At what point does alteration with cards become acceptable in the way it has with vintage comics? The problem in grading between the two hobbies (at least as I understand it; I don't know a ton about comics besides my lower grade raw collection of vintage MAD magazines...) is that the card hobby is still trying in many cases to put over altered cards as unaltered in numbered, regular slabs. Whereas with comics it's more acceptable for pages to be restored, etc. I get that a trading card is different than a comic in that it's just one piece of ephemera, not multiple pages stapled together. But at some point if this just keeps happening, would it not make sense to treat them the same? I know that "restored" comics go for less than true high grade unaltered, but in our hobby it's kind of the same thing already. A lightly trimmed Mantle card in an A holder that appears NM or better to the naked eye still isn't going to be cheap, if you know what I mean - even if it doesn't sell for the same heights as a truly unaltered PSA 7.

I see both sides of the argument. If we don't complain, "whine" about it, then the skulduggery aspect of this on the card side is unlikely to change. However, it's unlikely to change in reality based on what we have seen over the past 3-5 years anyway, isn't it? So is our only real hangup that we have this deception aspect of grading in our hobby where some other types of collectibles have moved on from that?

Me personally, I'm basically too small time to make a difference. I enjoy mid-to lower grade postwar vintage on a budget, for the most part. I've gotten pissed at graders (mostly SGC) lately, but more to do with their defective slabs and yo-yo pricing models. From here on out, I will likely be focusing mainly on lower grade, raw vintage from sellers that I have already grown to trust online. That way I figure both prices and risk of alteration can remain low. I would agree we are in a very odd place in the hobby with this as an issue right now...

Fair enough and appreciate your response. We are probably closer together on this then we realize.

Just at slightly different stages of "acceptance". :D

To be honest. I don't have much of a stake in this. I've done little more then dabble in graded cards, and never sent any cards in myself until the recent avalanche of grading craziness hit, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm ever going to see those few cards again, LOL.

I personally think it's too late to put the bullets back in the chamber for the grading companies. The established ones anyways. I've seen chatter that CSG is returning a lot of cards back to submitters, for various reasons. Valid or not. Maybe they will get the reputation of being more picky........at least where authenticity is concerned. Plenty of people already "whining" about the leniency given at the bottom of their number scale...........which I can only shrug my shoulders at, while the others are letting mass numbers of trimmed cards in at the top of the scale, where all the actual money is.

I have a few cards at their facility right now. I might not get those back anytime soon either. :rolleyes:

The others either have to keep putting their head in sand, or start establishing a number scale for altered cards in order to satiate the high-enders. 10A, 9A, 8A, etc......

I've often wondered this myself. I don't collect or submit much in the way of modern cards, but it is nevertheless amazing to me that I have never once submitted a well centered, pack fresh, modern card with four sharp corners and no obvious issues that has received a grade higher than a 9.

That may not be representative. Last year just out of boredom I busted open a couple of boxes of 2018 product and submitted the better rookie cards, and a friend of mine did the same, and I think we got at least half PSA 10s.

So far, according to a guy keeping score.

An accounting so far:

27 trimmed/altered 1915 Cracker Jacks in SGC holders. All of them graded 8, 8.5 , or 9 except for three.

Two cards of Walter Johnson. Three cards of Honus Wagner. Two cards of Christy Mathewson. Two cards of Joe Jackson. One card of Ty Cobb. 15 total members of the Hall of Fame.

Total approximate value if sold today: $1.6 million.

Never

and

There is only one side to the "argument". Either a card is altered or it is not altered, the opinion of the opinion seller has no bearing on that fact and has been proven time and again to be no better or worse than those of many of us, except that they just get paid more for theirs, even when it's shown to be wrong.

And yes Mark17, I'm re-stating my sentiment, much of which we all agree on, in a new thread every few days accomplishing probably nothing.

I meant "acceptable" in terms of the card that's altered being properly labeled as such. Alteration is acceptable already today to some collectors who seek out "A" slabs either due to the fact that they are more affordable, or otherwise somehow have a fit in their collection.

I would think we would all like to agree that altered cards in numbered slabs is a bad thing, but my point in saying what you quoted was if in time, if altered or restored as is used in the comic hobby filters over more to cards, will this somehow reduce the rate of altered cards fraudulently getting into numbered slabs? It may not, but that's what I was questioning.

I highly doubt it would help. The goal is to get the card in a numbered slab for a large monetary gain.

It would sicken you over the years how many times I've heard I don't what was done to the card if it's in a holder with a number grade.

And if this continues to be the sole goal, I don't see this as a problem going away anytime soon, if ever. Those who are making noise about this on the regular are in the relative minority when you look at who is buying and stockpiling valuable vintage slabs.

One of those things I think that is certainly not ideal, but reality.

I posted earlier in this thread but I’ll repeat because it seems to apply here. If the graders are under trained/ uninformed/ incompetent then maybe you could see some changes and improvements made in the grading process. If, however, they are simply corrupt (handing out grades to high volume submitters, etc.) that’s a different story.

