The post was edited as Leon suggested but it did show your 54 Mays as having once resided in a PSA 7. Contrary to what snowman wrote, it did clearly show changes in the card by recoloring and the removal of printing flaws.

Gotcha.

I didn't have a lot of time last night, but went back through the database, focusing on my high value cards, and looking more carefully at adjacent certs. The 54 Mays was the only one that I flagged as being likely problematic. A couple were within 100 certs of another card that was flagged as altered. This one had certs on both sides that were problematic, including a cert within 3. And the card within 3 certs was also a 54, but for Kaline. So that doesn't bode well.

Certainly interested to learn what alterations were made to the card, and maybe the database and the posts will be updated to include this card in the future. And then I'll have to decide how to approach it once I have more detail.

I guess I can be grateful that my cards will all now be fully vetted by the team at BODA as a generous free service to me. That should help me sleep easier at night, except for anything they flag as being altered, which I'll get to address.

Having a card within a hundred certs of another card that was found to be altered could suggest your card is included in a submission by someone who submits altered cards. Some of the suspect submissions consisted of hundreds of cards.

Also not sure how you conclude your cards have been fully vetted by the BO guys. It seemed like the approach they would take is to look at identifiable cards by known card doctors and then look for an example in a higher grade and make a match with the photos. I would guess they are missing far far more than they have discovered.

I guess I assumed that they have been reading these posts, and have determined that my cards are worthy of closer inspection. Given that they appear to have moved quickly to flag one of them just last night, I arrogantly presumed that they wouldn't hesitate to start working through the rest of them. But maybe the 54 will be the only one they bother to check out.

And I guess that makes those couple of other certs possible candidates. Not sure what to do about it though, other than wait and see what they find, assuming they keep working through my collection looking for suspicious pieces for me.

But maybe there are some other steps I should take now as a result of the adjacentness to other cards already in the database?

From what I can tell, there is only 1 guy doing it now and I doubt he is targeting your collection. It appears he updates various threads as he finds photo matches. Really not sure what their process is/was but I know it takes a huge amount of time for just a single card.

BODA is only able to trace a fraction of altered cards. Sometimes there is a convenient paper trail of an ebay purchase and they essentially get lucky. Most of the time there is not. I wouldn't take much comfort here at least from the BODA after the fact angle.

I guess I'll go back to not sleeping well at night then.

I do not know what you have done but altered cards are everywhere in the hobby so while there might be sellers to avoid even that is not good enough. Knowing the card's history helps in that case. Knowing where it was first sold can tell you a bit about the card. This would apply to all cards in your collection unless you decide you only want to focus on cards over a certain value or cost.

Unless you want to collect raw beaters I think you have to accept that unless you have the ability to look at a card while it is in the holder and assess it for doctoring, that you might have bad cards and just leave it at that.

It's all about your tolerance at this point, I feel. If you bought 9s and 10s out of certain auction houses, or even 8s of major cards, well there is a good chance some are altered, that's just the odds. Look for any cards that are obviously short, not always a clear indicator but it's something. Look for corners that appear bat eared or otherwise are not 90 degrees. Get a halogen light and see if anything shows up.

As to why we bother with grading, it's simple: money. I don't care about having graded cards in my collection, but if I want to cash out, I hold my nose and get them slabbed. I do not see that changing in the foreseeable future. Graded cards just bring more money as long as there is a cadre of collectors who believe in it. No amount of hand wringing, or debate will alter that dynamic.

Grading has become the price point for the hobby. VCP simply substantiates that fact.

Totally agree (as I said in the earlier post).

The blue collar class of collectors have long since left the hobby. It is mostly white collar now. Such a change from years ago.

For every altered card Blowout successfully exposes, there are probably 1,000 that they simply don't find or can't identify.

As TPG became more prevalent, I started migrating from cards over to memorabilia. The whole concept of a third party handling and assessing your collectibles always rubbed me the wrong way, and that's just one reason I shifted my focus. Their inconsistency is absurd.

I still love cards, but will never submit to a TPG for my own collection. When the time comes to sell, I'll just bite the bullet, let the Auction House submit them and be done with it.

No, it most certainly did not

Card altering does not phase you and you hate the BO board. We have heard this from you repeatedly.

The PSA 7 that I saw posted absolutely had print defects, as is typical for the card, on the right side. There was a small and short print line extending into the border mid way up on the right side and a larger print defect on Mays' arms. Sorry if you missed it but you did.

