Finally there is a well reasoned lawyer in this thread.

Whatever you do, don't text. They can come back to bite you and that might not taste as good as some other things.

Corey may be right that most people don't care, but for anyone who is bothered by trimming, this thread is quite educational and disturbing on several levels.

Obviously PSA cares because they're on the hook for reimbursing people when their inability to catch these alterations is proven. And it's obvious they're being targeted because their cards have proven to sell for much higher over time for vintage. The majority of modern cards found so far were in BGS slabs and the majority of the forged T206 autos were in SGC slabs. None of the major grading companies are coming out unscathed.

Has anyone determined the identity of the eBay user whitman111?

Looks like they've recently bought cards from Greg Morris and painthistorian. Will those cards end up trimmed/bleached in slabs?

Years of complaining and nothing's changed. Nothing will change. Your frustrations are misdirected. Until you focus on the root of the problem, things will remain the same. But ignore me, just keep doing what you're doing while PWCC keeps profiting.

Profiting While Collectors Complain

He was identified today on Blowout.

And has a very long relationship with Brent.

Reported to be Gary Moser. Scams going back 20 years if you google his name.

Gary Moser... looks like it’s been officially confirmed over there, so I will just let it out over here... yes a very long history with Brent... so much so the cards he purchases pre conservation from Brent they stay out of the “vault”... only the newer nicer version of the card makes it in... with the strong eye appeal sticker... He sure is a talented conserver!! Scary good!

Is this relationship good for the hobby though?

Another long time scammer connected with Brent. I guess they must be targeting him. There are no such things as coincidences. Wondering when the Forbes article comes out?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Waiting for the hammer to fall.....I’ve been selling most all into this market when it crashes it’s gonna crash hard....real hard. The sad part is many good guy collectors will also see their cards drop big time. I hope the good guys do not get hurt, we will be collateral damage. The time to sell is now.
:-)

Per Blowout the 52 Mantle asset has not been paid for yet by the winning investor.

Agree with Corey 100% that nearly all high end T-206's have been tampered with, and likewise that nobody cares as long as they are numerically slabbed.

It's possible that the original intent of third party grading was to objectively grade and authenticate cards, but the way the industry evolved their job now is to make cards as marketable as possible, and to mint money for their clients.

I don't think that's entirely fair. PSA is for the most part grading very strictly -- higher grades obviously would bring in a lot more money -- and they reject tons of cards which if slabbed would make lots of money. What I think you're missing is that card doctors are very very good, or some of them, and without a crime lab and without the before and after photos that make alteration obvious that you see on Blowout, it's pretty tough sometimes to tell.

I think Peter is spot on. And it’s the same with forged signatures. As long as a slabbed card is accepted as a liquid asset, criminals will be flooding the grading companies trying to get worthless garbage into their holders. PSA, SGC, and Beckett are all very good at sorting through the garbage, but well done fraud will sneak in occasionally. And if it gets caught by enterprising collectors with days and weeks of research, it highlights the limitations of the system.

If you want to spend thousands on graded cards, you must accept that system that graded your card very likely devoted less than a minute or two on your card.

Someone really ought to invent a grading company for high end cards, where the company spends a few days at least on each individual card that gets submitted — check each paper fiber, get a few different eyes in each card, do some research into the history of the card on-line and otherwise, build a database of crooked submitters that gets shared with the FBI and local law enforcement, keep records of each card and track the history going forward, with a digital notification if the seal ever gets broken, and other fun stuff I’m just making up.

The PSA grader is overworked. They clearly do not have enough help in that area if you consider their turnaround times are double and triple of what they say they are.

And a grading service for only high end cards would not work unless it said PSA on the label. I would bet the large majority would not want their cards scrutinized to that extent also. It would be a money losing proposition for anyone who tried it (except for maybe PSA).

Extremely well put. I feel fortunate I got started in the hobby after cards had value, but at least before the advent of professional grading so that I have some perspective on what makes a card have worth and utility to me personally...

So why aren't they developing technology that will help to spot these alterations? If a painting has been restored and you shine a black light on it, the modern work is easy to detect. It seems to me the same technology can be used on cads. To use a common phrase, they can land a man on the moon but they can't detect card doctoring?

False equivalency.

Go back and read VCBC 7. These people are very sophisticated.

Two very different "theys". One set of "they" were literally rocket scientists. The other, well, aren't.

But wouldn't it depend on the type of doctoring? Obviously a black light isn't going to detect a water soaking or a trim job, but it should detect added paper (building up corners) or re-coloring, right?

