1914 CJ Mathewson Receives a Bath Courtesy of Legendary
 

http://bid.robertedwardauctions.com/...x?itemid=24903

http://www.legendaryauctions.com/Lot...---SGC-40-VG-3

Or just a scan which completely misrepresents what the card actually looks like.

Old dog, same tricks?

Shocking!!! I can't believe someone would....oh, wait...yes I can.

strange cuz the holder ID # is the same. Was the card removed from the holder? Or scanned differently?

I thought the 1914 CJ fell apart if soaked, due to the thin card stock. Does anyone here have some insight about this?

The card is in the same holder. Probably only the scan difference.

He means a virtual bath via photoshop. You can make anything look brighter and cleaner with the touch of a button.

Nice try Jeff, but real magicians never reveal their secrets unless subpoenaed.

Lovely Day...

Doug -- I'm sending this to your sentencing judge to show him that you're still defrauding people, even while facing federal fraud charges.

Yeah, you can tell it's the same card and it's in the same holder, so it hasn't been soaked or anything. You can tell from the unnaturally vivid color on the legendary scan that the scanned image has been brightened and/or increased in contrast, which takes about 2 seconds using even the most basic of photo editing software. Or, the settings of the scanner could be adjusted to capture images that way. Just look at the color of the green SGC label on the legendary image, that's what tells you something's funky.

Scan
 

Jeff, I do not believe that there is anything deceitful going on here, the scanning process and software can cause this problem and we have seen this before. REA may taken there image with a camera and LA may have scanned their image with a scanner. Also, if one uses different settings (DPI, resolution etc...) that can cause the differences as well. I know you will believe what you want to but this does happen on occasion.

Bob Freedman
CEO, SimpleAuctionSite.

Good call. The card images aside, the green on the flips is a dead giveaway. They turned the contrast up to 11 on this one, for sure. It's stuff like this that makes me appreciate REA all-the-more.

14 Mathewson
 

I will review the actual card tomorrow and if in fact our scan is inaccurate we will correct it. Additionally if we do make a mistake and a scan depicts a card materially different than it actually appears we will take the card back and provide a full refund. I don't believe we have had a single complaint like this in the 5 years Legendary has been in business. As always if anyone sees an issue in our catalog we appreciate your pointing it out so we can make the necessary corrections. Since I don't frequent this site emails to dallen@legendaryauctions.com are appreciated.

Well, since I'm pretty sure REA didn't make their photo of the card look dirtier than it actually is, I guess it all comes down to "is the photo an accurate representation of what then card looks like in hand?"

Denial isn't just a river in Africa.

Conor, I don't believe I said that anyone made their image "dirtier", my point is that you take an image on two different types of equipment with different settings, you will get different results.

Then Legendary needs to get new equipment, or give scanning lessons to his employees. I'm sure Doug will take care of it.

I will have to disagree, Bob.

Lined up next to each other, it appears that one of these pictures has been Photoshopped. If two cards have the same technical grades, the one with greater eye appeal will sell for more. Well, there is clearly a difference in eye appeal here.

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/4389/r62e.png

The difference between these two cards does not come simply from adjusting things like levels, color saturation, etc. Nor would the source of the picture, camera or scanner, account for the discrepancy.

Look in the red area above Matty's glove. Dirt that is clearly visible on one card is simply not present in the other. In one copy, the red background shows a lot of soiling from being handled over the last century. The second, the red background is remarkably clean. Compare the borders of the two photos, as well. I have a scanner and a digital camera. I can take a picture of the card with both, and dirt would not just disappear altogether. If I were a buyer of this card, expecting a certain level of eye appeal, and got the other card, I'd be pretty upset.

Here is a card I bought from Legendary a few years back.

Scan from the auction:
http://www.legendaryauctions.com/Lot...ntoryid=113654
http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...ohnfrontt.jpeg
http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...nsonbackk.jpeg

Here is my own scan (after having it swapped from PSA to SGC). Scanned with my Canon Nanoscan 9000F. Completely stock settings.
http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/.../johnfront.jpg
http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...6/johnback.jpg

Clearly, the Legendary scan is quite a bit brighter / more contrast.

Not trying to bag on legendary here - in fact, I have been very happy with all my dealings with them. I was very happy with this particular purchase, and when the card arrived I was 100% happy with it and didn't feel their scan had given me an unfair perception of the card's appearance.

In fact, I think my scan looks quite a bit better, and has greater eye appeal.

But I agree with the basic premise of this thread, which is that their scans tend to lean towards the "bright" side, color-wise.

