How change might come about.
 

A new grading company (or SGC if it has the gumption and $$$ to go for it) comes into being employing the newest technology PROVING that a PSA graded card is altered. The card is then returned to PSA under the grading guaranty. Perhaps PSA will fight it tooth and nail. But (in theory) they should loose (assuming there are not statute of limitation or privity problems with invoking the guaranty). As noted in previous posts, the potential exposure to PSA will far exceed its reserves for this contingent liability, and might be great enough to wipe them out.

As a practical matter, this scenario is how I see change coming. But even if such a new grading company comes into being, it will still require the next step of enough misgraded cards being exposed to create the market reality that a card slabbed under the old method will not hold its value until regraded.

With 5, 6 and 7 figure cards now the new norm, how can such a new grading system employing the newest technology eventually not come into being? I believe it is only a matter of time. And at that point, I think accountability will not be far behind.

I don't see any privity issues, that guarantee as worded seems to clearly run to any owner of the card, not just the original submitter. Indeed I think that was the whole point, to facilitate market confidence.

Forever. Self-insured. Current market value. 30 million cards graded, thousands more daily.

Unfortunately, I'm dickless. The guy who played poker against Pugsy Pearson, Amarillo Slim and Doyle Brunson doesn't bet anymore:D Sorry.

One thing I'm sure we can agree on is that Brent Mastro has ZERO integrity. I personally just hate idiots like him trying to scam the "system" with no Integrity. Don't kid yourself. That's exactly what it is. A scam and a fraud for money. That makes it a crime.

It's 10-1 he gets arrested because nobody cares outside these forums. Mr Dickless will be very happy to pay to get this fiasco started. Mr Dickless will donate 3K to Jeffrey right now to kick off the proceedings.

I think one issue here (legally) is that there is no legal definition of a baseball card grade. It's an opinion.

If I trim a card and say it's now mint, then it's mint. No law has been broken by being a real crappy person and doing that. Now if the buyer asks if it's been trimmed I have to disclose that.

A TPG exists only on reputation. They can't be legally held liable for their grading standards or procedures.

This clearly will be the pressure point for the public company IMO. Their financial statements have to be audited. And more generally, as alluded to, they have disclosure obligations under the securities laws.

CLCT stock down over 5% today. Short it while you can!

I don't disagree. Just mentioned it for the sake of completeness.

I have to agree wholeheartedly, and that's why my fat fanny is so chaffed. I knew in my gut they were doing this all along, and after seeing the facts, now the picture is very clear.

Grading is a 2 step process - authentication then grading. Grading is subjective. Authentication is not. It's either altered or it isn't. There is no gray area there. And if a TPG assigns a numeric grade to a card (instead of an AUTHENTIC), they're basically stating that the card has not been altered.

This post can not be repeated too many times in this thread.

How many times do you have to spell it out? It's like 3rd grade here.

Questioning if fraud is really a crime is just what I said.

As I understand it, altering something, getting an "expert" to say it's not altered, then selling it as unaltered is fraud.

Whether it will be prosecuted is debatable, lots of worse crimes go unpunished because the cases are too hard to get a conviction on (see the Portland car theft article.)

Or to use your house analogy, and I'd hope the actual lawyers will correct me if I'm wrong..
If you have a house, and rewire it to remove aluminum wiring, yes, that's an improvement. And I don't think you'd have to disclose it. I would also think that if it was done recently by a licensed electrician working with an approved permit, you would want to disclose that.
Of course, if there was a permit or even without one, but the work was done by your acquaintance who says he knows how to wire, but he didn't really replace all the wiring, but just enough to get it past the building inspector who is known to be overworked and as a result doesn't look all that hard... Not disclosing is a problem isn't it?
Maybe not, as long as nothing happens. But if there's a fire and some one gets hurt.... https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/11/n...ire-death.html

you're right:D:D:D:D...What a maroon and an "Ignoranimus" as well.

Model Penal Code 224.7 and 224.8
 

Selling "adulterated" or "mislabeled" commodities is a criminal offense under MPC section 224.7, with those terms defined by established commercial usage. While the penalties may not be significant (in NJS 2C:21-7, a DP offense), it would expose those sellers to further criminal liability as to the corporate officials (in NJ, NJS 2C:21-9c) and Commercial Breach of Duty (MPC 224.8) criminalizing their accepting a benefit for themselves if they are in the business of making a disinterested selection/appraisal/criticism of a commodity.

once again, I agree. I was contemplating making a complaint against collectors universe with the SEC but wasn't sure that was the proper agency? Thanks for making this point loud and clear.

