Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2337106)

I see we’ve fully cleared the stage where the pro-fraud wing of the hobby alleges it didn’t happen and are deep into the stage where they insist that concealing material information of alteration in a sale is not fraud nor ethically wrong, contrary to the law, common sense, and principle. I can never determine if IQ’s or moral compasses are lower.

Originally Posted by parkplace33 (Post 2337100)

Peter, you may find this hard to believe, but there are actually people in this world that disagree with your opinion.

The headline of the case was the admission of trimming but the mail fraud is entirely tied to the shill bidding. And for those that disagree, fine. But my question for you is this… if there was no shill bidding and just the trimming, does this case result in a plea deal?

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337053)

It may have been on Blowout not here, but people are saying PSA cut him off and maybe that's behind it?

Originally Posted by nwobhm (Post 2337099)

Yes I am. Mr Mastro was convicted, best I can tell, of shilling….but you already know that.

….since everyone seems to be butthurt I’ll just move along…..:D

Originally Posted by bnorth (Post 2337092)

What if the seller openly admits the graded card is altered? Would it then be a crime since it was disclosed?

I collect weird stuff and have bought and sold more than one counterfeit card in a PSA slab. When selling(one to a fellow member) I disclosed I believed the card to be counterfeit. I have also done this with a altered card in a SGC slab with a number grade. I disclosed the alteration and that sale was also to a fellow member.

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2337138)

When you sold that card that you believe to be altered in the numeric slab, did you sell it for the price of an Authentic Altered slab, or did you sell it for what the market says it's worth?

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2337106)

I see we’ve fully cleared the stage where the pro-fraud wing of the hobby alleges it didn’t happen and are deep into the stage where they insist that concealing material information of alteration in a sale is not fraud nor ethically wrong, contrary to the law, common sense, and principle. I can never determine if IQ’s or moral compasses are lower.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337097)

No crime in that case, there is no concealment. It's the concealment of a material fact (the alteration) that makes it a potential crime.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337089)

This is absurd, I am not wasting any more effort here.

Originally Posted by bnorth (Post 2337141)

I listed it in the auction section so it sold for the highest bid. There was no believing it was altered it was 100% altered.

Originally Posted by nwobhm (Post 2337091)

Not that any of us needed that….but ok…..

Let’s come at this from another angle.

Guy pulls a 52’ Mantle out of a pack in 1952…. Hates Mantle so it sits in a box until he dies in 1992. It passes to his son that loved Mantle. He sees it’s oversized and uses his own expertise gained in another field to trim it to the equivalent of a PSA 10 and it’s still slightly oversized. The son dies in 2022 and his son gets the card and sends it to PSA completely unaware of what his father did to his grandfathers Mantle. It comes back a PSA 10.

Since no one knows…. Is it still a PSA 10?

If a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound?

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2337138)

When you sold that card that you believe to be altered in the numeric slab, did you sell it for the price of an Authentic Altered slab, or did you sell it for what the market says it's worth?

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards (Post 2337152)

if it's disclosed, what it sells for is irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2337155)

Irrelevant with respect to the question of whether or not fraud has been committed, I agree. But my point was that a seller disclosing that they believe the card to be trimmed has no bearing on its actual market value. The bidders are still going to bid based on the number on the flip.

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2337155)

Irrelevant with respect to the question of whether or not fraud has been committed, I agree. But my point was that a seller disclosing that they believe the card to be trimmed has no bearing on its actual market value. The bidders are still going to bid based on the number on the flip.

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards (Post 2337148)

If I had a nickel for every time you've said that I could buy my own Wagner :D

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards (Post 2337158)

As a follow up thought. If the market will pay the same for a disclosed alteration if it is in a graded holder then why would you NOT disclose?

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2337172)

Damage to a collectible is relevant to value. Value usually goes down with damage. Missing pieces of a card is very, very obviously damage.

If alteration is not relevant to value or sales, if it does not affect prices, then 1) we wouldn't have a big majority of hobbyists thinking it relevant and 2) the pro-fraud wing of the hobby would not need to cover up their trimming; they could freely disclose it to no negative impact. Why don't they? Because it's bad and harms value. This shit isn't difficult. If you need to cover it up, it's material. If it's material, it needs to be disclosed whether it is a car, a baseball card, or anything else.

Personally, I don't really care if a card I buy is micro trimmed. It's slotted into my set and I'll enjoy it the same. But it's obviously material and if I covered up trimming when selling a card, I'd be committing fraud by hiding and not disclosing relevant information about the item. The world doesn't revolve around my personal narrative and what I like. Just a smidgeon of honesty and common sense goes a long way. If my dumbass can figure this out, I'm sure our resident pro-fraud 'hobbyists' that spend most of their posts explaining how fraud and scamming is fine can figure it out too.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337173)

The lengths to which people will go to deny what is self-evident, and/or to deny incontrovertible facts such as that the Wagner was part of the Mastro case if a small one, are astounding. And even more astounding is how people will double down in the face of being presented with self-evident points, and facts.

