I'm looking forward to meeting all of you there, but after I was hired to kill me, I had to put myself in a witness protection program, so I don't know who I am or where I am. Sorry.

I'll shake your hand anyway, Scott, or whoever you are now:D Scotty "The Bull" Gravano?

If I identified myself it would destroy the myth that my car(s) is better, my girlfriend more beautiful, my things cooler, my muscles huger, and my wealth more substantial, than anyone who I ever had an argument with in a discussion forum. And that is something I cannot allow to happen.

Sorry, Leon. I will try to clean up my language a bit. :D

Best,

Eric

Rube

When my kids were little and I started to hear F bombs and such. I told them that I didn't much care how they talked with their little friends since I wouldn't be around to hear it and there was nothing I could do anyway. But I did make it clear that it was a reflection on me and on their upbringing.

The lesson I tried to impart was that, if you're going to cuss, you have to learn how to cuss and when to cuss.

Personally, I don't care if people cuss here, it's simply a reflection on those that do it. Just like with cheap hustlers on BST, it's part of the forum I don't care for but I'll never lose any sleep over it.

Two and a half pages about who enjoys cussing and who doesn't.....I guess I have a strange skill of successfully hijacking threads, I've done it twice now to the OP, sorry for that. Wasn't exactly my intention, just wanted to vent a little about the "board parenting". Believe it or not to all of the "board psychologists" on here, cussing is no indication of ones wealth, social class or highest education level completed. I've met physicians and professors who have the mouths of a truck driver......I chose not to insult them by lecturing on cursing ;)

:confused:

Why so defensive? No reason to be. It's a free country and only an internet forum. It's just that some people have notions of decorum. Its not a hard and fast rule.

well...... i seldom post and really know better than to wade into the swamp, but i think this thread and a lot of others of late have turned a bit ugly not due to things like language, but rather attitude, arrogance and lack of tolerance for others' view....phew, this should get me roasted from all sides

jim frey

Jim,

Provided that nobody beats me to it, I just wanted to make sure that your first reply didn't "roast" you. I happen to think you make a valid point.

Happy collecting,

Eric

Andrew,

I'm still confused. This comment seems to have been aimed at me.

If so, why?

Just curious...

Best Regards,

Eric

Best points of the entire post ;)

RUBE
/ro͞ob/
Noun
A country bumpkin.
Synonyms
yokel - bumpkin - hick

I don't think I've ever heard this word used to describe someone in my entire life hahaha.

Maybe he meant Rube Walker....I always kinda liked him.

To get back on topic..wild manipulation of scans is one of my pet peeves, hate it!

Rube Foster
Rube Waddell

Both were great players.

Best,

Eric

David,

Thanks for the rose-colored-glasses vote of confidence here. I will resume my, "glass half-full" mindset and truly appreciate your input

As for Andrew, I will reserve judgment until he replies...and give him the benfit of the doubt here.

And thank you, David, for guiding this thread back towards the original topic. I found myself getting sidetracked. My apologies to all concerned.

Sincerely,

Eric

scanner fraud
 

Eric, if it's any consolation I don't know where that comment came from either. Maybe Andrew will clarify. It wasn't only you that kept the train derailed. It's a team effort around here (me included).

And thanks to David too, for getting back to topic. I think a few good things came out of this thread. And the scanner fraud that goes on needs, and has needed more light shined on it. Nice thread in that respect.

I was thinking Rube Oldring :confused:

Leon,

Thank you very much for your kind words.

Sorry for momentarily losing focus.

Best Regards,

Eric

Jeesh!! Case in Point!! Although this is not prewar, it clearly demonstrates what this thread is all about.

The top is a card I sold recently for $26.00.....cheap, but as you can see by the accurate scan I posted, it had slightly brown dingy borders and the corners were soft (top left in particular).

The bottom is the same card listed by the buyer at near twice the price BIN $45.00 with a wildly manipulated scan. Bright borders and hardly noticeable soft corners.

Now I don't care about anyone making a profit, and I am used to buying high and selling low.

My beef is the manipulated scan that is fraudulently depicting the card as nicer than it really is. What say you?:eek: Dave.

I say - tell me who that seller is.

wabbitwax_2

+1

What do you think of pwcc scans?

I have only won one card from pwcc, but it was actually nicer than the posted scan. Dave:)

I think his scans are overly bright and generally improve the appearance of cards.

Same here, purchased an E90 Ed Walsh from PWCC and the card arrived in better condition in person than I expected. Advertised as Fair, looks to be an SGC 30 to my untrained eye ;)

Hey Jim, well said, you should post more.

Great example Dave. You can clearly see by brightening the scan, the card looks cleaner and the corners don't look as dinged up.

Sincerely, Clayton

Buyer/seller also won a 52T Kell in a BVG holder and has it relisted...same thing..wildly manipulated scan!