I'll pose another question simply out of ignorance, but has this type of problem (the alteration fraud being made worse with TPG's complicit...) ever occurred before in professional grading with stamps or coins? I don't know much about them, but the American Philatelic Society has a pretty lofty reputation. In an organization like that, is it simply because collectors / historians have a louder voice than dealers and those purely in it with the main goal of driving prices higher?

But what if it's both?

When I saw some of those clearly short cards in the D. Thorn thread on Blowout, I was convinced they had a self-service line.

I’m sure it is, with so many examples it almost has to be both to some extent. But I doubt it’s a 50/50 split. My guess would be 80/20, leaning towards corrupt just based on the large batch groups of altered, graded submittals from BO.

This thread both makes me chuckle, and shake my head at the same time. Brings up a bittersweet memory. I was about to purchase my first 1914 Cracker Jack Ty Cobb card from an on-line vendor. The card arrived in a sealed top-load holder. But something did not seem quite right. I normally would break the seal to take a closer look at the card, but doing so would have negated the dealer’s clearly stated return privileges. After examining to the best of my ability, I noted that the card had a wavy shape, like potato chip or washboard. First thought was this card had previously been soaked, and air dried. Would explain the waviness. And lack of any notable staining, which I knew was unusual for a 1914 Cracker Jack card. The dealer had made no mention of any such issues in his listing. I initially considered keeping that card, resoaking, and drying in a press to flatten. But I ended up returning that card. Decided any dealer that would try to pass off a defective card was not worth enabling or supporting further.

The opinion sellers have already shown themselves to be incapable of determining if a card has been altered at all, hence this thread, what makes you think they will ever be able to differentiate specific issues?

AND

How many people who worship at the altar of the slab would pay for such opinions, and after receiving them, keep the card in the slab?

Doug "It's laughable, so I laugh" Goodman

The "alter" of the slab. Are you a bad speller or is that a brilliant pun? :)

Coins have had rampant problems as well, with forgeries from S.E. Asia, fake slabs, lasered enhanced Gold coins and many more for the last two decades.

Damn I hate typos!

Can I still claim it as a brilliant pun?

I think this is just something we have to deal with then in the post modern hobby. The desire for high grade cards, (even if not truly high grade) in macho numbered holders has proven that it's going to win out thus far over grading integrity in all cases. I see little incentive for that to change if a small group of collectors on BO and N54 are basically the only ones concerned about it.

The Philatelic foundation had a problem in the early 80's where one of their computer operators took payments to issue certificates for altered stamps that had been rejected by experts as altered, but he changed the opinion to genuine.

The main person doing the altering was brazen enough to have a vanity plate that read "Stamp MD"

A bunch of firings, criminal charges etc followed by a lot of hard work restored peoples confidence in them.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...069-story.html

You would need a whole bunch of those plates for cards, I guess they could be sequentially numbered after the CardMD.

So again: Does anyone realistically believe that this problem is ever going away in the card hobby? I don't. Not as long as collectibles continue to be worth real money. The incentives just don't align.

Alteration going away? No, it's been here for decades, and the money is way too much for it to go away.

The authentication/grading companies being either nearly useless or complicit?
That could go away, but it seems like the vast majority of the hobby wants to be lied to and taken advantage of.

A friend collects stamps from among other things a small sort of country. Most of their stamps are other countries stamps overprinted with a new name. (sort of a standard thing) The guy who was THE expert a long time ago turned out to also be the guy making fake over prints that surprise! were expertized as good.
Once it was found out, he was kicked out of all philatelic groups he was in, and If I remember it right charged with fraud.
He expertized other stuff too, and now his expertizing mark* is taken as a sign that a fake is likely what you're looking at.

In Europe, it was standard for the expertizer to stamp their name on the back of the stamp. Sometimes in different positions to indicate real or fake flawed or not. They would also do entire sets essentially for the same price as one stamp. I learned this when I asked my friend about a stamp I'd gotten that was a very nice example, and had an expert mark, but I couldn't figure out why. Catalog value was maybe 50 cents, and the catalog listed no valuable varieties.

Serious legal action, ostracization, and similar measures are all that will curb the amount of nonsense we have going on now.
But the hobby for the most part doesn't have the guts to stick with demanding that, and Law enforcement seldom has the "need" and or support to commit resources to it when there are so many bigger crimes that need attention.

Valuable and very interesting insight. Thanks Steve.

I would love to see this but I think you're right about law enforcement not having the will to tackle it head-on. A lot of these alterations seem obvious to people in the hobby but to prove fraud in a court of law you need a lot more than a couple pictures of cards that appear to be the same card before and after alteration. You need concrete evidence of the alteration, you need to prove criminal intent, etc. That isn't as easy as some think.

Truth. Incentive, time and demand. No demand no market.

