I don't think so...he thought he was anonymous when he made that post. Leon put his name on there with a period in the middle so it didn't show up in Google. I took the period out and gave his location because this isn't 4chan and he doesn't get to anonymously spew garbage like that here.

Well, he doesn't seem to like to be accountable for what he says. Otherwise he wouldn't care that his name is out here. And Dan, right above here, is correct. I did the same name scramble I do for all members who have their name put out here but if another moderator, or someone else, wants to put it out here without scrambling it, it is their call.

I can't think of any thing with the combination of the number of items plus the amount of money.

Art /antiques of course has occasional frauds, which can run into the millions for one item. But usually not so many items. I'm not sure about the hobby lobby artifacts thing, but it's probably close.

I've heard there's a lot of altered/fake coins out of China lately, probably equal, but the scammers are international and smarter about covering their tracks.

There were a few stamp guys on Ebay doing similar stuff, hundreds of items. But their stuff was usually pretty inexpensive. I bought a bad stamp, but it was only about $20. (They ruined a pretty nice 60 cent stamp)
And of course, Fox, Sperati, and Fournier were very prolific.

Even some major collections are auctioned under clever names. Sometimes the collectors name comes out after, sometimes not. If the collector is well known, it can be a plus.

Just asking?
 

What can be seen ?
This is from the pre-TPG days:
Seriously, can you tell if the wax was removed... The other stuff -- bleaching, trimming (maybe erasing) can be visible if it effects the surface ...

I know that bleaching cracker jack cards was obvious sometimes (the 1914s especially) ...

If I have the "before and after" sure I can tell something is wrong but what if I just have the "after" ?
Isn't this what the graders/authenticators are dealing with?
===
Also -- even Alex Jones himself disowned that conspiracy stuff when he was put under oath. (He said that it was his own personal psychosis or something):mad:

Most of my family is from that general area.
Many of them are first responders or are in education.
They ALL knew someone personally who was involved in one way or another, although thankfully none were directly involved.
One person did have their school host a class or two from sandy hook afterwards since the school wasn't usable and education had to go on.
The first responders were called in to provide services normally covered by the local first responders.

Anyone who believes this rubbish about it being fake has got some serious mental problems.

Leon- I have to agree with this post by Jesse. There's no crime in being an idiot- there are idiots under every rock. But this is a terrible look for the board. People come here to relax and get away from this stuff. It really should be deleted and the poster banned.

He's already hung himself so it's time to move on. At least consider getting rid of this garbage.

PSA IS BEING PAID UP TO $5,000 PER CARD TO DO THIS. If they claim they can detect it, and they have a Grade Guarantee, and their President's mantra was "NEVER GET CHEATED," wouldn't you think they should be able to actually do this?

100% agree. In the last few years I've been to shows all over the country (St Louis, Kansas City, Chicago, Atlantic City, White Plains NY, Strongsville OH, Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas, etc) as an attendee or dealer. I've probably met 50 or so Net54 members, but countless people who had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned Net54. Most recently at Leon's Texas show I had conversations with a few advanced collectors that had not heard about the bogus signed T206s because they don't read message boards. It might be tough to get this info out to the masses.

Could We Start Again Please
 

This was not on the original album but was in the movie. And after reading Net 54 and Blowout for the past week. I'm feeling like we all need to listen to this message. Yes, I know where it is from but the message is what I'm going for here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YsOhmMzgac

I agree. This joker needs to be banned.

This is exactly why I left this forum for a few years. The drama gets out of control. I was 30 when I first became a member here. As a history nerd whose dad was into baseball I randomly got into collecting pre-war cards and joined. I've learned a ton and have mostly been encouraged to be part of this great community. Then there's posts like those above. If I read this nonsense back in 2013 I wouldn't have joined.

Again, could we maybe start a separate sub-forum (whatever it's called) for the recent PWCC etc. stuff? We're all here because we have a shared passion. Fraudsters and trolls shouldn't get in the way of that.

IMO ignoring fraud only perpetuates it and makes it more likely you'll be a victim. I get the sentiment that I just want to enjoy the hobby, but fraudsters make that very difficult at most levels of collecting.

Jay this one's for you.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showpo...postcount=2465

You should label the threads you post the links to. If you say something like "ALTERED OLD JUDGE FROM PSA 5(MK) to PSA 6" it might lead people to click them... ;-)

Yeah. What might make more sense is a single thread with links to all the bad cards but I don't have the wherewithal to pull that off.

Any person would have to quit their day job, in order to properly label this endless stream of frauds.

It’s overwhelming and is making me question whether PSA is even examining these cards. I think in many cases it’s a quick glance, and they’ll take your hard-earned money. What a pathetic scam so many collectors have bought into. :(

Exactly!

Say you submit a card that ends up in the hands of the G.O.D. on a bad day, and it gets graded harshly. Shouldn't you be able to resubmit it to get the grade it should have?

