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?

In my experience from friends who submit to PSA. They do not charge for cards they don't slab. Now if you start to regularly send in cards they wont slab they start charging for them. These are just average collectors who don't submit a lot of cards.

They might be able to detect bleach if it is still dripping from the card.

Not true Ben. If it's a card from a set that they don't grade or for some other reason don't need to evaluate they won't charge you. But for trimming, recoloring, or other alteration they have to evaluate the card and charge you accordingly.

Come on Peter, stop it. You are distorting what I am saying, and as an attorney I'm surprised you would react that way.

I don't take as the gospel truth what a person says on a legally mandated disclosure form any more than I would someone under oath on a witness stand denying something that if he/she were to admit it would be detrimental to his/her case.

You have been excoriating PSA as much as anyone. So now we are to take a face value something said because the SEC requires it? I do not know why Joe sold his shares, and my point is it should never have been raised in the first place.

Why are we arguing over this?

Because you misstated the legal disclosure requirements, and suggested we shouldn't necessarily take the Form 4 at face value when it reports clearly verifiable or falsifiable facts such as when Joe's shares vested and what his trading plan provides - points which you're ignoring. Your analogy to testimony is misplaced in my opinion.

PS I don't think I've distorted what you said. If your only point was people shouldn't speculate, you should have stopped your post right there. The rest of it clearly is insinuating the Form 4 might be false.

And yes I have very serious issues with PSA, and Joe, but that doesn't mean I am going to insinuate Joe is or may be dumping his shares and lying about the reasons or that that's even a possibility based on the documentation I have seen. This is obviously a routine securities transaction, nothing more, and you're being unfair in my opinion insinuating there is some other possibility.

PS I don't think I've distorted what you said. If your point was that people shouldn't speculate you could have ended your post right there. But you went on to suggest the possibility the Form 4 might not be truthful.

10b5-1 trading plans are not ends in and of themselves. They have been criticized as a potential for abuse and it has been reported that there have been SEC investigations regarding their abuse.

Yes, in the great majority of instances a person acting pursuant to one does so for plainly routine and legal reasons. And such might very well be the case here. I do not have any idea what a person is thinking when he/she devises his/her trading plan, and my point remains that I don't believe mention of Joe's sale of his stock was appropriate or relevant.

On that point we agree.

So PSA saying that people should take the card back to the dealer is worse than I'd thought. It's not circumventing their own guarantee to avoid some liability. It's circumventing their guarantee to avoid all liability.

Pwcc
 

Man PWCC $60M a year revenue is crazy..I wonder what their yearly EBTDA is. They'd be better off paying back whatever they have to, just to keep it going and end it as soon as possible....though the FBI will have to do their thing. I doubt they'd involve PSA...This does have class action lawsuit written all over it.

Maybe it is different for different people. Like I have said many times I have never submitted a card to PSA so I can only go by what I have been told. I had this conversation with a friend about 2 months ago. He was mad because PSA started charging him for rejected cards. He only collects rare error cards and many super rare error/scrap cards are altered.

That kind of sums it all up, right there. Different people falling under a different set of rules and standards. :rolleyes:

+1

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

I did state facts. How else do you think people were able to pull up and find such records of what he was selling as far as the shares he had in CU? I also said he could be selling to pull cash off the table, or that he could have a cash need (like selling enough shares to cover the taxes on exercise of his stock option). I also said that it could be possible for someone with knowledge or concerns about upcoming company issues to look to start selling off shares to protect their investment, and that was one of the reasons that people in his position in a publicly traded company are required to report transactions involving their stock holdings, so there is transparency and the investing public can use that information as they see fit. I never said he was selling his shares because the company was suddenly having issues. I was also attempting to make a joke when I finished by saying I'd give everyone three guesses as to his motivation for selling, and the first two don't count.

