Magie cards
 

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Checking VCP both of the original card sales are listed there before they did
their little sex change.

SGC card sold on 2/14/13 by joes vinatge

PSA card sold on 7/8/12 by painthistorian

Both where bought by the same buyer but since eBay started
scrambling the name we don't know it shows as

-***d

Read the article and think they it was a little harsh on PSA. Think
Joe did the right thing by getting the cards off the market and
paying that person his money back.

Grading is not perfect and it involves humans that are going to
make errors. Like it is always said here "buy the card and not the
holder".

Until we come up with a perfect solution which may be a digital
grading system we are going to have errors. And even then it
wont be full proof.

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Seems like the consignor knew he was busted and did not even bother.

There was a follow up blog post by Peter Nash claiming Gerry Schwartz was the ebay buyer.

http://haulsofshame.com/blog/?p=27012

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"House of Cards"
 

Sounds like there is the making of a great book detailing the fraud in our wonderful hobby.

Great title for it: House of Cards!


Patrick

How about, When it Was a Card: Baseball Cards Before Card Doctors. Oh wait, shill bidding is the biggest problem in the hobby, mea bad.

Peter
 

Is absolutely correct. This is far worse than shilling. So with shilling you pay an extra bid or two. Here people paid thousands for something close to worthless. So sick of the sanctimony over shilling while covering or giving a pass to people committing far more egregious crimes. All fraud should be outed but this is far worse to the buyer than getting bumped a few bids. Wonder why some are so concerned with shilling yet seem to turn a blind eye to this far worse crime. Seems like one hell of a big smoke screen to me.

Glyn, you have to wonder how many of these have been handed out in the name of going after shill bidding.

Well he
 

Peter he Claimed they were not committing fraud anymore sure looks like that was a lie. If all the purported people really are his clients and the facts as presented are correct.

Correct me if I'm wrong
 

But they don't give them out before the crime do they? It's only after isn't it?

Glyn not my field but if I am understanding what you are asking, no you couldn't get immunity from future crimes you might commit, but you could get pretty broad immunity for any past transaction or offense to which your testimony relates.

This statement was made almost 12 yrs ago.....not in 2009, and I honestly don't remember what the circumstances were.....but it was 12 yrs ago, things can change.

"Despite these controversies Net54 moderator Leon Luckey publicly vouched for Schwartz in 2009 calling him a “recommended seller.”



.

So where is the outrage towards alleged card doctor Gerry Schwartz? It sounds like he was caught red-handed, but nobody here much seems to care! Is it because he has "friends" here, or is it because Peter Nash is not credible? This seems like a big deal to me, and should be straightforward to verify or debunk.

I AM outraged...but who am I(a tiny little one celled organism in this large pond of sharks) to do anything about it besides be very careful about how I spend my money on cardboard.

When it's all said and done it will likely be revealed that most major players in the hobby have "blood" on their hands...I have zero doubt!

I have no idea if Nash is right or not, but to put it in larger context, shill bidding is much more of an issue around these parts than card doctoring. Possibly because the truth about card doctoring is too depressing and guys would rather do the ostrich thing.

I have to respectfully disagree with this. while I have zero back up proof or uncredited websites to quote, I only assume that the amount of instances and gains in shill bidding on a daily basis far outnumbers the financial gain of these cards being sold.

on the other hand, while shill bidding is still technically fraud, the amount of despicable layers and complete and utter lack of morals in attempting this type of fraud should reserve you a corner seat at idi amin's and hitler's table in hell.

btw and off topic: I am new here, but just saw leon's profile said "peasant". fn hilarious! liking that guy more and more each day.

I think the shilling gets more attention because until recently it was easy to show who was doing it on ebay. With altered cards it is hard to prove who done it or how long ago it was done.

From personal experience board members get seriously butt hurt when you point out their altered cards.

Shilling affects most who participate in auctions...whereas the # of people who may be candidates to purchase magie error cards is tiny in comparison.

I don't see your point. Card doctoring is a pervasive problem not limited to Magie error cards.

You are correct Peter...I suppose I was referring to this example...and that shilling appears to be more rampant than doctoring.

It is happening to a lot
 

More cards than just magie errors. I think it's funny that people still think shilling is worse. Lol I would much rather have over paid by 10-20% than nearly the entire purchase price be wasted. I do not think some have any clue how much card doctoring has happened and some of the doctors are certainly shillers as well. It's scary honestly how much some of this stuff is all interconnected. It takes a lot of shill bidding to add up to the value of the Psa 8 Wagner, some of the bad Doyle errors and magie's in holders along with other high dollar altered card. Remember most felt the 1973 topps art shell psa 10 was both shilled and altered.