We all know this has happened many times; a card is submitted and it gets a 7. The person knows damned well that the card deserves a 9, so he resubmits it. It ultimately gets graded correctly as a 9.

That is a problem I see in all this commotion right now. A card was initially submitted, and got a 3. It was resubmitted and now, it's a 5. Which one is actually correct? The 3 could have been from the G.O.D. on a bad day, in which case, the 5 is correct.

I am not saying that all of this is simply "much ado about nothing"; not in the slightest. I believe certain individuals have been gaming the system; but, people have been gaming the system for decades upon decades. This isn't a new thing. It needs to be stopped and fixed, but the hobby will go on.

Steve

I'm not ignoring it! Totally on your side with this crap! I'm simply saying there should be a separate section on this forum for those threads now that it's become so widespread. It's taking away from why we're here. It's likely very discouraging to those considering starting a Net54 account. I'm not sharing my PSA Philly experience because honestly I don't feel comfortable here and that's a problem. That's my choice and I'd hope you'd respect that.

You have to expect that the hottest topic to emerge in the hobby basically in its history has to be discussed ad nauseum.

Current PWCC card outed on BO. E90-2 Wagner.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1297563

1887 N172 Old Judge Timothy Keefe BAT AT READY AT 30 DEGREE

FROM PSA 4

TO PSA 7 HIGHEST GRADED

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showpo...postcount=2469

Why are there any cards still for sale? Doesn't he realize?

Judge him by his actions, not his words.

He has been informed. Lets see if he takes it down.

:D:D:D:D

There is a Seattle slew of them. He ain't taking nuttin down:D:D:D

Turn those machines back on!!!!!!!

The Wagner just got pulled. Not a good sign it was even listed.

As an aside, whoever "Corndog" is on the other website -- ....Wow ! impressive investigative work.

Well of course. It's just dominating everything else! I'm interested in reading all of this but it's getting overwhelming. I do appreciate though what the OGs have been doing in terms of posting the updated lists that might otherwise get lost in the mix. Thanks for that it really is appreciated.

Of course, Brent's recent video about "conservation" was BS. But pulling that Wagner shows that he does not even believe what he claimed. Why pull a card that had been "conserved" if such conservation is a way to move the hobby forward and not shady in the least?

Edd*e Sm*th

[QUOTE=Peter_Spaeth;1884057]Jay this one's for you.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showpo...postcount=2465[/i


I break out any slabbed Old Judges I buy and could care less about the grades. Photo clarity is what I care about and last time I checked card doctors haven’t figured out a way to improve that. The guy cleaning the card did a nice job though. I prefer the after to the before.

I got an email from eBay that this was removed; blowout had it on one of their submission lists but now has provided proof of alteration. I am glad it has been taken down.

BUT- they still have up the T206 Jennings AB 460 that has been altered despite it being called out here and by email. How many more jacked cards remain in PWCC’s current auction? Many I am sure.

BO says a list coming today.

Nice. Thanks

As for sandy hoax, it was fake, and anyone with there head still in there ass this long is beyond repair.

This clown is so much more intelligent than all of us but cant spell THEIR correctly....

SGC's "A" does not definitely mean the card was altered. It could have been requested only to be autheticated when it was submitted, or the other general reason for an A if not altered is it's considered worse than poor. I agree with you that the assumption most people are going to have is that it's altered - but based on my understanding of the way SGC does things - that is not necessarily the case.

?
 

Cut and pasted from the SGC website. Their website could be wrong but it seems to contradict what you said? This is all of the verbiage for their ALT grade.

SGC REJECTION CODES
A
Altered (ALT)

Yes, sorry if I'm being unclear. If a card is altered, it WILL get the "A" from SGC. But the A stands for Authentic, not "altered" per se, and they do not distinguish on the flip if the card is just "authentic" or "authetic altered" the way that PSA does. So their rejection codes say "A" but that is in the case something you submit is altered, and you don't check the box to "slab if authentic". If you don't, the card gets sent back to you unslabbed. If you do check that box, it gets slabbed "A" only.

The reason I make the distinction is that some people get cards slabbed only to verify authenticity, and don't care about the grade. This is probably rare, but it happens. When filling out the submission form, you can check "A Only" in another area, and the card just gets slabbed but not graded. I did this recently with a card I knew they would not give a number grade to.

I suppose it's reasonable to assume still that an SGC A is "altered", most of them anyway, but was just making the point that's not necessarily going to be true all of the time. At least they are consistent in their methodology. PSA will give some cards "Authentic" only, some cards "Authentic Altered", and in the past I've seen "Authentic - Trimmed" or perhaps most egregiously - "Athentic - Restored" in cases where the card has a pedigree, is ridiculously expensive, or has considerable hobby press speculation around it. :(

This is what I have done on the VERY rare instances where I submitted a card. I bought a raw '58 Mantle that seemed too nice for the price and I requested only the Authorized 'grade', which it got. I only wanted to know it was a legit card. When it came back it came out of the slab and into the set binder.