I, like you, also thought it was unnecessary to include that part about the stock sales in the article as well, with the implication by the author more or less questioning why Mr. Orlando was selling so many of his shares. (What I think is actually more important is the level of stock activity of the company officers going forward now that these issues are starting to coming out.) But it wasn't BS the author of the article was including, just a statement of facts that the reader could then interpret as they saw fit. That a lot of readers may have interpreted the inclusion of that specific information in the the article as an implication that Mr. Orlando may be selling off his stock in the company because of the issues also mentioned in the article just goes to show how uniformed the average person can be about such things in the business world. I don't think anyone earlier in the thread had brought up and touched on that part of the article yet. I did it merely trying to point out that there were various valid reasons for someone like him to be selling his shares in the company, aside from dumping his stock because of potential concerns and issues.

The article stated that Mr. Orlando had been selling shares back before these issues started coming out a few months ago, so I didn't need to do specific research and call Joe Orlando personally to ask him why he was selling shares in his company. Since he had been doing it prior to all these current issues coming out I pretty much knew he had other valid reasons for selling off portions of his stock holdings, and suspected that it may involve stock options, taxes, or a myriad of other reasonable reasons. I also know that a majority of the readers here aren't going to be that knowledgeable about stock options, tax implications, and so on, and thus instead of going into the specific details about whether or not he had a 10(b)5-1 plan in place or whatever, I just stated that there were potentially other valid reasons for him to be selling his shares, and wanted to be sure to point that out. I was actually coming to Mr. Orlando's defense by noting that there are other perfectly acceptable reasons for him to have been selling shares, and figured it would also make the readers think twice when they realized that anything he or any of the other officers of CU did in regards to activity with their stock ownership in CU would be subject to public reporting and scrutiny. With that kind of oversight and required reporting, the last thing you would think that on officer of CU would do is start dumping their stock at the the first sign of of issues like the one out there now.

So my post is BS and I totally failed, huh? Well, I think I totally succeeded and actually hit it out of the park, to coin a baseball related analogy!!! I wanted to take a look at different parts of that article and focus on some of the items, good and bad, that were mentioned and that I didn't think people may have been paying enough attention to. That part about the stock sales was unnecessary, but still a factual part of the article though the author's spin on it made it seem there was an implied attempt by Mr. Orlando to dump his stock in CU. I may have somewhat awkwardly tried to put forth the idea that there were other reasons for such stock sales that were not insidious or related to insider type trading, and tried to keep the comments straightforward and simple without going into a lot of complicated specifics about options, taxes filings and so on, that a lot of readers would have no idea about or understand. I was hoping to get the readers to think more for themselves about what was being said, and in your case, it looks like I succeeded, even though you apparently misinterpreted my intentions and a lot of what I was saying and trying to do. You went out and did the follow-up research to show everyone exactly what the reasoning was for Mr. Orlando's stock sales and how they were not some plan to dump his stock because of the things that are going on. That is fantastic!!! So you did take what I was saying and think and act upon it as I had hoped, and then did an even better job, albeit in a lot more technical way, than I in re-explaining to everyone why that part of the article, though basically factual, was really unnecessary and biased in the way it was presented. So in the end I succeeded as I hoped and got the message I wanted out to everyone, with your help for the more technical side of the issue!!!

Just for the record, I am not against PSA, or any of the other TPGs, if that is what you were thinking. I am also not necessarily for them either. I am for the basic collectors in this hobby who want to enjoy and have fun with it. I'm not for or against the dealers or auction houses, and I'm even not necessarily for or against the card doctors either. There is even an acceptable time and place for the card doctors and I'm sure there are some collectors who actually appreciate what they do and desire their services. What I'm against is that apparently due to greed or other unknown reasons, some of these people get involved in using these techniques and services to alter/restore/conserve (whatever you want to call it) cards to sell to others who maybe do not have the same acceptance and desire for such altered cards and are unknowingly being sold such altered cards at inflated prices due to the non-disclosure of such alterations. I'm just for seeing people in the hobby not getting ripped off or taken advantage off in what they are looking for and expecting to get when they purchase something. As far as I'm concerned, if PSA wants to accept certain otherwise undetectable alterations as okay and leave them as graded so people can include them in their PSA Registry sets that way, that is totally fine with me. I just don't like the idea that someone who is more of a hobby purist and does not want altered/doctored cards in their collection, or doesn't mind having them as long as they know they have been altered and are appropriately graded and priced, gets taken advantage of when being sold an altered card that is not appropriately graded and marked as such. That is all part of the beauty and the bane of this hobby, that there are many different types of collectors with different needs, wants, desirabilities, expectations and standards. I just don't like seeing any one part of the collecting community possibly being taken advantage of because of the way other collectors look at things or find different things acceptable to them that others don't. As long as everyone has full disclosure concerning things they are buying, it is then up to each individual collector to determine what he/she thinks something is worth to them. I just think that if we had an independent, non-profit collecting group that oversaw the hobby and set consistent standards and expectations for everyone, it would help. Maybe not a perfect solution, but certainly couldn't be much worse that it is now when the for-profit companies and people involved in the hobby are pretty much in control of everything.