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2337176)

Now I ain't no fancy pants lawyer or nothin', but I'm pretty sure that just because you are admitting it in your plea bargain and take culpability and responsibility for an action even though the statute of limitations on it has expired, it doesn't mean that action was illegal. People just, like, cop to things that aren't illegal in their plea deals all the time just because. :rolleyes:

We all have opinions, what is is not necessarily what should be, but what is is the realm of actual, verifiable and ascertainable fact. It amazes me how many people will insist X or Y is or is not in a document that they are unable or unwilling to read. No one has ever won an argument by virtue of their illiteracy. I expect a small number of hobbyists to openly support fraud and a much larger number to quietly and tacitly support fraud that benefits them and their buddies, but I would hope that these people would be able to avoid the stupid trap of insisting and doubling down on provably false claims to fact. Clearly they are too fucking dumb to do even that.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337178)

To those who think selling trimmed cards without disclosure could never be viewed as a crime, the Mastro case is very inconvenient proof to the contrary. As is the FBI investigation of PWCC et al, even if ultimately charges were not brought. If there was no possible crime, nobody, least of all Brian Brusokas, would have devoted the enormous effort to investigating. Not that such proof is even needed, as it's very clear from the face of the mail and wire fraud statutes, which are always being applied to new situations.

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2337183)

It feels like you're spinning the facts here to fit your narrative though. Mastro was charged with shill bidding and ONE count of mail fraud, which was for the counterfeit baseball he sold and shipped through Mastro auctions. The mail fraud charge was also shared by other Mastro Auctions employees who had nothing to do with the Wagner. He didn't even mail the card at all. He sold it to someone in person as a cash deal in 1987.

I'm no lawyer, but when I read through discussions of this topic on the Blowhard forums a few years back, I seem to recall most of the lawyers there were in agreement that he had not in fact been charged with any crimes in relation to the Wagner card. But rather it was brought up during the trial as a mere testimony to his character, or lack thereof. Him basically just trying to come clean with anything and everything he could in an effort to gain favor and get a more lenient sentence. But he was not directly charged with a crime for anything related to the Wagner. You mention that he admitted to trimming the Wagner in his plea deal, but that plea deal was rejected by the judge. He was not sentenced for anything to do with the Wagner.

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2337145)

How do you determine whether a fact is material or not though? And material to what? Material to the value of the item in question? I think this is where the two camps diverge. We have one camp (generally the long-time purist-leaning collectors) who say that an alteration that cannot be detected devalues a card, despite there being no evidence of it on the card itself, and then we have the other camp (generally the younger and more carefree collectors) who say that there is no devaluation of the card because "what difference does it make if something has been altered when that alteration is undetectable?"

We are all free to decide which camp we belong to, but only one of these two camps is right with respect to whether or not a card has lost value. Either the card has indeed been devalued, or it hasn't. And what ultimately determines the value of a card is the open market. And the market bases its values on what can be observed. PSA doesn't care what story you attach to a card. Sticky notes reading "my grandpa said he pulled this card straight from the pack and kept it in a book untouched and unaltered for 67 years" and "the guy I bought this from said it was trimmed" both hold no weight at all in their determination of the card, and the market has clearly decided that it relies on PSA/SGCs decisions to determine value.

If the card hasn't actually lost any value on the open market, then whatever has been done to the card couldn't possibly be a material fact with respect to its valuation when sold.

I think you have zero chance of getting a jury to convict someone based on your arguments.

Try this... Go explain the trimming scandal to your non-collector friends. Tell them about how some hobbyists will buy cards that are oversized, then trim them down to the correct size in a way that is undetectable, then submit them for grading, then resell them on the open market and ask those non-hobby friends if they think that's a crime. They will all laugh at you. I asked about 20 people a few years back when this first came up because I was trying to get people to bet against me on the outcome of the FBI investigation. I wanted to see how a potential jury of non collectors might view the situation. Every single one of them said it wasn't a crime, and several even said things like, "sounds smart to me" or just laughed at the situation or rolled their eyes at what they saw as old men yelling at clouds. Zero people saw it as fraud.

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2337024)

I think you've touched on why this is such a difficult and nuanced topic with your last sentence, and why many would argue that it isn't as cut and dry as some would like or believe it to be. It may be true that a card's edges are either factory cut or they aren't, but that fact isn't helpful. In the real world, this is generally both unknown and unknowable. It cannot be assumed that a card's edges are factory cut.