I would think unless they have come up with ways to pass a black light test, which I agree seems unlikely. I don't think, though, that that's where the major alteration is taking place, I think it's trimming, filing, taking out creases, laying down corners.

Then if it is in fact impossible to detect sophisticated alterations, then what is the purpose of the whole third party grading business? To make cards marketable, and to make sure as many clients as possible are making money with slabbed material.

Maybe a new TPG could be started, even by somebody here - with a focus only on authentication and detection of attempts at altering - along the lines of earilier suggestions where that and that alone, not a numerical grade - is what is important. My fear of course is that we would be in the vast minority with something like that, and it would not be a sustainable business.

I asked the same question in another thread, just in a different way. I was told it was to "add value" to the card. Well, the card doctors are certainly doing that.

There are many other sophisticated scientific methods that could be used: authenticating art and artifacts

One word that I often use: provenance. Cards that have been altered don't have a history-- or at least a history that shows it wasn't altered. Of course there are new finds. However, as autograph expert Jim Stinson once said of autographs: “Authentic autographs have a history or sources. Forgeries do not. They just ‘appear’.” Provenance is one thing that is standard is the high end art collecting world that is not in baseball card world.

Also, common sense is always useful.

A really quality alteration should still be detectable. The Philatelic foundation (One of the authenticators for stamps) showed a collection of alterations they'd caught. I'm pretty good at spotting that stuff on an item in hand, but most of what they showed I'm not sure I'd have caught.

But then, I only looked for the same few seconds graders at the grading companies do.

And that's the problem. A quick inspection won't catch any thing but the simplest alterations. Philatelic foundation etc can take months, but they are seldom wrong. And the more money is involved, the slower they are.

As far as I know getting a rebuilt corner past a blacklight wouldn't be all that hard.

The only problem with common sense is, it's not very common.

The initial TPG marketing (PSA) was to detect altered cards and avoid card doctors. That was the scary advertising PSA used. The SMR was created to boost PSA card prices and market the service in the guise of price guide; I wrote an article on the fake pricing and false marketing in the SMR; VCBC ran it. Fun to write but no impact.

Fast-Forward to the creation of the Registry and the TPG idea has morphed into a pee-pee measuring mechanism: the higher the grade, the bigger the wiener. Or so I've been told (I judge myself against other collectors by height). With great power comes great responsibility. But not in PSA's case. With great power comes great disclaimers. PSA says: "PSA guarantees that all cards submitted to it shall be graded in accordance with PSA grading standards and under the procedures of PSA." It is circular: PSA guarantees it will apply its own procedures and standards, which are basically, it will look at the card and opine on it. It is a popcorn fart. Now we learn that PSA graders really aren't that good at their first job of detecting alterations. Like airport security, PSA is aimed at stopping stupid, lazy, sloppy amateur wannabes while giving the illusion of safety to the masses. Just like no security can stop a well planned attack, the fact is that no TPG can detect properly done removals and now we are seeing that they also aren't much at detecting really good work. So we must have a remedy with PSA, right? The buy-back remedy PSA offers applies: "If PSA, in fact, concludes that the card in question no longer merits the PSA grade assigned or fails PSA’s authenticity standards". Another popcorn fart: you disagree with PSA? Tough, unless you have a Mastro style confession or photographic evidence of the alterations. But at least there is a shot there. Not so with PWCC.

The PWCC case is more interesting because it shows some underlying assumptions of collectors that are not merited. What exactly is PWCC selling when they sell a PSA 8 Joe DiMaggio card? The assumption here is that they are selling a guarantee that the card is an unaltered one and that when someone demonstrates that PSA screwed the pooch, PWCC is liable. For what, exactly? The reality is that PWCC is selling precisely what it delivers: the DiMaggio card that is in a PSA 8 slab. The meaning of that designation is based on the reputation of PSA for detecting alterations: see above. Now, the best remedy any PWCC buyer of one of these shady cards has is to make a quick return via eBay or PayPal for item not as described. But beyond that, except for the cards that have been successfully traced, you are dealing with opinions layered on assumptions. I wouldn't want that case on a contingency fee.

.......
 

How close are Joe and Brent? 🤔🤔🤔

I can tell you after having spent the past 15 mins or so on the website of the Philatelic Foundation, that it's a very interesting place. And funny enough I ran into no registry competitions or SMR-type price guides...:p

PWCC's recent inclusion of high-res scans should help with some of this stuff. But, nothing is going to be 100%.