Not wanting to get the least bit involved in the Joe Orlando Stock Sale speculation/discussion...

I think the vast majority of your last paragraph (in bold) did indeed hit it out of the park. This is where the TPGs have failed us. I only take exception to the portion highlighted in Red. But for the most part, some very good perspective IMO.

[QUOTE=swarmee;1903401]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.

I see that COMC blogged that one of their members submitted 6000 slabbed cards. I'm thinking that COMC will be the next big dumping ground for altered cards. It may be happening already.

COMC is well aware of the scandal, and should be careful who they take consignments from as well. They were notified of one seller from the Dallas group that had a lot of cards for sale there (SuperiorSportsInvestments), and that seller currently has 45 graded cards for sale out of over 13,000 total.

But you're right, people should be aware of the cards they're looking at from every source, be it eBay, COMC, shows, auction houses, PWCC, etc.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

[QUOTE=buymycards;1904148]I have only seen a few altered card on COMC that they did not catch when listing. I have bought easily 1000 cards off COMC in the past. In the last several months I have only bought 2 because of the insane listed prices. Those 2 cards were bought from swarmee who is one of the very few to price cards at their value.

As examples i recently was looking to upgrade a few 55 Bowmans and 59 Fleer Ted Williams cards. I bought the Bowmams off eBay for 25% of the lowest prices on COMC. The 59 Fleer prices are insane, you can buy graded NrMint and better cards on eBay for less than the ungraded beaters are priced on COMC.

If the hobby decides to accept the alterations because collectors will want to protect their investments, then I can assure you that after the card doctors are done popping the champagne, they will continue to doctor and improve cards with a vengeance. Because they will surely realize that they won this battle.

So imagine a hobby a few years down the road where thousands and thousands of new high grade cards have materialized out of thin air, and a hobby where there are so many high grade cards that even collectors with limited budgets can have a solid standing on the set registry.

The choice that PSA made to minimize this issue, and to put blame on a bunch of disgruntled hobbyists for complaining about this on a chat board, will open the door for a whole new generation of card doctors.

It's going to get really ugly if this scandal is not faced head on. Given enough time nearly every card will either be doctored, or there will at least be the fear that any high grade card cannot be trusted. You can't just sweep this under the rug. That's a short term bandage and a long term disaster.

Mark,

The reason I mentioned that is because there are a lot of people involved in the PSA Registry, and they probably don't want/need to have that changed or become unavailable. And as I also mentioned, there are different people in the hobby with different collecting concerns/needs/wants and interests, which is perfectly fine also. And for that reason, if PSA was to say they didn't see or weren't able detect these alterations that are being discovered and pointed out, they can go ahead if they want and continue to leave those cards in the currently graded PSA holders they are now in and not change their grades. And the people who own those cards can then continue to have them listed in the PSA Registry at the current assigned grades. In effect, what that would do is make it so PSA is effectively accepting of some alterations/restorations/conservation of cards, as long as it was apparently done so well that it couldn't readily be detected by them. And if those collectors owning those actually altered cards didn't care, that is fine and their business and no one else's.