I guess some sellers heard people saying "buy the card and not the holder" and a light bulb lit up :D

Sincerely, Clayton

The Schoendienst in question :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1952-Topps-9...item1c3176ca0f


http://www.ebay.com/itm/1952-Topps-9...item1c31b96fec

You're welcome,
Doug

To be honest, I think your accurate scan actually presents the card much better.

I don't know about "wildly manipulated" on the second. Just looks like a poor washed out scan to me, with the brightness maybe jacked up a notch.

They do look like two completely different cards at first glance, but I'd buy yours before I bought that second one.

Perhaps "wildly" is too strong a word, but "manipulated" for sure. :) Dave.

What's the recourse? Buy the holder and not the card? :confused:

The only "recourse" is common sense, buyer beware, caveat emptor, use caution ahead, etc.

Shill bidding, fakes, "exaggerations'" in descriptions and images, complete lies. None of this stuff is new to the hobby. Prior to the internet, when us old guys used to buy things via snail mail, based on descriptions that used terms like vg/ex or ex/mt, instead of 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 (all of which look undergraded, of course), we got what we got, and we complained as much as we decided to, and our best recourse was sometimes to not buy things again from certain sellers. Often we continued to buy from that seller, but we knew that his ex/mt was really ex-.

In this specific case, maybe this specific seller has a crappy scanner and buyers need to be aware of that fact. Or maybe he doesn't.

But, saying something like the above on a net54 post tends to bring out a bunch of responses that make it sound like there are right and wrong answers, or that the people who lie and cheat and scam will stop doing so if we call them on it.

Grow up people.

There will never be complete honesty in any collectible "hobby", for the same reason that there will never be peace in the middle east. Because people are not generally as nice as they claim to be, or as they think others should be.

So sayeth Doug

Old Guys
 

Jeez Doug, you must be ancient. How old are you anyway :)

well-said, Doug. Sadly, I was an idiot and didn't collect vintage cards back then, but I did buy comic books via mail. I can remember scouring the ads in the back to order their mailing lists - those were almost as cool sometimes as the actual comic books. The big problem we ran into back then was that if you found a real 'deal' on something, it had always been sold already. I'm guessing you ancient mail-in card purchasers experienced the same. Of course I was too cheap to pay for the long distance calls to check availability :)

Now compare it to this one and it doesn't appear to be just the seller's (default) scanner settings.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1965-Philade...item1c31567153

I turned 50 a few days ago, and to "celebrate" my wife invited a bunch of friends over to have a funeral for "the death of Doug's youth".

Doug, It was a legit question. Written to cut to the crux of what this thread is about. (Too bad there is not an emoticon to express that). And although I don’t believe your response was fully directed at me, there has been an influx of new collectors on the board, some older and some younger. A few may not have even been born before the advent of the scanner. What they have heard since is buy the card, not the holder. And maybe they have not had the chance to see and feel a raw Cobb or a Clemente rookie.

Congratulations on your 50th birthday. I’ll be a decade older than you in a few months. Bought my first three Cobbs from Goldfadden in person @ $5 a pop, and other pre- and -post war vintage via snail mail: for instance, Gar Miller. Even in the late sixties as a teen, $30 + or so, was, unfortunately, beyond my allowance for a ‘52T Mantle. What a dope I I was then. But at least I knew what it looked and felt like.

Respect for collectors, newbies and oldbies.

Thus Sprach Paul S

emoticon here

Thank you Paul, and happy birthday in advance to you.

I completely understand that it was a legit question, and meant no disrespect to any collectors, oldies and newbies alike, what I meant is that scan "exaggerations" are in the year 2013 the equivalent of what description "exaggerations" were in 1976.

Back then some people had descriptions that were closer to reality than others, and today some people post scans that are closer to reality than others.

The only way to find out is often to make a purchase (or two, or three), and that's one of the costs of collecting.

It's all part of the chase, and the chase is most of the fun,
Doug

Just looking at the common issue of scans that don't accurately represent what a card looks like in hand....

one way we have to gauge what a card may actually look like, at least when it comes to graded cards, is by looking at the flip. We all know what a PSA or SGC flip looks like in hand. If you see scan where the SGC green is to dark, or the PSA red is too orange, etc., you can get an idea how badly the scan might be off, and adjust accordingly with your mind's eye, so to speak.

I think another part of the problem comes with the default settings these scanners provide. With my Canon CanoScan 5600F, the defaults setting has an "auto tone" feature which makes the colors deeper and the whites much brighter.

If I turn the auto tone setting off, the cards scan appears much drabber than it looks in real life, almost washed out. I had to find a middle ground, a tone setting that shows what the card accurately looks like in hand. It took some trial and error. I'm not sure some sellers are knowledgeable enough to tweak the settings properly. The contrast and brightness settings on each person's monitor can also have an effect.

Agreed. The technology is generic. It's a competion between manufacturers to get people who want their home photos to pop for family, not for card collectors. Not to say they shouldn't. For me to think that the more modern scanners are made just for me/us to show off our cards in their true nature is a pipedream, but please, Canon, "Pass the dutchie to the left hand side".

my bad