Agreed. The word "overwhelming" is an understatement.

In my case, it was an altered card - I know because I'm the one who did the altering. When I was younger and more foolish, I removed a stain on the corner of my '56 Mantle that I have had since I was 14. Because I'm an amateur and not a card doctor - what I actually did was to trade the stain for paper loss on that corner. All these years later I don't really care - I did it to make the card look better for ME (it does, and was not high-grade to begin with...) and have no intent to ever sell it or try to commit some type of fraud. The card is sentimental to me and normally raw cards like that stay exactly that way in my collection - but I did want this particular one in a slab for later when it's passed down to my girls. I had submitted to SGC more than a decade ago, not having any clue at that time about alterations and the protocol there - and of they of course did not grade it, sent it back rejected due to "questionable color" on that corner. It's not really color, but just the underlying card stock showing through. For what it is worth, I've seen other cards with similar paper loss in mid-grade numbered holders with both PSA and SGC - but again since I had no intentions to sell the card - I didn't care. Finally got around to it and sent it off late last year and requested just "A", which SGC obliged. I had the card back in less than a week.

In actual practice, SGC uses A for any card they won't give a number grade even if it isn't altered. It's possible to choose A or just getting a card back unslabbed. When it isn't slabbed, you actually get an explanation.

This one has very rough factory cuts top and bottom. I was a bit miffed when it came back, but after some reflection, I can see why they wouldn't slab it. To most people any oddity seems like alterations. (And with the current stuff going on, that isn't likely to change)

http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...pictureid=5054

Out of the few cards I've had rejected I got
Miscut top and bottom -shown above
Min size - a puzzler, as it's less short than another card in the same group was narrow (a regular card that was very nearly AB narrow.
Trimmed - Yep, actually trimmed on all four borders. picked it in a rush to get one last good looking card to make 10 for a special. Totally blew that one.

Thanks, That's one! A few hundred more to go and we're home freeeeeeeeeee

LOL, I will have to look but could swear that is the same handwriting on the rejection slip I originally had for my Mantle. It was some time ago...

Out of curiosity, where has all the money gone? Has it all gone to Moser or stayed with PWCC?

Just follow the money...LOL. Isn't that what Deepthroat told Bob Woodward...

How do you write Steve Sloan an email blaming Brent?

I'm not saying Brent is innocent or guilty, but my god.
PSA is much more at fault than anyone who messed with these cards.

PSA is paid for their service to accurately grade cards.
PSA graded these "trainwrecks" I place all the blame on PSA!

PSA is who put these cards back on the street with a much higher value.

Again, The complete blame is PSA
Either there is a very crooked grader on PSA's payroll or PSA is deeply involved.
Either way, an email to Steve Sloan is kind of laughable.

Agreed. Watch the 30-for-30 short, "Holy Grail." As Keith O. says, "the expertise is the fraud." What expertise? At best if you don't believe they were knowingly complicit in this type of thing - it's sloppy and careless. Joe Blow grader (who we know nothing about, have no qualifications on...) looks at X card for 37 seconds and decides it's a PSA 6 because he cannot see the subtle work that was done to get rid of marks or fix corners from when the card was a PSA 3 or a 4. What is professional or expert about that? Nothing.

I personally don't believe PSA is involved in anything other than being negligent in their grading. Do I think they have knowledge that PWCC, Moser and the rest of the bums were sending in doctored cards? Nope. I think they have a bunch of overworked graders whose eyes glaze over after an hour or so of work.

Like button pressed to Mr. Collins message above this

If the reason is simply ineptitude, then there is NO reason anyone should be sending them their cards. Any novice could do an equal or better job of grading. At least they could be perceived as competent, if these hundreds of mistakes were intended fraud. Not sure which is worse...

So you don't think PSA knew who Moser was? Myself and others find that very hard, if not impossible, to believe.

Did they take submissions from him directly? If they did, then they at least knew him as a customer. I suppose they could say they didn't know his reputation, but again that's pretty tough to believe.

If they would not accept submissions from him, then they definitely knew him and his reputation. It then wouldn't have taken much to figure out someone else was submitting on his behalf.

Which one of those is worse? In either scenario, they were looking the other way in some form.

It's people performing an manual visual inspection. They will miss lots of things until they take out the human element. I agree with you, their eyes probably do glaze over after an hour.