Hmm, a Nanoscan? Sounds like something Robin Williams might use. :D

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oyghq6GA5l.../s320/mork.jpg

My compliments on your Johnson, Dave. It's just beautiful. That's going to be my first semi-big ticket item within the T206 set, although with a much more common back. I am absolutely in love with that card. Best looking selection from the entire set, imho.

Actually, it can - easily. Just take the top photo, and adjust up the brightness and/or contrast. Lots of the visible dirt will "disappear", including the dirt just above the glove. Actually if you look at the scan on bottom, you can still see just a small amount of brown there. So it wasn't photoshopped out, it is just a brightness/contrast thing.

I agree though, on this particular card, if actual appearance is what shows in the REA scan, the Legendary scan is simply too bright, and overly deemphasizes stains on the card that a prospective buyer ought to see.

Thanks! It's definitely one of the highlights of my collection. I agree - definitely one of the best, if not the best, poses in the whole set.

For what it is worth, here is the scan from when it sold at Memory Lane. It just looks like a brighter scan.

Here is what I am talking about... shown here is the REA SCAN. I took the image file and just adjusted the brightness up 10% and contrast up by 30%. As you can see, it looks much cleaner/brighter, and the dirty part just above his glove is almost totally gone.

A camera/scanner set to scan at a higher level of brightness/contrast could easily capture this type of image, no photoshop necessary.

I agree it can be done, but it wouldn't occur naturally from the scan alone. I guess that was the point I was trying to make. I'm punchy because I'm drugged up because of my leg, so I'm doing a piss poor job of articulating my thoughts. Please, forgive me :o

You'd really have to make that adjustment manually.

I just took the original picture, and had to raise the contrast in Photoshop to nearly +50 for the entire dirt cluster above his glove to disappear, leaving the brightness at default. So, they might not have spent a lot of time at it, but the 'shop is still being used to make the card appear more presentable. Either that, or they have a dinosaur of a scanner, and it needs a serious calibration.

Here's the original picture captured after a high contrast adjustment:

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/336/tcfc.png

Boy, this card gets around.

Maybe you're right, but the adjustment is being made somewhere, which I still feel is misleading.

And I agree with you, the scan you took of your Johnson T206 looks much better.

Lol...

I think we are actually agreeing with each other 100% here. I agree, an adjustment could have been made manually.

What I am also saying though, is you can do this type of adjustment "in advance" by just adjusting the settings of the camera or scanner being used, so it captures that type of image in the first place.

In any case, yes it does appear they could use a new scanner, or at least a look at the current scanner settings. I agree that the current scan shown on their site ought to be updated with a scan that appears more true-to-life.

OK. Time for me to go to bed :)

I do see what you're saying. I'm just going to go to bed, the meds are shutting my brain down, lol.

Looks like Legendary is doing their scanning in a Document setting (which will de-empahasize toning in whites and off-whites) and REA is doing their scans in a Photo setting with the "UnSharp Mask" turned up to high, which will tend to do the exact opposite but create a sharper looking picture. I'd guess the actual card is somewhere in between the two.

Bob, respectfully, you're full of shit.

I've known about this issue for over a year now, and it's frustrating because it's hard to know what the card will really look like when it shows up at your door. Anything is possible, but it's hard to believe that something hasn't been done to the scans - the settings changed, hues adjusted, whatever. I will reserve judgement, but let me just say that in my experience it has made it harder for me to bid. I have bid on a couple cards with them over the last year but often I am left wondering what the card really looks like. Some of their scans of OJ's in the past have been so bright that I just didn't know if I could bid, not knowing what the cards really looked like, since it was impossible for an OJ to really look like that. But it is all subjective.

I recently purchased a CJ card and when I went back to the original Legendary auction the scan was much brighter than the card. They clearly should make an adjustment to more accurately depict the card being auctioned, in my opinion. As we have seen from certain ebay auctions discussed here previously, scans do have the potential to mislead.

+1

If you compare the CJ to other SGC graded cards in this same auction, you will clearly see that the SGC label on the CJ appears much brighter (almost fluorescent) compared to the other SGC labels in the auction, and the insert appears much more grey in the CJ as opposed to black in the other SGC cases in the auction. This is clearly an attempt to deceive potential bidders.

If what you said was true Bob, then all of the SGC labels and inserts should exhibit the same characteristics, but this is clearly not true.