However, if you had an organized collector run group that set up specific, unified grading standards and measures and PSA passed on agreeing and adhering to them and to the oversight by such a collector group, that is fine also. It would just be that people involved in the collector group would know that PSA did not agree to and adhere to standards of the collecting community, and hopefully the members of the collecting community would then view PSA graded cards going forward with a definite taint of doubt as to the veracity of the grades given, and possibly the authenticity as well. You'd potentially end up with two (or possibly even more) distinct collector groups that all operated under their own set of rules and standards. And there is nothing wrong with that. Collectors in both groups would eventually know the differences between the two and their standards and how they viewed things differently in the hobby. That way if a person was more of a hobby purist and didn't want to take a chance on accidentally acquiring an altered card, they would probably stay away from any PSA graded cards like the plague. Card doctors would also know that if a TPG like PSA didn't really worry about a card being conserved/altered/restored as long as they couldn't really detect such work and that if it passed through their inspection procedures without detection the card would thereafter be considered good as graded, they could go ahead and just submit all their work to PSA for grading, and not have to worry about potential persecution and legal issues going forward. The collectors who still wanted to follow and participate in the PSA Registry could then do so and continue to pay the prices they saw fit to pay for such high graded cards in PSA holders, altered or not. Meanwhile, people who preferred to follow the path of the more purist collector group wouldn't want to take a chance on PSA cards and would look most likely to only purchasing raw cards or those graded by other TPGs that did go along and adhere to the collector groups singular, unified standards and measures for cards and their grading/authentication. In other words, to each his/her own.

The not so easy to resolve problem/dilemma comes from the vast amount of already graded PSA cards currently owned by collectors who are more on the purist side of collecting and do not want potentially altered cards, at least not without them being properly designated, graded and priced as such. How do you resolve that with those collectors and get those now suspect PSA graded cards either out of their hands/collections, and/or reholdered by a different TPG that follows the more purist collecting groups ideals and standards? Or do they just hold on to them and deal with it? Great questions for which I have no answers. if something like that was to eventually occur, I think the market and collectors themselves would eventually figure out and gravitate toward the most acceptable/palatable solution on a collector by collector basis. And this dilemma to me is the gist of your non-agreement/non-acceptance of my statement about my being okay with PSA possibly accepting altered/restored/conserved cards as legit if they couldn't detect the alterations. I can fully understand how someone who has a number of suspect PSA graded cards in their possession would not be happy and concerned if PSA did not somehow address and possibly make redress for their potential approval of such altered cards being accepted as legitimately graded. But remember, it is only their opinion, to which everyone has a right to their own opinion. And if there are a sufficient number of collectors who may not think like and agree with you, but instead follow and accept PSA's view of the issue, if that is what they want to think and believe, who are you and I to say they are wrong? One of the things I've always heard is to collect what you want and like? If so, who are you or I to disparage someone else if that is what they like, accept and want to collect?

And here's an even worse potential result/dilemma should such a dichotomy emerge in the hobby. The more purist collectors who looked at altered/restored/conserved cards as only worthy of an authentic grade would expect the value of such cards to be severely discounted for the non-authentic grade. However, if collectors who followed the PSA way of thinking still viewed the undetectable altered cards that passed cleanly through as completely legit and accurate for the grades, those same cards that the hobby purists would give little value to would still be considered highly valuable by the PSA Registry crowd. So now you may not only have two potentially different thinking groups of collectors out there, but those two collector groups may also be assigning very different values to the exact same card(s) that both groups look to collect. If that were to end up being the case, how long do you think it would be before whichever collector group had the most followers (and money) would begin to exert pressure on the overall hobby to where cards and collectors would start to gravitate more to one side or the other?

Think about it, if the PSA collectors kept on looking for the consistently higher graded cards, altered or not, and there were enough members of that side of the market (with enough dollars), card doctors would be out there trying to acquire and buy up all the cards they could from the more purist collector group side, and then work their magic to make more money by altering those same cards, having them run through and graded numerically by PSA, and then offering them for sale on the PSA side of the hobby. The purists, not sure if any PSA graded cards then were altered or not, would likely value those highly graded and thus suspect PSA cards a lot less than members of the PSA side of collecting. And in that case, inevitably more and more cards will end up following the money and be moved into PSA graded holders (at least I can see this on the vintage side of collecting). So in that case what do the more purist collectors do as the cards they want, at prices they feel are correct, keep moving more and more to the PSA side of the hobby and getting graded and put into PSA holders? Eventually they won't be able to find/collect a lot of the cards they want and need for their collections, and will only accept and purchase cards in non-PSA holders or raw condition, which would in effect make such cards rarer and rarer to find and likely push prices up. Or they will have to bite the bullet and just accept and purchase the PSA graded cards after all, at potentially higher prices than they feel those cards are worth. And then at some point, the more purist collector group starts to lose members as they either can't find/afford what they are looking for and maybe drop out of the hobby, or just accept or go over to the PSA side. Lose enough members and that whole purist side of the hobby could eventually fall apart and go the way of the Dodo bird.

