keep a part of their childhood alive.

Peter,

Pretty much same as yours. I probably talk to more major dealers and probably smaller to midsize graded dealers than you do--however I know that for a period of time you were on a private chat board that I am not on and they do have some smart people there. However I do talk to many of them privately.

Jim

Jim, for the most part, do you expect dealers who sell you cards to tell you alteration is a huge problem? Edit to add my opinons are not based on anything I learned from that chatboard.

Jeff,

Damn!

I will listen in and I will call in for a question. Sounds like I have a better chance of getting through with a politics question than a sportscard question?

You're a smart guy about a lot of things so maybe I'm wrong?? Sometime when you have a few minutes if your busy life permits it we could have a chat.

Barry,

I think my name was used several times in that book so yes I did read it. I think Kevin Saucier walks on water. Am I mistaken that before Kevin was insulted off this board that he said he felt that 5% or maybe 5-10% of vintage high end cards were alterred.....or maybe it was of the total? Exactly--on your other point--it is a nonevent and has had no effect to date on the prices of vintage cards.

Vintagecpa,

You're right its supposed to be a fun hobby and I have gotten tons of enjoyment out of it since I began collecting in 1957 at the age of 4. Its still fun. To me the fun is getting everyu card in a set at at least a psa 8 grade. I also love the players and every cardI look at brings memories.

Jim

Peter,

Perhaps--but I was just saying I talk to the same sort of people you do but perhaps more dealers--if that makes my universe of contacts less informed than so be it.

Jim

Jim,

In terms of quantity there very well could be more mid grade altered cards than high grade altered cards because of the volume of mid grade cards in population. However I think the percentage of high grade altered cards is much larger than the percentage of mid grade cards. The payoff is much greater, in most instances, in the high grade market. I feel this is not a problem just at PSA but plagues SGC as much. I turn over a lot of material each year so I get to see more than most.

As I stated earlier, the hobby would change materially if collectors really wanted to know if their cards were messed with but as you point out, and has been my experience too, collectors don't really want to know. And that extends to mid grade collectors as well. See no evil...

Therein lies the problem. None of the grading companies need to be accountable. When they slab a bad card nobody is asking them to make it right. Cards are not fiat money and only have value because the next collector believes the same. If PSA or SGC were to go under I think most in the hobby would approach buying in a different manner. In many instances there is too much faith placed on the flip.

Greg

Greg,

I trust you are right on your observations about high grade vs mid grade.

I gree with you on your point that collectors don't want to know. I remember when a coLlector who i know by name but have not met King Yao had
Kevin Saucier look at all his most important cards to tell him which were tampered with and which weren't. I don't think he could understand why I did not want to do the same.
I just don't want to know.

Jim

Hey Jim- sorry I forgot you were mentioned in the book. I read it last year and I guess I just didn't remember.

In reality, there may be more high end pre-war PSA/SGC collectors on this board then one might think. Some may choose anonymity. Tough to make blanket assumptions regarding pocketbooks and collections. The longer the thread continues, my statement of being a realist seems to hold water, even with Jim Crandell.-Bob Beck

Jim, if a few of your slabbed cards were found to be tampered with in some way, would PSA pay you "market value" for them? If so, would this encourage you to allow Kevin to look at them?

Rob
:)

Most low pop commons
 

are not the problem. If it were simply a case of trimming the card to make it an 8 they wouldn't be low pop. Often its something more sinister like painitng to remove print, erasing things. then retouching the erasures, rebuilding tears. the problems are vast and far more than just trimming which is a real problem in all cards raw and graded. mid grade through high. lowergrade cards ofen have ink or pen removed or sometimes even glue, there is no grade of card immune to doctoring it just matters more on the high end so that's where the best guys go because thats where the most $ is.

Rob,

I assume so but you get back to the point that Greg makes about tyhe willingness to take cards out of the holder......

It is not necessarily an easy thing to trim a card and get it past a grading service, so I am not sure this assumption is correct. Certainly there is similar incentive to get a low pop common into an 8 holder as to get a HOF card into one, given the prices they can command.

bumps
 

The value of an 8.5 is worth what someone will pay - some will pay big premium because of their registry set. I have no registry set (more a type collector) so I won't pay big premium for the 8.5

If you kinda think of it logically, there should be a whole lot more +1/2's, but from the bump stat percentages I hear, I figure more should be bumped and are not. This leads me to believe it is more of a marketing ploy by PSA.

.

I think it's driven far more by percentages than merit, although i agree to be considered a card has to be better centered than the outer tolerance for an 8.

furthermore...
 

I like graded cards - helluva lot better for the hobby.

However, I don't like the how the grading companies keep the "reasons" secret. If they would just tell you what they find - I would be way more inclined to submit.

For instance -
A) little too much corner wear on bottom left for the 8 grade. OR, B)edge ding on top edge, thus only 7 grade. OR C) hairline crease back bottom thus grade 6. OR D) too many print dots for the 8 grade. You get the point.

They would be telling you, in one or two simple sentances, why the grade.

My son has some modern day graded cards from BVG and right on the front it lists why the card is graded as such (4 subs: corners, edges, surface and centering). Each of the 4 is assigned a grade and then the final is an average of the 4. Kind of neat to see it spelled out right in front of you.

When I first started collecting vintage a few years ago, BVG still did this. They have since stopped putting the subgrades on the BVG holders yet continue this service for modern BGS holders. It did give you an idea of what to look for when 3 of the subgrades were high, then all of a sudden one subgrade was much lower, so you could spot the flaw in the card quickly (if it wasn't already apparent from looking at a picture of it).