And by making the scan brighter it causes stains and wrinkles to disappear or lessen. I wonder why the "scanner settings" aren't inadvertently set to make the cards darker, the stains more pronounced? Gee whiz!

Funny how the victims of this fraud -- the bidders -- can trust their eyes not to lie to them but the shills who make money from the auctioneers (Bob) have eyes that see something else.

At least the card looks real. I would rather have an altered scan of a real card than a real scan of an altered card. Plenty of the latter to go around. Of course when you have an altered scan of an altered card, you have hit the jackpot, and that's when world records get set.

When buying graded cards online, I always check the whiteness of the flip against some other white on my monitor/screen. A lot of times you can see that the SGC or PSA flip is a bit gray or shadowy. That would indicate to me that the card might be a bit brighter in person.

Conversely, if the SGC or PSA flip is gleaming white, you may have an issue, particularly if the text on the flip appears faded or diluted.

Adjusting photos or video for advertisements is certainly nothing new and has been going on for as long as there have been photographs in advertising. Given the massive move in our hobby to online auctions over the past decade, this phenomena is potentially a growing problem. It will be helpful to know which auction sites do the best job in accurately capturing their cards on film.

We have third party grading to help with the technical grade. Now apparently we need to police the card scanners...

Looks like a brighter scanner setting, mine is set a bit darker to help with SGC slabs.

Legendary compared to Goldin

http://i.imgur.com/vLgpelg.jpg

legendary

goldin

<a href="http://s626.photobucket.com/user/jboneparth/media/OJs/b9ada327-7c72-49ee-a681-8684e994275c_zps39580062.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/tt350/jboneparth/OJs/b9ada327-7c72-49ee-a681-8684e994275c_zps39580062.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo b9ada327-7c72-49ee-a681-8684e994275c_zps39580062.jpg"/></a>
<a href="http://s626.photobucket.com/user/jboneparth/media/OJs/conniemack50percent_zps30c71aad.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/tt350/jboneparth/OJs/conniemack50percent_zps30c71aad.jpg" border="0" alt="n172 Connie Mack photo conniemack50percent_zps30c71aad.jpg"/></a>

The first scan is from Legendary March 2012. The second scan is from Probstein auction that ended last winter. I own this card and can tell you that in real life, the card looks like the Probstein scan. I was willing to bid on it in the probstein auction but not in the Legendary because in the Legendary I just wasn't sure what the card really looked like.

I have no animosity towards anyone at all in this thread. I have a feeling that Legendary might do their scans normally at a higher resolution. So much so it makes the cards look different. I won the E221 Bishops card from them about a year or two ago, from the Drier collection. It looked bright and sharp with very few creases on it, from the scan on the screen. When I got it in hand it was quite different. It was darker and more creases showed. I still liked it and kept it....but before I got it I even told Mark Mac.rae, on the phone, I thought it looked almost Ex in condition. I felt kind of dumb when I got it and it was in fair (but still nice) condition. I think they need to change their settings on their scanners. I told Doug about it but still wanted the card. I am not saying they are doing anything bad, intentionally, but they do need to scan on different, more realistic settings. I like everyone over at Legendary, personally, and I hope everything gets worked out soon. best regards

And it doesn't mean the old scan wasn't bad...

until large groups of collectors/investors stop bidding in auctions who impart suspect business practices in their auctions...nothing will change.

But Doug just said above he's never had a complaint about this issue in the 5 years Legendary has been in business. Doug -- probably best to either shut up or stop lying at this point -- assuming that's possible.

Stuff trumps all.

A bunch of foolish sympathizers... Blatent deception here, nothing else.

All hail...STUFF!!!!!

They've long been known for this crap. I think of it the same as an old timer auctioneer whose descriptions of their stuff somehow always is a grade or two above reality. Deplorable but sadly not rare in this business. Still you'd think that someone under indictment for being an auction pig would be squeaky clean.

Well, I am sure we all have conversations we don't remember but I do remember this one distinctly...and we had 1-2 on the phone about it too. You guys really do need to fix this scanning issue.......Here is a partial discussion about it below, but again, there was a more explicit one on the phone. And to your credit you offered to make it right...but I wanted the card. But we had this discussion mostly on the phone, as I remember....(and for the most part emails shouldn't be posted on the board but there is nothing here that is too private)




From: Leon Luckey [mailto:leonl@flash.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 8:26 PM
To: Doug Allen (dallen@legendaryauctions.com)
Subject: scan of e221

Hey Doug
I think you can look at the one on your site easy enough but here is a regular scan I did….Not a big deal but just thought I would let you know.
LL




.