Here's a running total for you. This scam is MILLIONS my friends MILLIONS
(scroll down)

http://www.sportscardradio.com/alert...by-psa-or-bgs/

So who do you go after criminally? The one selling it (Brent) or the one that labeled it (PSA)? Or both?

The one(s) who had provable INTENT to sell something that they knew to be altered as unaltered.

At least that’s what you do criminally.

Well as far as I know, and Peter correct me if I'm wrong, criminal fraud requires intent to defraud. You can't commit criminal fraud by accident. I don't even think you can commit it through incompetence. Civil liability is still on the table but unless there's a smoking gun that says PSA was complicit with the doctors there's nothing criminal there. Also you can't file criminal charges against a company (nice work if you can get it, they have all the rights of a person but...) you hav to have a person committing the criminal act.

Any corrections Peter?

It was only a few years ago that Doug Allen and Bill Mastro went to prison for doing "allegedly" what collectors and dealers here are saying PWCC is doing. Short term memories being what they are I suppose, here's what Ryan Cracknell reported in Beckett Magazine -

"So what does a history of fraud in high-profile sports memorabilia auctions get you? For Bill Mastro, it’s 20 months in federal prison.

That was the sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman on Thursday. It could have been as much as five years but Guzman and prosecutors agreed on the lighter sentence based on Mastro helping authorities following his 2012 indictment.

In a plea agreement, Mastro admitted to driving up prices through shill bidding between 2002 and 2009. He and his associates would bid up auctions to drive prices higher.

“The long-running and systematic nature of the scheme undermines confidence in the auction house and sports-memorabilia industries, and calls into question the true value of merchandise,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven J. Dollear. “The defendant’s ultimate goal was to beat the competition and garner more business for his auction house, and, in the end, more money for himself.”

After decades of whispers and suspicions, Mastro finally admitted to trimming the famed T206 Honus Wagner that would go on to be graded PSA 8 and sold to Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall. When Mastro sold the card in 1987, he didn’t disclose the fact that it had been altered. He was also involved in subsequent sales of the card in 1991 (to Gretzky and McNall) and 2000. Again, he didn’t given any hint about what he’d done to the card".

I know. This is truly not a very difficult concept to grasp.

Crimes require intent. Intent does not require a smoking gun it can be inferred from circumstantial evidence although the strength of that evidence may influence a prosecutor's decision whether to proceed. A corporation can be criminally liable if its employee/agent committed a crime within the scope of his employment/agency and the act benefits the corporation.

The SEC and FTC are extremely unlikely to do anything with a complaint or disclosure filed by any member of this board. I say that to save peoples' time if they want to go that route. It is best spent elsewhere...

Collectors Universe (CLCT) is most likely to be sensitive to how this impacts their stock price and financial health. They are not a well capitalized company and they may have inadequate reserves given the magnitude of the problem. Their stock price will likely be driven by the selling or buying of several large institutional shareholders. Here's a partial list: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CLCT/holders?p=CLCT. Note that Renassaince and Dimensional are quant/indexing focused, not fundamentally focused, so one is better off trying to contact the money managers/research analysts at the other funds. If one is unable to make direct contact with these people, contacting investor relations at CLCT is an alternative -- though less impactful -- starting point. Investor relations is in contact with senior management, and will likely inform them if a groundswell of people are making inquiries.

CLCT is most likely to start making the changes people desire if they are getting pressure or inquiries from their large institutional shareholders or senior management recognizes the potential enormity of forced buybacks of altered cards versus their reserves/cash levels. Beyond the $800,000 in reserves they have ~$16 million in cash (around $13.5 million net of debt). They generate a healthy amount of cash (~$12 million over the last 9 months), but a chunk of that goes to paying dividends, the absence of which would hurt the stock price. They also have exposure to the Chinese market in coin grading. One can see several potential problems, so they are certainly not immune to a grassroots effort among hobbyists.

I will preface to say I am not a lawyer, though I do hang around some pretty good ones quite often.