And on the either side of the coin, if the purist hobby group ends up having more followers (and dollars), and collectively steers away from PSA graded cards because of a potential alteration taint, that could end up having a negative impact on the overall value of all PSA graded cards as potentially fewer people will be interested in them. Law of supply and demand, right? In that instance it is likely over time that more collectors would start to move cards from PSA holders to those of other TPGs that followed the more purist hobby group's grading standards, or even raw condition, to take advantage of the perceived higher prices and value of non-alteration tainted cards. And if the prices on the PSA side start to get negatively impacted enough, that should also start to undermine the confidence of the investment minded people who are part of the PSA side of the hobby. Get enough of those people more interested in the investment side of things to start seeing the value in the higher graded cards on the purist side of the hobby not affected by a potential alteration taint, and you'll see them start to move over towards that side of the hobby and start getting out of their PSA graded cards.

In other words, if something like this were to happen, and that is one huge IF, I can inevitably see money will be the leading factor in determining which side of the hobby thinking will ultimately appear to win out and garner the most followers.

And for the record, there are suspected altered cards in not just PSA holders, but in SGC and BGS holders as well. And when I use the term "purist", I am not inferring or implying in any way that one side or group is better and pure/right while another group is somehow impure/bad in any way. I was merely using the terms purist and PSA as designations to name two potential sides/groups in a hypothetical situation as described above.

Bob, do you ever write less than a novel?

yes!

Well-played :)

Though "No" would've been funnier!

Good point!

I think that's where we're heading.

The last laugh would be on the high rollers currently trying to protect PSA, as their "high grade" collections will become less rare and less valuable.

"It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people – with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

"He just saw the opportunity."

People don’t wanna believe their cards in PSA holders are altered....well guess what many are....

Yeah...I'm one of them. I don't want to believe it. This all feels like a gut punch.

This crap has always been a concern, and I've always known PSA could be fooled (or worse). The biggest revelation I've had about all of this is that nothing is safe.

I used to figure that flawed cards were legit. I figured focusing on mid-grade cards would weed this crap out. I thought if a card had a corner touch or an edge chink that it wasn't altered. Big mistake. These cats are bumping 4s to 6s too. These past couple of months have been educational for sure.

Ugh.

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"edge chink?"

There is one good thing happening from all this fraud coming out. There are just so many examples now that most of the usual suspects pumping up/making excuses for PSA have quit posting.:D

Yeah, I still use my own terminology sometimes lol.

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And for Brent.

Not to mention you are bidding with 20 card doctors and their agents for the 6's & 7's, Chances are, someone else has already doctored the card before them. They are spinning cards in and out of those stupid plastic holders like this guy spins plates.

One wonders after all these years, how many cards submitted now on the vintage side are crack outs, whether altered, or just to try to get a higher grade.

Good point. I hadn't even considered bidding against them for the cards in the first place.

Jeez

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The reason I mentioned and asked that was because I don't believe the general public knows for certain yet how and by whom all those altered cards were originally submittted to PSA, is that not correct? I imagine some could have been submitted by PWCC, some by Moser directly, as well as others maybe being submitted by different "friends and family" of the parties involved. I agree with your thinking, PSA would not follow the warranty for someone they felt was actually submitting the altered cards, or that they felt was involved in the scheme.