Purest and Capitalist...can such be both in the high end world. Hush Hush baby don't you cry.

It's not as bad as it seems and it's not as good as it seems, just have fun crap it's only cards it's only money enjoy life enjoy your cards hell it's national Cheeseburger day get a cheap sandwich !!!!

I'll look again. I thought you were referring to the back borders that he highlighted in his post, which were definitely not recolored.

Also, I don't hate the BODA board. I think they've largely provided a great service to the hobby. I just think they've gotten lazy and irresponsible at times with some of the cards they post.

I looked at the cards he posted and did not even bother to read what he posted. When you look with an open mind, you see much more. If I knew how to properly post an image here I would post what I think was the scan of the PSA 7. 100% the card is recolored.

You should not have jumped all over this without being more thorough in your examination.

Pretty unlikely IMO a 7 would go to an 8.5 unless something was done to it, particularly if the card is associated with certain people.

Unable to post the scan so hopefully these links work...if I only had a brain...

Here is the card as a 7. https://sales-history.pwccmarketplac...MONTHLY1527430

And now as an 8.5. https://sales-history.pwccmarketplac...MONTHLY1620352

It was later sold on eBay.

I was wrong. There does appear to be a couple of small print lines on the front right border that may have been removed (I say "may have been" because you can still see them in the 8.5 scan but they appear to be significantly less noticeable).

What I looked at, and rolled my eyes at, was his up close comparison to the top back border, which he made a gif image of. After that, I just moved on.

Where do you see recoloring though?

I have been dealing with others trimming my '55 AA's for years!
 

My '55 AA's will always be a target for alterers.

Moral of the story - I should have never sold a single card from the cellos!

Not from where I sit. They just don't collect slabbed vintage cards. I just did the Anaheim show and I would say that the majority of my customers were very middle class or working class. I basically deal in raw cards with most under $20. Lots of vintage-curious entry-level collectors of modest means, lots of families, kids, etc. How do I know? Because I engage with people at shows, and I ask. It's the fun part of being there, at least for me, finding out how people collect and what interests them. You never know, you know, unless you make the effort? I mean, one guy was looking for oddball stuff related to the 1970s sets he collects and was really surprised when I pulled out some original photos from the 1975 Topps basketball set that I got from The Topps Vault years ago.

I like hearing that story, glad you were able to engage with collectors.

I should have said that blue collar left the mid/high end cards a long time ago.

Nah, you can't think like that. I mean, if you sold a car to a guy who then mowed down a row of kids at a bus stop, you aren't to blame.

Totally agree, which is why I can sell what I sell. They've adjusted downward and across to other grades and other cards. The stuff that I used to pull from dollar boxes...

Travis you are better than this and do not need me to point this out. What's going on?

https://postimg.cc/TL6hd3T4

And I guess I now have an altered card in my collection, in spite of my protestations that it's not that common.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showpo...postcount=8106

*sigh*

Did any of your high grade "oddball" cards come from Dave Thorn? Small Traditions.

Not that I know of...

But it sounds like they used several distribution channels, so it's hard to tell sometimes.

Oof. Apologies. Ya, that's pretty bad. I read everything too quickly and was only looking at the edges, since he highlighted those.

I'd love to see what this card looks like in hand. Specifically his arms and that white border. I don't know how recoloring works, but it sure seems to sneak through a lot more often than we'd all hope.

If you didn't buy direct that's at least a start, but yeah once he was outed I think he started using other outlets, perhaps PWCC. Abd the thing with the hobby is you can't always determine, even with the PSA site, the first sale of a card. So there is always uncertainly.

The 'white armband' is a recurring and common variant on the 1954 Mays. Yet Moser apparently removed it via recoloring. Seems odd to go to the effort, that wouldn't hurt the grade, it's not damage. More evidence we have people who don't really know those particular cards well still doctoring them and PSA being unable or unwilling to put the time in to detect them (or more corrupt explanations available) because they don't know them very well either.

When he posted the Mays the first time, I didn't see anything about the recoloring or print lines removed. I believe he only showed the the pictures of the back edges, which he has since reposted. Those images do not bear any evidence of trimming or recoloring of the back edges. That's why I was confused and critical of his prior post. But he has since updated it, or reposted rather, and is now pointing out the recoloring on Mays' forearms, which is clearly there, as Lorewalker pointed out. And the print lines on the right border appear to have been "improved" as well (although I don't believe corndog mentioned those - yet).

He did show the fronts of the cards. Had he not posted those front pics I never could have picked up the obvious recoloring. He was vague as to what had been done.