The best analogy I can come up with is rolling back the odometer on a car, which is a felony. Obviously, the car is still authentic and in many ways materially the same. However, it has been altered in a way to make it appear to be in a much more pristine condition and have less wear than is actually the case. When buying a vehicle, the purchaser must receive a written declaration of the accurate mileage.

Imagine a scenario where a person purchases a vehicle with 100k miles, rolls back the odometer to 10k, and details the rest of the car to make it appear in significantly better condition. Then this person takes said vehicle to a "professional" mechanic or vehicle inspector who certifies that it does, in fact, only have 10k miles on it and is otherwise unaltered. Then this vehicle is sold for multiples of what it otherwise would be, based on the representation of mileage and condition.

Is this not fundamentally what is happening here? And, if not, please explain your reasoning.

Same concept IMO and well reasoned. Only difference is that here it's done over and over and over and over again and involves use of the mail and wires.

I actually know a lot about odometer tampering. When I was a 22 year-old college student in 1997 I was the youngest juror on a federal case where 11 defendants were on trial. Think sports cards can be sleazy?! Through this ring it was estimated that 60-70% of all used cars in Baltimore had been altered. The amount of effort it took to cover their tracks was mind-boggling and several office workers had been paid off to facilitate the scheme. It took 3 months and was one heck of an interesting summer job that I hadn't expected. The comparison to our industry is a very, very good one.

Glad that you agree with that analogy. I like it too. So, let's build on that. Let's say the person that rolled back the odometer (we'll assume it's the owner of the car) runs the car through an auto auction. We'll call the owner of the car Moser and we'll call the auction company Brent's Auto Auction. Is the auction company legally responsible for the misrepresented car?

I already know the answer. I have a lot of experience auctioning pre-owned vehicles. I did this for many years. My old eBay username is pre-ownedautos. I was offered a lot of money for the sale of that ID. I declined. So, let's hear your answer.

Does the auction company have a 15 year relationship with the owner where it has been knowingly participating in the fraud for 100s or 1000s of vehicles, and in each case has seen the odometer before it got rolled back?

Edited. Misread your question.

The owner has a 15 year relationship with the consignor selling multiple vehicles for him over the years. He knew the consignor had a criminal past, served some prison time, was just a shady guy in general, but didn't know about the odometer roll back even though he suspected it.

My ebay ID is used-cards. So far no one has offered me any money for my ID, but because of this quagmire and now the auto analogy, maybe there is a windfall for me in the future

Brian

Just want to be certain I have all the facts. In your example, is it the case that Brent's Auto Auction did not at a prior time (1) sell the car to Moser with an odometer reading significantly greater than it now has, or (2) (i) have reason to know Moser's business model was to roll back car odometers or (ii) refer Moser to a company that rolls back odometers and recommend Moser engage their services?

Assuming the answers to these questions are all no, unless there is some statutory law that pertains to automobile auctions that imposes strict liability on the auctioneer that the odometer reading is accurate, I would think the auction company would not be responsible for the misrepresented car.

Then I object to the analogy as completely inaccurate. Brent saw the before and after cards, remember? He auctioned both. He sold cards in one grade to Moser and received them back from PSA or him in higher grades. 100s or 1000s of times. Among massive other evidence.

I had a high end card last year that I wanted to cross over to PSA. It was a SGC 30. PSA put it in a holder and marked it PSA 4.5.

Have I committed mail fraud if I don't disclose to to my buyer that the other leading card grading company offered me their professional opinion that the card is of a significantly lower quality than PSA?

Do you think Brent personally looks at each and every card that PWCC consigns? Really? Who knew it was a one man operation.? Gee, I always figured he had workers that did that kind of stuff for him - receiving consignments, scanning, creating listings, shipping, etc.

He SAYS he does, over a certain dollar value, personally, to assign stickers. It's posted several places but I've lost track of what's where. Anyhow 1000s of cards over 15 years (for much of which he was a one man operation), yeah he knows the score. And he has admitted it, to me and others.

A. There is no mention of intentional alteration in your scenario

B. Thus, it is not an "apples to apples" comparison. All it accomplishes is to further demonstrate PSA's ineptitude.

We've discussed before whether there is an obligation to disclose grading history. I wouldn't know how to find it. I think generally not unless you are asked and lie, if no alteration involved in the bump, but as I recall there were some good points made on the other side.