This also touches on why PSA does not, and surely cannot, if they wish to remain in business, honor a grade guarantee for cards that do not bare actual observable evidence of trimming regardless of whether or not someone on Blowout believes they've found before and after scans of the card in question.

In the real world, we have to deal with observable evidence and make determinations about the likelihood of a card's edges being factory cut or not. Ultimately, this is what determines a card's market value; whether or not it bares evidence of trimming, not whether or not it has in fact been trimmed. This is true in both directions. You can open a brand new pack of cards and receive one with a botched edge from factory that the TPGs will not grade because the card bares evidence of having been "trimmed" despite the fact that it came that way from the factory. It is not unfair or disingenuous to point out that all cards have been trimmed by a blade.

Unfortunately, what determines a card's actual market value is not whether or not it has a factory edge, but rather whether or not its edges appear "correct". This is why some factory cut cards get rejected and why many trimmed cards do not. A card's edge looks "trimmed" or "wrong" when it looks botched, either by an amateur trimmer or by a factory mishap. The idea that all factory edges look a particular way and that all trimmed edges look a different way is simply not true, and one that is born out of ignorance. It is also not true that factory cut cards measure 2.5" x 3.5" and that trimmed cards are by definition smaller than that. Again, ignorance and faulty assumptions beget that belief.

When one of these professional trimmers trims a card, and that card still measures within spec, the resulting card does not have a loss of value on the open market because it does not bare any actual evidence of trimming (i.e., the edges look correct), and the actualized market values are based entirely on what can be observed, not on that which is unknowable. This is also why PSA rejects grade guarantees for a lot of these cards that get called out on Blowout and sent back in for review. They simply bare no physical evidence of trimming. The edges look correct and the card measures correctly as well. Any buyer of one of these cards could crack it out and resubmit it and receive a numeric grade again from any TPG at any time. They are not actually out any money. It's difficult to make a case for fraud when the buyer's bottom line has not actually been adversely affected.

Originally Posted by steve B (Post 2337228)

Saying that nobody can tell the difference is ignorant.
Now if you said that PSA or SGC or Beckett Can't tell from a cursory 30 second look, that I could agree with.

If you look at the work done by groups and people that actually know what they're doing and take the time to get it right You'll see what's possible.
Do things slip through? Of course, but far less than they do at any grading company.

I may just have to use the method in the video and take good pics of the resulting edge compared to a factory edge. I believe it will be 100% detectable.
The same for his half assed "reglossing" using wax paper. That should be and is entirely detectable if you take any time at all.

Originally Posted by bnorth (Post 2337235)

I completely agree with this. Yes there are many of us that can spot an alteration from a mile away. Doesn't mean a damn thing in the real world.

The part I made bold is ALL that matters and it is fairly easy to get altered/counterfeit cards in those magic plastic slabs and it HAS been proven countless times.

Originally Posted by parkplace33 (Post 2337202)

Thanks Travis, well said. You won’t change any minds here though.

And it’s funny how there was no response to this question posted earlier:

But my question for you is this… if there was no shill bidding and just the trimming, does this case still result in a plea deal?

Originally Posted by Snowman (Post 2337183)

It feels like you're spinning the facts here to fit your narrative though. Mastro was charged with shill bidding and ONE count of mail fraud, which was for the counterfeit baseball he sold and shipped through Mastro auctions. The mail fraud charge was also shared by other Mastro Auctions employees who had nothing to do with the Wagner. He didn't even mail the card at all. He sold it to someone in person as a cash deal in 1987.

I'm no lawyer, but when I read through discussions of this topic on the Blowhard forums a few years back, I seem to recall most of the lawyers there were in agreement that he had not in fact been charged with any crimes in relation to the Wagner card. But rather it was brought up during the trial as a mere testimony to his character, or lack thereof. Him basically just trying to come clean with anything and everything he could in an effort to gain favor and get a more lenient sentence. But he was not directly charged with a crime for anything related to the Wagner. You mention that he admitted to trimming the Wagner in his plea deal, but that plea deal was rejected by the judge. He was not sentenced for anything to do with the Wagner.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337248)

Again, from the US Attorney's office:


According to the indictment, in advertising portraying Mastro Auctions as the premier seller of valuable items, including the world’s most expensive baseball trading card, a Honus Wagner T-206 card, Mastro allegedly failed to disclose that he had altered the Wagner T-206 card by cutting the sides in a manner that, if disclosed, would have significantly reduced the value of the card. The charges allege that Mastro and Allen caused the sale of certain items knowing that their authenticity and condition were misrepresented to customers, including purported hair of Elvis Presley and a purported 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings trophy baseball.