Think about this though, as a possible way PWCC could still recoup some monies from this fiasco they are in the middle of. They end up buying back these altered cards sold and simply break them out of the PSA holders. They then sell/transfer them to someone, say a "friend" to disseminate back into the market place who sells them raw, and then say whomever gets them goes ahead and submits them to PSA thinking they may have gotten a real deal/steal. PWCC gets at least some of their money back, the cards are no longer in a PSA holder attributed to their previous ownership/handling, so harder to track back and blame them for. The person who ends up buying one/more of these now raw cards, and then submits them to PSA for grading, could actually be an honest, innocent collector just looking to get a card they felt they got a good deal on, graded. And then lets say PSA (or any of the other TPGs) gets fooled again and gives the card(s) a numerical grade. Now they are still out there circulating in the hobby and not so easily tracked back and blamed on PWCC and Moser. Not sure what you can do to insure these cards never get recirculated back into the hobby, unless the TPGs can figure out a better way/process to detect and report when these cards are altered.

I believe PWCC is turning these cards it takes back over to law enforcement.

Hadn't heard that, interesting!!! So at the end of whatever comes from this current crisis and issue, what do you think will then happen to those cards currently in law enforcement hands? Even though altered, I assume they are still authentic cards and therefore do have some value. It would be a shame to just destroy them, no? As a collector of mostly vintage cards myself, there is only a finite number of them out there, and destroying even altered ones doesn't sit well with me.

So at the end of law enforcement's need for currently holding on to these cards, if PWCC did reimburse buyers for them, I would think they technically belong to PWCC then and will likely be returned to them, no? So assuming that could end up happening, my comments/concerns could still be valid.

As much as I agree with your sentiment about vintage cards I think they have to be destroyed or they will likely wind up being sold dishonestly again somewhere down the line. Of course that may wind up increasing the value of the remaining cards which is also weird to think about.

Bob I don't know. Maybe they could be an exhibit in FBI headquarters. :)

Nooooooooooo!!! I sincerely hope they don't destroy those cards. Put a hole punch in them and sell as altered but do not destroy them.

If they destroyed ALL altered cards we wouldn't have any left.;):D

They could stamp the backs with a scarlet letter "A" in Old English font like the "F" on the "F. Scott Fitzgerald cards".

Brentsy would then convince his gaggle of followers they were worth a premium.

Don't forget the cool sticker Brentsy would put on the slab.:rolleyes:

Well played sir!!! I like that comment and idea. LOL

If these cards are now agreed to be authentic, you can do what they do to 'cards' in Vegas Casinos.....hole punch in them.....thus they still are authentic...and you can have a 'scandal' card with no chance of fixing it..

When you say "agreed to be authentic," who would be the authority to make this conclusion for everyone? The Supreme Court? And the idea of destroying or defacing assets that have been "enhanced"... under what authority would that occur?

Aside from investment value, the reason collectors prefer nicer looking cards to beaters is their visual appeal. So, suppose I want to frame some of my 1963-67 Twins cards for display in my house. I see that a few have some discoloring on the borders, so I clean them a bit. One card has a ragged edge so I trim it straight. Nothing nefarious - they are my cards and I want them to display well.

Then one unfortunate day, an elephant sits on me (my worst recurring nightmare) and my assets are sold, without anyone knowing they've been altered.

Is the suggestion that as soon as I alter one of my assets, I must also stamp it or punch a hole in it? Or that I should make it clear in my will that upon my death, certain of my assets should be stamped, punched, or destroyed?

I'm not understanding questions regarding the higher authority concepts. Being a live and let live libertarian that's nothing new for me. But from a legal or implementation standpoint.... how can assets be prohibited from being altered, bought, and sold, if there is no fraud/criminal intent involved, and how can someone with an altered asset be made to stamp or hole punch it?

I'm sure I'll get reams of disagreement on this, but I think the problem here is with crimes of fraud, misrepresentation, etc, being perpetrated to artificially inflate sales revenues for those involved with the scheme, and NOT with the inanimate assets themselves.

Cards don't commit fraud; people do.

Really? The cards in question are evidence in an ongoing investigation of criminal fraud. Fraud is a crime of intent. There is no intent in your example, other than maybe the elephant :)

Some of these concepts have been explained so many times in the scandal threads it's hard to believe we're still trying to communicate them.