I said this over on BO, but I suspect PSA gave PWCC a quicker service because of their business relationship. The cards were probably mailed directly to someone high up (Orlando, Sloan, etc) and then they handed them over to grading to avoid log time. The grader probably knew it was PWCC and ran the cards through. I feel like it's a matter of PSA mistrusting PWCC. I can't see PSA knowingly grading altered cards or there being someone on the inside participating in criminal activity. Of course, I could be wrong, but this is what I'm going with until more about PSA's involvement comes out. I'm still a customer and will continue to send cards into PSA/DNA for authentication and grading. I was very close to pulling the trigger on a PSA 9 1979 OPC Gretzky on eBay before I knew what was happening and will likely not be buying anything already graded of value for awhile.

Never been one of the PSA defenders, but I work on the assumption that it is bad grading rather than nefarious intent with PSA.

I agree that I don't think that PSA was knowingly involved and I also know there are others that disagree. I do believe that it is a most likely inexperienced, overworked graders that aren't catching the alterations. I also agree that that is not acceptable. That is why I believe PSA is most likely taking their time with any public response. I think in the end they will have to come out and admit to missing these alterations that were done(but will most likely point out how many they caught to help their image) and are probably trying to come up with their best position on how they are going to handle returns(if they do) and how much accountability they will have to accept. Personally, I like that they are waiting as opposed to others involved trying to get out in front and post ridiculous reasoning or doing interviews only digging bigger holes for themselves.
I've read post after post on this, opinion after opinion and I respect everyone's opinion even if I disagree with some. After trying to let this soak in and look at all angles, I have a question or two...some have been briefly touched upon.
As someone mentioned, it's easy, after all of the investigation work to see the before and after of these affected cards so in hindsight we can say that all of this work should have been caught. I also know others have mentioned measuring, blacklights, ect that should be used by TPG's to catch them all.
But, has anyone taken a good look at these cards in person...without having the before pics to look at, and inspected them to see the alterations? I mean, are the actual alterations easy to spot, in hand, if you weren't aware?
I'm personally for TPG's having a pics go along with all cert numbers. I know that would take up a huge amount of space for a company to store them all but would be helpful in the future. Obviously not going to work for the cards already graded but maybe going forward.
Next, and maybe last for now, but does the downfall of the TPG's really do any good? I know, I know, some of you despise them and all they stand for or perceive them to be the anti-Christ, that's fine, I respect your opinion. But on the flipside, we all know alterations and doctoring were going on years before the concept of TPG, hence their creation. That and nobody can agree on the actual grade of a card. But there have to be a lot of cards out there that have been worked on that have not gotten past the graders over the years.
I know the list of bad cards from Moser and others is extensive, but nothing to the extent of stuff that is floating out there from the guys that were altering cards at their kitchen tables in 60's, 70's and 80's or even before that. I would still have more confidence in picking something up slabbed than I might buying it raw at a show from an unknown dealer. Either way it's a gamble, don't get me wrong.
While this is a huge problem, I would like to think it only affects a very small percentage of cards that are in holders today....call me an optimist. Or, you can just call me naive and believe a conspiracy theory that every card submitted is bad and not a single card being slabbed can be trusted. In that case, I don't know why you even collect cards cause it can't be that fun for you.
I will add this, while I collect many other cards, my main focus is the 1962 Jell-O set. Since there are so few collectors and even fewer numerical grades given to cards from that set, I'm pretty confident that all of mine are legit and I don't worry about them at all. You don't worry about a trimmed card when it was made to be cut by hand in the first place!!!
Finally, while I don't have the time or patience to read EVERY post on BO, much appreciation goes out to the person or persons doing the work out there to expose this. Frankly, I don't know how someone would have that much time on their hands to do it, but hats off!

It very well could be, that card went through SGC quite a while ago. I just looked at scans I uploaded of other cards in the same batch, and they were graded in either 2009 or 2010.

I'll say it, I don't think PSA isn't directly involved. I haven't seen any claims that the same sort of incompetence is found with submissions from people who aren't altering cards.
Unless by some magic happening, the same grossly incompetent grader gets all the submissions from the trimmers.

If I sent in 100 trimmed cards, I believe most if not all would be caught. Somehow the guys trimming manage to get cards through regularly that don't even meet the min size. My daughter is 8 and I could teach her to reject those.

You're just not as good at it. :)

Other than a few hostess cards when I was a kid, I haven't done that. I still have them, but I doubt they'd grade, my pocketknife was pretty dull... :D

Rock and a hard place. Not sure which I am rooting for honestly.

I don't think PSA was a part of any nefarious scheme, but I haven't ruled out the possibility of a rogue grader. This is pure speculation, but with so much money to be made so easily, by merely bumping the grade of a card, you can't assume it's impossible.

A half grade bump on a high grade 52T Mantle will put both of your kids through four years of college. In what other industry can that much money be made so effortlessly?

Investigative technique to see who will flip on who first. I wanted him to put pressure on PWCC to END ALL THEIR CURRENT AUCTIONS before PSA's liability continues to increase by more sales of altered cards in PSA slabs.