For those of you who apparently don't understand this, the indictment is the document setting forth the criminal charges.

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2337250)

Well yes, but a company they like or people they like (or themselves) engage in this activity, and so indictments must be ignored alongside the text of the laws and the definition of criminal fraud itself so they can claim their boys didn't do nothing.

Arguing that things should be restructured so that trimming without disclosure is not fraud would at least not require being blatantly factually wrong, but that angle isn't perfect for the agenda, so it won't be used. Instead, just double down on factually incorrect claims to fact. That's the ticket.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337251)

The denial and contrarian and counterfactual bullshit on this thread top anything I have seen yet on Net 54.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337251)

But I'm the one accused of spinning the facts to meet my narrative. It's right there in black and white in the charging document, but somehow he wasn't charged with it, it was just something that was brought up LATER to reflect on his character, and he admitted it not because it was part of the charges to which he had to answer, but because he was a good citizen coming clean.

The denial and contrarian and counterfactual bullshit on this thread top anything I have seen yet on Net 54.

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2337258)

We see every week or so that a great many people structure the argument after the conclusion, and do so without any regard whatsoever for provable facts. That feels like the normal. The combination of a complete lack of ethics alongside the stupidity elevates this one. On the plus side, it gives a good roster of names not to buy or trade with. People who think criminal fraud is legal and morally acceptable tend to be dishonest in their dealings and greatly heighten the risk factor.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337261)

Dunno about you, but when a question comes up about an indictment, I don't look to the indictment itself or the official government press release, I look to my memory of what some anonymous people said almost a decade ago on a chatboard.

Speaking of the actual indictment:

11. It was further part of the scheme that in marketing materials distributed
on behalf of Mastro Auctions, which were intended to portray Mastro Auctions to
potential bidders and consignors as a premier seller of valuable items for which a
strong market existed, defendant MASTRO represented that Mastro Auctions had sold
the most expensive baseball card in the world, a Honus Wagner T-206 card. In making
this representation, however, defendant MASTRO knowingly omitted the material fact
that defendant MASTRO had altered the baseball card by cutting the sides of the card
in a manner that, if disclosed, would have significantly reduced the value of the card.

You probably don't need to be a lawyer to understand what "It was further part of the scheme" means.

Anyone still want to claim he wasn't charged with selling an altered card without disclosure?

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2337258)

We see every week or so that a great many people structure the argument after the conclusion, and do so without any regard whatsoever for provable facts. That feels like the normal. The combination of a complete lack of ethics alongside the stupidity elevates this one. On the plus side, it gives a good roster of names not to buy or trade with. People who think criminal fraud is legal and morally acceptable tend to be dishonest in their dealings and greatly heighten the risk factor.

Originally Posted by G1911 (Post 2337258)

We see every week or so that a great many people structure the argument after the conclusion, and do so without any regard whatsoever for provable facts. That feels like the normal. The combination of a complete lack of ethics alongside the stupidity elevates this one. On the plus side, it gives a good roster of names not to buy or trade with. People who think criminal fraud is legal and morally acceptable tend to be dishonest in their dealings and greatly heighten the risk factor.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 2337245)

It's in the indictment itself. It wasn't "brought up during the trial." But don't let the facts get in the way, OK? I agree fully with people who are saying it's not the focus of the case. it was not. I only brought it up at all in response to the demonstrably false claim that selling an altered card without disclosure could not possibly be viewed as a crime. And again, speaking of questions nobody is answering, someone please explain why, if selling altered cards without disclosure could never be a crime, why the FBI undertook a several year investigation into card doctoring.

Originally Posted by Lorewalker (Post 2337308)

Unlike others who think they are Perry Mason I am not gonna touch on the legal merits but only to reiterate a comment you made earlier. Whether or not the concealment of a known alteration on a card one has for sale is a punishable crime, the very fact that nobody who sells and or defends these altered cards discloses the card is altered is telling as to what the hobby as a whole thinks of alterations.

The day when altered numerically graded cards (by respected TPG) are sold with full disclosure for consistently the same amount as an unaltered example in the same grade will be the time we can all agree that doctoring cards is accepted in the hobby. Until then I call utter BS on those who are advocating or defending it. Maybe that is because they themselves dabble in fixing cardboard. :confused: Kudos to them, however, for at least admitting they are ok with it. Takes some guts to do that so they have my respect from that POV.

Originally Posted by parkplace33 (Post 2337306)

I will stop after this last response, but I find it sad that you would think to cut off some from business/trade dealings just because they have a different opinion on a 8 year old court case. My goodness.

Originally Posted by nolemmings (Post 2337255)

Then you're obviously staying away from the watercooler section :D

Originally Posted by Johnny630 (Post 2337372)