Also that print line flaw is on many 54 Topps Mays cards (frequently varies in size) however there are some that do not have them (maybe they are recolored too) but I have never seen a 54 Mays with the print line flaw in anything higher than a 7. Assumption is that PSA does not see it as a variation but a flaw that reduces the grade.

Quite a bit of misinformation being tossed around as fact on this thread.

I searched DuckDuckGo for "1954 Topps Mays PSA 8" and pulled the first 2 images that result for this search. Result 1 is a PWCC file which Safari doesn't want to download the image, so here's the link: https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/items/2184996. Result #2 is attached.

Misinformation indeed!

And here's a 9

2 of the examples were graded very early on. 1 of them I have no idea when the cert was used. Those are the first I have seen, not that I have looked for them but if an experienced card doctor recolored it, then it reasons that generally that print flaw results in a downgrade.

And in case we continue this I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart if I upset you in anything I post.

If it was a T206 it would be some highly prized "freak" and there would be 107 threads about it.

I found 3 graded over a 7.5 in 20 seconds and saw 6 total qualifying slabs. Makes me strongly suspect this is not "misinformation" but that PSA does not treat this particular variant differently from so many other print differences that it completely ignores. I don't see evidence for the contrary.

I'm still not interested in the personal game you want to play with me. That's all you.

I have no knowledge of this variant, but if that is so, why would Gary recolor it, and how else do we explain the jump of 1.5 grades?

It's not really a print flaw, which I consider to be flaws from the press or handling.

It's from a mark on the negative used to make the plate. It would be on about half or 1/3 of the 54 mays produced. A genuine difference in that plate position, which should be treated as a variation even if it's not major enough to catalog or recognize. (and there are plenty that are recognized that are far more trivial)

The green is recolored on back or trimmed to make it look nicer. Check the Blowout post. I think it much more likely that the changes to the border damage to reduce them creates the grade gap rather than a well known masking variant that one can extremely easily and with no effort find several high slabbed examples of.

Would love to see any evidence what I said was "misinformation".

My opinion is that a flaw on the print plate that causes a blemish this bad, and which is not present on the other half (or more) of the cards produced, definitely makes this a print flaw. It's like the giant fisheye on ~half of the Dr. J RCs. The copies without the flaws should be graded higher and should be considered significantly more valuable than those with the flaws.

I see no evidence of this claim. This is what I was refuting from the beginning. I see nothing on the back that couldn't be achieved through just humidity/moisture and your finger.

Also, the expected variance for minor blemishes to appear and/or disappear from one scan to the next, let alone from one scanner to the next, is *much* wider than many people realize. I have thousands of duplicate scans of cards taken from different scanners and/or different settings at different times of the same cards that I could post and people would swear they were recolored or damaged, yet nothing was done to them.

Also, some blemishes simply disappear when a card is soaked in water. And contrary to what many claim/wish to be true, this practice is still allowed.

This reminds me of the 52 Mantle that started all these BODA threads a few years back. Nearly everyone on Blowout, page after page after page, were launching their disdain over the "trimmed" 52 Mantle. Each one pointing out which edges had so clearly been cut up. Yet, the card itself had not been trimmed at all. Not even by the width of a human hair. The card had simply been soaked in water and seemingly no one was capable of making this observation (I think there was eventually one guy who pointed this out on page 8 or so, but he was quickly shat upon, per the obligatory Blowhard code of conduct).

I don't care about your card doctor simp schtick. Gary Moser used moisture and his finger to achieve the changes outside the armband. Fine.

You might not see evidence to the contrary as to your theory but that does not at all mean your theory is at all accurate. It merely means you are not able to see another explanation.

PSA is known for being inconsistent. Within the last 5 years I submitted a very high grade Mays which came back a 7. I reviewed it and it came back with a post it note with an arrow pointing to the print anomaly.

That one of the most prolific card doctors in the hobby knew to remove it in an effort to get a 1.5 grade bump suggests that he, who you will have to admit has far more experience submitting than you do, knew leaving it there would not allow him to get a grade bump.

My experiences align with this take as well. I think in order to find one graded higher than a 7 with the armband, it would either have to have been graded in the early days of PSA or the grader would have had to miss it.

We all have opinions on this subject at hand. I respect each one of them, can we some how move forward? The horse has been beaten on this board for many years now, nothing has changed, the horse has been so beat it's now being used in beyond meat burgers. Please respectfully let's move on.