Assuming you were the person who submitted the card for the crossover, and then subsequently sold it, no. If though you sold/loaned the card to someone else and it was that person who had it crossed over, upon your subsequent sale of the card you probably would have a duty to make the disclosure if (1) the person who crossed it over was a known card doctor or (2) the card looked different to you after it was crossed over.

I didn't know he says that. If so, fair enough.

This is from an email from Betsy copied on BO but they have posted it themselves too.

"I can assure you that this process is completely unbiased; when Brent does his review he does so for the entire auction after the cards have been sorted by sport, year, and issue."

Or it could show PSA has a different basis for grading. Centering the 2 companies are very different, and I had a bunch of T200's that I crossed and the 2 companies obviously had very different criteria.

To a certain extent I don't expect one companies 6 to be anothers. I do expect one companies 6 to be a 6 every time they grade a similar card.

Meanwhile, after promising there were no Moser cards in the current auction, they have taken down quite a few more. I suppose it could be unrelated.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/401777740858?nordt=true
https://www.ebay.com/itm/352682160064?nordt=true
https://www.ebay.com/itm/401778998920?nordt=true
https://www.ebay.com/itm/352680563526?nordt=true
https://www.ebay.com/itm/352680532262?nordt=true
https://www.ebay.com/itm/352680537796?nordt=true
https://www.ebay.com/itm/401777760222?nordt=true
https://www.ebay.com/itm/401777757855?nordt=true

The focus of the scandal
 

The focus of the scandal for many on this board and the BO board seems to be the card doctors (Moser in particular) and the auction houses (PWCC in particular) that possibly knowingly sold doctored cards.

Of course this is bad behavior and possibly illegal, definitely immoral, and they and their businesses will likely suffer in undetermined ways because of their actions.

But not enough of the focus is on PSA or the third-party graders in general.

We didn't really learn anything new about the tendency of people like the card doctors and their sales fronts in this scandal. Those things have been present in one way or another for years and in fact are part of the reason for the TPG's in the first place - to give the buyer/collector/investor comfort that the card is real, unaltered, and it fits closely to the objective traits of the subjective grade that they provide.

I think a new learning would be (or at least a more solid understanding of how pervasive the condition) how inept or carelessly or willfully negligent the TPG's really are at assigning a grade and detecting alterations including trimming, recoloring, adding back corners, removing stains, removing creases, etc.

So while the particular doctors in this case may be stopped for now, and while one auction house may take a hit, the big impact of the scandals uncovered over the past few months is that our collective faith in third party graders who grade using current methods has been probably irreparably damaged.

The damage to our faith in their expertise will likely cost many who own graded cards some measure of market value of those cards.

The open question is what will come to rectify the problem of TPG's' ineptitude? Because the need is still there.

Because there is a need for uniform opinions of condition rather than the old days of "well high book value X and this card looks pretty good", and because there are many more card doctors hiding in the shadows, the need for a good third-party opinion remains. The question is - who and what will come in to fill that need now that the current TPG's have proved extremely fallable? That should be the trajectory this discussion takes while the market and legal authorities deal with those who have been exposed.

And...
 

and many with the added comfort of a PWCC high-end or exceptional sticker. Maybe that was the error - they shouldn't have the sticker...

People keep saying there is no focus on PSA but there has been plenty of discussion of PSA. There is more on PWCC for now because of the nature of what's been uncovered, and all the statements they have made, and their direct relationship to certain people. But I don't see anyone avoiding PSA as a topic. Quite to the contrary. Read all the threads, it's very much there.

My understanding is they were from the outed subs.

Peter - is there not also a "had reason to know and/or should have known" component if you're a seller? Doesn't make you the criminal, but does give you the liability for loss?

As you note, though, they sold them once, got them back and sold them again. The question of criminality of this will certainly be influenced by who sent them in.

That surely can be a basis for civil fraud liability. I really don't know in the context of mail and wire fraud, I doubt it but I would defer on that.

I think if PWCC turns on Moser in an effort to deflect FBI attention from themselves, this could get very interesting. Especially if he can in turn, disclose proof that they were complicit.

I also think some here's questioning of the legality of committing fraud is pretty suspect. Using some of the mental gymnastics I've seen in this thread, you can dismantle any case of fraud under the guise of righteous intent, ie claiming someone wanted to conserve the cards doesn't absolve them of possible fraud charges. You don't get a free pass to commit fraud simply by stating you meant well.