Yup. If Al Qaeda ran an auction it probably would do well as long as it featured strong material. :eek:

if I were in the card auction business...or any bb card related business...I'd frequent this site...you'd be a fool not to see what your customers are saying?!

Doug Allen is a pathological liar. He also claimed on this board years ago that he wasn't engaging in shill bidding and other fraud while at Mastro. He lied then and he lied now. When he finally ends up before a judge to pay for his crimes, I implore everyone on this board to write a letter to the judge describing the lengths he went to conceal and perpetuate his fraud.

By the way, Bob, perhaps you might want to mention that Doug -- and Legendary -- uses your company for its auctions. In a perfect world you'd be in the cell next to Doug.

Bob is one of the most honest guys I know. I trust him implicitly. (and he hosts my auction s/w and has done a superb job of it). I wish nothing but continued success for him and his company.

Bob's company also hosts my auctions, and I find him completely trustworthy.

-Al

I try to make sure the scan looks as bad as possible so that when the card arrives, the high bidder is pleasantly surprised. :)

Then maybe he should get his eyes fixed? Or stop lying about the Legendary scans that everyone with working eyes can see were manipulated in order to take away wrinkles and stains?

Compare, if you will, scans of the CJ Cobb now in Al's auction with one in Legendary a couple of years back. Hint Legendary's is the brighter one.

obviously not the same cobb...but...the brightness of legendary's scans is downright off-putting. In this case the bright cobb looks ridiculous...next to the more accurate scan.

That's not the same card, is it?

Edited to add: whew. And I agree with Pete, that Legendary scan is insane. Why not just make the scans completely white to ensure that no staining or creases can be seen?

In this day and age a scan of the flip might be enough.

Please don't give Doug any ideas. :)

Edited to add: maybe the gypsies who stole Lionel Carter's cards will start an auction company....?

in the legendary cobb scan...somehow they managed to transfer the normal CJ staining from the cobb card... to the Flip...Amazing Magic!!!!

so I guess you forgot about Leon's minor issue...

The one on the left looks like a baseball card I'd put in my lock box. The one on the right looks like something I might set my beer glass on.

In my view the most important point to take from this thread is that one should never acquire an item based on an assumption an on-line scan or catalog image is accurate. This has nothing to do with the integrity of the auction house. When there is an item I am interested in bidding on and I know I will not be able to see it in person, I will call the AH and ask them to take the item in hand and then compare it to what it looks like in the catalog or on-line, as the case may be. If I have a catalog of the auction, I will have these discussions based on catalog images, not on-line images. The latter can vary with one's monitor and monitor settings. Catalogs, in contrast, do not vary. I remember an instance over 25 years ago when I was at a well-known print shop in NYC. It has been owned and operated by three generations of a family and enjoys universal respect. There was an upcoming auction at Christies and I wanted the print shop's opinion on a particular item in the auction. I showed the owner's son the catalog image and asked his opinion. As he was answering his father interrupted and admonished him for opining on an item based on the catalog image. The basis for the admonition was not that Christies would intentionally make the item look better than it actually was, but that one had to see it in person to really know all the nuances of its condition and eye appeal.

I know I am both going slightly off topic and making an assumption for this particular case, but I have never considered a seller's willingness to accept a return in exchange for a refund "making it right", particularly when there is misrepresenting involved, malicious or not.

It is important to realize that, yes, an online scan may not be completely accurate, but also important to realize that certain auction houses may be intentionally doing things to alter scans to their own liking, manipulating collectors and prices. I agree with Conor that simply being willing to accept refunds is no excuse. For instance, the situation with Leon - he got the card he needed and was willing to keep it, but maybe he would have gotten it for less if it were accurately represented. In that case, the allegedly artificially enhanced scan served as a shill.

Realistically, we cannot all go back to looking at the cards in real life. People are bidding from afar and there is no guarantee that one will win an item. You cannot expect everyone who is interested in an item to purchase an airplane ticket, hotel rooms and car rentals just to see an item in person - it is simply not practical. Maybe fifty years ago, every auction was live and it was possible to have the standard of seeing every item live before evaluating it, but nowadays we rely on the auction houses, and that it a matter of technology and modern life.

My view is that Legendary/Mastro has gotten itself in trouble before, not for its bidding practices, but for a failure to disclose its bidding practices. For instance, Heritage discloses in their terms that the house is a potential bidder for every item, yet many collectors participate in their auctions anyways, and it rarely comes up as a topic for debate. Same for the controversy of Legendary's alleged scan altering - if they simply disclosed such practices in the terms of their auction, they would be covered. Their practices could be a matter for debate, but their integrity could not.