Pardon the interruption...but will the OP finally fix the title of the thread????!!!! I keep waiting, but it's been days!!!! Isn't the guy's name Darren Rovell??? Why does it read "Darren's Rovell take on PWCC, etc."?????????? It's driving me bonkers!!!!!

Please, I understand the concepts and am not having a hard time with all you smart people trying to communicate them to idiots like me.

I think we agree it's a case of fraud and the cards are evidence of that crime. The perpetrators, hopefully, will have to answer to charges over this. But I don't get why the cards then have to be destroyed or severely damaged. The cards, if otherwise genuine, still may have considerable value.

Under your scenario, since Mastro has admitted the alteration and been found guilty, the Gretzky Wagner needs to be destroyed, stamped, or hole punched, and I really don't see any point in that. More importantly, I don't see under what authority that could be made to happen.

The idea of invisible ink has been brought up several times (once by me lol) and rejected for pretty much the same reasons you gave. I get that. Who would have the authority? Why can they "stamp" personal property that has value?

I'd like these cards out if circulation too. I just don't know how to make that happen without creating more problems. It's definitely not as simple as punching holes in altered cards though.

There were a lot of aspects to the situation I hadn't considered when I put forth the idea of invisible ink. Since they have been explained to me, I now see the situation differently and agree destroying the cards isn't the solution. I just wish I knew what was.

Originally (in my mind) it seemed like a good way to prevent scambags from continually resubbing altered cards to PSA until they sqeaked by. Even that idea has major issues. Ugh


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It's like Ruth's Chris Steakhouse

If you understand then what was the point of your irrelevant elephant example?

Putting that aside who gets them? The criminals who sold them fraudulently? If the purchaser was made whole, and the criminals don't get to keep their handiwork what do YOU propose is done with them?

Exactly this!

Look, a lot of these altered assets would never have been identified without the BO guys, mostly, with their before and after pictures. Without being able to compare the pre- alteration image with the post-alteration image, I'll bet most of us couldn't identify the specific things done to a given asset. Certainly the TPGs found the task challenging (to say the least.)

As others have repeatedly said, it's just the tip of the iceberg. There are probably tens or hundreds of thousands of altered assets out there, and the vast majority will probably never be identified as such.

So the idea of destroying, stamping, punching altered cards is, I think, more of a knee-jerk suggestion, rather than a practical, well-though one.

I don't know. I think Rachel said it best.

But I don't think that destroying the Gretzky Wagner, or other valuable altered cards, is the solution.

The situation is a mess. I hope the solution does not end up creating a bigger mess. Let's focus on stopping the criminals, not destroying old and rare baseball cards.

One of the biggest problems might be in deciding who has the authority to determine a card is altered. PSA? Pffft, please. They can't find their asses with both hands and a flashlight. A govt body? OMG please no.

Another problem comes in when we consider a hobbyist who unknowingly owns an altered card, can't find the guy that sold it to him, did nothing wrong, likes the card, can't be compensated by the scambags that did it, and doesn't want his card further altered by a hole. By what authority can anyone demand he mangles his property? Clearly he's already been victimized by the trimmer, but his card still has value and that card's value would be lessened by a hole.

And that's just the beginning of the hundreds of possible scenarios that dont exactly fit the current pwcc/Moser crap going on.

It's just not that simple, unfortunately.

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Stop bringing up the Gretzky Wagner until it's evidence in an investigation. It is privately owned, and the owner is apparently happy. If he wanted to pursue remedy THEN it would be a valid comparison.

You haven't answered the question. Who gets the cards?

Since you have ordered me to stop bringing up the Gretzky Wagner I will comply.... After this question for you: Suppose it had been evidence at the Mastro trial and suppose the owner was not happy? Do you think it then should have been destroyed, as a fraudulent, altered asset?

I have answered your question. I don't know. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I think destroying old and valuable cards is a very poor attempt at a solution.

Once by you in the last month since you magically joined us here at N54 and immediately started throwing daggers. In your words: pffffffft!!! LOL! OMG! Seriously cut it out. I've been here since 2013. A bit odd you only post on tapatalk. Where's her IP address Leon?