Yep. Me neither. Never had one graded and never will. Just doesn't matter to me as a collector.

Well stated, and completely agree...

But regarding your last statement, somehow Law Enforcement was able to commit ample resources to Mastro and to Operation Bullpen (neither of which was anywhere as rampant/widespread as the current card fiasco).

Don't be so sure that the FBI isn't still working on this. It takes time to build and cement the case, and there are a ton of "players" involved. In addition, Covid has probably delayed their investigative procedures by a number of months.

Time will tell.

I'm with Mark. I am almost certain that the FBI doesn't invest resources like they have (Agents at the last National among man other documented things) and then just up and quit. I'd put money on the fact that this is an ongoing investigation if there was any way to conclusively find out.

I had been tracking several of the Cracker Jacks out of curiosity and I just got emails saying the following lots have been withdrawn:

80217 1915 Cracker Jack Walter Johnson #57
80221 1915 Cracker Jack Napoleon Lajoie #66
80223 1915 Cracker Jack Honus Wagner #68
80230 1915 Cracker Jack Christy Mathewson #88
80234 1915 Cracker Jack Bill James #153

All were SGC 8.5 or higher. More lots may have been withdrawn which I was not tracking.

To quote the song, Ain't that good news, man, ain't that news.

Good Sam Cooke knowledge Peter.
Heres another:

It's been a long
A long time coming
But I know a change gonna come
Oh, yes it will

Same album, and Another Saturday Night as well for that matter.

A Change Is Gonna Come often is called his best song, especially by the politically correct like Rolling Stone lol, but to me nothing tops Wonderful World, one of a handful of what I would call perfect songs ever written.

Great stuff when the Soul Stirrers backed him. Here's a modern gospel re-mix with Soul Stirrers. Kind of a neat tune.
-
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Rhyming algebra and slide rule is for, genius. Imagine if he had lived longer, Buddy Holly too.

And since it's a card forum.

Looking at these lot #'s, they appear to still be active.

Who were your emails from claiming that these had been withdrawn?

I was going to nominate Convoy by C.W. McCall, Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas or Billy Don't be a Hero by Bo Donaldson.

How's that for three "one hit wonders" you thought you'd never hear of again? I guess most people here have never heard of them, period! :o

I'm in the 'Bring It On Home To Me' camp.

Now there was genius, rhyming frightening and timing. Can you imagine someone releasing that song with its stereotypes today?

Here's the email I received from Heritage today re the withdrawal of Lot #80217:

"Greetings from Heritage Auctions.

A lot you have been tracking, lot # 80217, previously described as: "1915 Cracker Jack Walter Johnson #57 SGC Mint 9 – Pop Three, None Higher! For over half a century, Walter Johnson endured a lonely existence as the sole inhabitant of the 3,000 Strikeout Clubhouse until Cardinals ace Bob Gibson became his first roommate in 1974. Though Gibson may have matched Johnson's famous velocity, the Big Train was a singular rarity in the dawning decades of the twentieth century, striking fear into the hearts of even the most accomplished and unflappable batsmen of the day. "The first time I faced him, I watched him take that easy windup," the legendary Ty Cobb recounted. "And then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn't tough him. Every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park." Three decades after that memorable first encounter, Cobb and Johnson would join Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner and Christy Mathewson as the very first inductees of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The offered trading finds itself in even more exclusive company, one of just three 1915 Cracker Jacks to find Johnson sheltered beneath a Mint 9 slab, with none superior. A condition report allows us to do nothing more than hurl superlatives, as the card passes its centennial looking better than most of the cards did upon their original birth from Cracker Jack packages in 1915 when sticky caramel was a common danger. The presented representation is indistinguishable from its state of condition upon original printing, clean and sharp-cornered, and even free of the centering problems endemic to the issue. The Big Train has never looked better. Graded SGC Mint 9." in the 2021 May 6 - 8 Spring Sports Catalog Auction - Dallas, #50041 has been withdrawn from the auction and is no longer available for tracking.

Thanks for your understanding.
If you have questions regarding this lot, please email Bid@HA.com."

The emails I got were from bid@ha.com saying the lots had been withdrawn. I agree it is a little confusing because the lot is still searchable as if it was live, but the description says it has been withdrawn. I am not sure what would happen if you tried to bid on it, but I don't want to try!

Kudos to Heritage for doing the right thing :)

Looks like they’ve been withdrawn now!

Good to see!

Yeah, almost all the high grade 1915 Cracker Jacks no longer show up at all (although there is still a 9 Evers, 9.5 Speaker, and 8.5 Reulbach, which I guess were not specifically outed).

Great work BODA, and I am glad to see Heritage pulled these. Now what happens with the cards? Back to consignor I guess..

They'll probably get recerted with new numbers, says one cynic.

And then, they're on their way to Brent. :rolleyes:

More than one....

Is anyone surprised given the latest hire at SGC

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...size/Magoo.jpg

Fresh off a career umpiring.