We can certainly agree to disagree. I disagree with you.
If you aren't making mistakes you aren't doing enough. It's how mistakes are handled that makes the difference, to me. And to me it DOES matter if they are malicious and/or intentional mistakes. If they are intentional or malicious I have less patience for them.

Alright guys, I really think everyone is missing the point here.

IMO, it is the AH's responsibility to accurately scan the cards and provide as accurate of a description as possible. Whether the scans were or were not altered or intentionally or unintentionally altered (although if scans are being altered then I believe that is a state and federal offense and should not be tolerated)then who cares? Should major AH like REA, LA, HA, etc. set the standards for cards to be professionally and accurately graded? I mean ebay can be a total crap shoot, but if Im paying 15+% b/p then that card better look like the scans/description. If I bought another product online and it came with undisclosed defects, it would be sent back and my money refunded so why tolerate in the AH world? It is every AHs responsibility to ensure the scans and description are accurate.

S Suckow

I guess you could always just have mystery auctions. Maybe the brightness has been altered, maybe it has not....maybe there are defects behind the hidden portions of the card, maybe there are not.....

Ebay fees aren't much less. However, I do agree that scans on line should closely mirror a cards true visual appearance. I don't care what venue or who is doing it. Legendary clearly has some work to do in this area (as do some other online sellers).

Hal Lewis???? Is that you, Hal? Seriously Jeff, nice to see you back. Were it not for your perception that Legendary is committing fraud we might never hear from you.:D Thought you might post the other day on the Memory Lane thread given your interest in keeping the hobby clean but I guess you like their scans and, like so many here, they have always shipped the cards you have won.

I think he means as a buyer...

No Buyers premium on ebay...Ebay is ALWAYS a better place to buy a card when the seller is KNOWN TO BE REPUTABLE...

ebay is better for buyers, worse for sellers.

Auction house, better for seller, worse for buyer...

IMO, the Buyers Premiums are out of hand...especially when you get to a thousand dollar lot...what are auction houses doing so great that makes them entitled to such easy money?

and shill bids can never be stopped....it may not be the AH owner or employess, but I assume that the AH's Uncle Jimmy is making a few bids to help out his nephew's auction house...

Fair enough, but when I go through the process of tracking an auction, bidding, sending my money to someone else and anticipating a new addition to my collection only to be disappointed when it arrives, a mere refund/return doesn't make me less disappointed or willing to go back to that AH.

I agree that it sucks to waste our time on something and have to return it. As an addicted collector I will almost always go back, but be more careful, if there is something I truly want. Just being honest about it. To each their own though. One thing's for sure, there are plenty of places in the hobby to spend our money. :eek:

Especially when those available funds could have gone somewhere else.

Don't even get me started :eek:

It must be working for them or they wouldnt do it.

Did you take your Klonopin today?

This was brought up previously in this thread started by Jeff back in April of this year. As mentioned in that thread, this has been going on for some time. It's hard to say if this is on purpose, or just a case of someone not knowing how to properly scan a card.

I have also seen this with Heritage, and again, I am not claiming that this is being done to deceive, as it might just be the result of a bad scanner.

Off the top of my head, some auction houses that get the scans "right" are REA, Love of the Game, Huggins & Scott, and Goodwin (although Goodwin's could be slightly more accurate). I'm sure other auction houses offer accurate scans as well. Ultimately, it's not easy to get a perfect representation of how a card looks in hand. Some scanners are great out of the box, others... not so much.

Here's a card from Heritage that shows the difference in one of their scans (the upper scan from the auction site, the lower one from my scanner, a Canon CanoScan 5600f). I was happy with the card, as I could tell by the flip that the contrast was jacked up, so I knew what to expect in terms of color.

When creases, wrinkles, dirt, smudges, etc. get covered up by high contrast, this becomes a problem.

Now this card is IMO a great example of scam, er, scan manipulation. You don't get a flip like that from scanning. The flip is roached because of extensive UV light exposure, likely from fluorescent lighting. I've had the same thing happen with SGC flips on items displayed in my office. The card itself likely shows fading as well. But jack up the contrast and add intensity of color and flash to the scan and it boosts the red.

this is all bringing back bad memories of that SCP(?) photo -
where the item actually looked like it was chewed by a dog, while the auction scan looked impeccable.

I believe that was a "wonder-scan" explanation too.