The irony of developing sophisticated technology to detect card doctoring is that if it were incorporated, thousands of previously slabbed cards would fail, and collectors would be demanding refunds en masse. As such, it may not be in the best interest of the TPG's to look at things too closely.

Another irony is that I think submissions would be just as high if they removed that guaranty. I mean where else are people gonna go?

I did not know that. Is that why SGC got out of the autograph business?

Sadly true. Which is why we are moving towards the standard becoming authenticity and nothing else. If a card looks nice and is at least an "A", then go for it, money-hungry investors and nostalgia-hungry collectors alike. Increasingly we can offer no guarantees other than the card is authentic...:mad:

+1

Supposedly no, their autograph authenticators got hired by other companies.

Not being a slabbed card collector I am unfamiliar with the legal obligations of grading companies and don't know what if any disclaimers and/or damages limitations language is contained in their submission form.

Here's my question. I buy a PSA 8 T206 Cobb for $150k.
I subsequently CONCLUSIVELY establish through advanced forensic testing that the card was altered in such a manner that it should have been graded an "A". Am I entitled to receive damages from PSA and if so, what would they be?

It would seem to me that if PSA is on the hook for the $150k I paid for the card (and in return PSA has the right to resell the card (this time graded "A") and keep the sale proceeds), they have one huge contingent liability on their balance sheet. If I am correct in my view that the (great) majority of many types of N and T cards graded 8' and higher are altered, which alterations could be conclusively established through sophisticated forensic testing, PSA potentially could be wiped out.

Am I wrong in this assessment?

Q: Do you guarantee the grades for my cards?
A: PSA guarantees that all cards submitted to it shall be graded in accordance with PSA grading standards and under the procedures of PSA. If PSA, in fact, concludes that the card in question no longer merits the PSA grade assigned or fails PSA’s authenticity standards, PSA will either: 1) Buy the card from the submitter at the current market value if the card can no longer receive a numerical grade under PSA's standards, or 2) Refund the difference in value between the original PSA grade and the current PSA grade if the grade is lowered. In this case, the card will also be returned to the customer along with the refund for the difference in value.

Corey I am sure their auditors must review and approve of their reserve for the guaranty, it will be interesting to see if recent events affect that. I've always thought it was a time bomb and expected them to someday revoke it. Of course they do have control -- they have to agree with you.

Yes, it seems PSA self-insures for their Grade Guarantee rather than pays an insurance company for protection. In their most recent quarterly stockholders report, they stated they increased their reserve fund to cover a predicted increase of grade guarantee liabilities.

http://investors.collectors.com/stat...3-6a45441cf111

Will it bankrupt the company? Probably not. But it may hurt their stock price and increase costs of grading in the future to cover the losses.

It's an interesting issue. Continuing with the same example, suppose I waited 15 years before submitting the card for forensic testing, during which time the spread between an 8 Cobb and an "A" Cobb increased from, say, $20k to $125k. Could PSA argue I had a duty to undertake the testing years earlier (assuming the forensic testing method was commercially available during the entire 15-year period) and accordingly their exposure should be limited to $20k? By this line of reasoning, could they argue the statute of limitations has expired such that I am barred from collecting damages altogether?

They really should have promised to reimburse for out of pocket cost, not current market value. The buyer gets a huge windfall this way in a rising market. As to your question, who knows, it would depend on what the cause of action is and what triggers the statute of limitations I guess. I'd have to think about that. But as it's likely to run from when you did or could have discovered your claim in the exercise of reasonable diligence, you likely would be out.

Is a statute of limitations something that a seller can declare or is it the law that dictates what that period of time is?

I agree with your point about exercise of reasonable diligence, unless I could fashion an argument that it was only recently that I was reasonably put on notice about the likelihood of alteration. I would think the action would be breach of contract, though there could be a lack of privity problem if I was not the person who submitted the card for grading. If I bought it from an auction house, they probably had a disclaimer that they are not responsible for the accuracy of graded cards. So they would be protected. However, they probably would have a duty to reveal the consignor, and that would be the person I would have to go after. That person in turn would assign me his right to sue the grading company (assuming he was the person who had the card graded). If he in turn bought it from someone else and it was that other person who had the card graded, then he would have to go after that person. This potentially could go on down the chain until I reached the person who had the card graded.

What a mess.

In Corey's example, what if PSA refused to agree with the forensic determination? What if they responded that they've reviewed the card several times and that in their opinion their grade of an 8 was completely justified. After all, it's an opinion, not a fact. It might be really hard to prove that they got it wrong.

It's probably like claiming on a manufacturer's warranty I would think off the top of my head.