Why do you think it's more rampant than card doctoring?

Glyn that's the good thing about auctions that sell largely dealer inventory. You can get an altered card at a shilled price!

From my experience it appears to be. BUT...I do not buy and sell a lot either.

What about shilling a doctored card consigned by a friend? That's got to be the worst.

That takes BALLS!

Wow, that's even worse than card doctoring if you ask me.

Thread morph..... what's worse, shill bidding or altering a card to turn it into a highly desired card ....

We can compile a list of things that a-holes do to ruin this hobby. Those two issues are just items on that list.

If the article is accurate and the person named in the article is guilty of the allegation then I'd call him out and call him what he is - a phucing dirt bag piece of $hit that has no place in this hobby. I hope he goes to jail. I hope his cell mate is named Bubba and that Bubba doesn't like to be lonely. I hope he learns a lesson, though I doubt it. And if you're his friend please don't try to come up with a defense or excuse for what he did. Again, this is only if the allegations are true and can be substantiated.

In this case, it should be a wake up call to everyone that TPG's are not the final line of defense for authenticating cards. If PSA passes two fakes (of the magnitude of these cards) as graded authentic examples, then what good is PSA? Is it time to pull the Wagner "card" (excuse the pun). It still makes me sick to think about the PSA graded collection of "Hall" T206 cards that had many overgraded examples and in the opinion of many, numerically graded trimmed cards.

This crap really begins to push me to the point where I just want to say screw this hobby, unfortunately this hobby is a part of me and I keep holding on to hope that people won't trash it to the point where it's just not fun anymore.

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They're both equally bad and criminal punishment is determined based on the dollar amount of the fraud. Fraud is fraud. Of course, you'll get a myriad of self-interested responses following mine screaming that one fraud is worse than the other -- mainly because the screamer either has committed the fraud himself which he is now claiming isn't as bad or his close friend has. That's how it works on Net 54 with fraud.

Totally agree with u Fred!

They are both bad...IMO turning a card into a highly desired card is worse...greater of 2 evils...as both are crookery.

Peter and Glyn,

I respectfully disagree with your stance. To me, shilling is a bigger issue than card doctoring, but to you card doctoring is a bigger issue than shilling. That doesn't mean that one of us is right and the other wrong. There are other factors you're not considering.

I can honestly say, I don't think I've ever been a victim of card doctoring and nor will I ever be. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I'm better at detecting alterations than they are at creating them. I'll put my card doctoring detecting skills against the best card doctors out there.

In other words, the issue doesn't affect me because I can spot the doctoring. Shilling on the other hand, I have no way to control (other than trying to be careful about who I choose to do business with) and that does concern me.

Likewise, somebody with an unlimited budget may not care about shilling because if they pay an extra few hundred for a card, they don't care as long as they got what they wanted. As long as they didn't pay more than their max bid, they don't care if they were shilled or not. That's evident from some of the shilling discussions that I've seen on the board.

My whole point is, what's important to some may not be important to others. What affects you, might not affect me and vice versa.

Not sure if you were referring to me...or the other Peter...BUT...a board member has opened my eyes to how easy it is to remove colors/print from topps cards from the 50's-modern to the point I don't think I would ever touch a "rare" variation...graded or not.

To me the most relevant point here is that the 'EE' letters were modified AND moved on the surface of the card, so effectively that the alteration could not be detected under whatever magnification PSA uses.

This is huge and scary.

their magnification must suck because myself and others could see somethings wasn't right with scans.

This ^^^^

Frightening to think that card doctoring has become this advanced. Scary to think about how good they might become in 10-20 years.

If PSA misses paperloss on a PSA 6 without magnification, how can they determine an alteration with magnification?

Hey, Pete. I was actually referring to the other Peter. I think I know the thread you're talking about where the board member was able to get the yellow color to fade to white. However, if you look closely at this scans, you can still see traces of yellow. He may have been able to remove most of it, but not all of it.

And you can do this on a slabbed card where you can't see the edges? Well you're a better man than I then.

David, I always assumed they look at cards under magnification - especially prime alteration suspects like this Magie, but I assumed they would magnify any card of 'value'. When David and I looked at Pete's 'missing name' T206, the loupe was imperative. I feel certain we would have noticed 'EE' tampering, which is why I think it's a big deal if PSA checked this card out the way we do, and couldn't see any tampering. Not knocking PSA - I'm assuming David (Cycleback) and I wouldn't have spotted the problem either.

Anyone, am I wrong about this?

scott...you guys would have undoubtedly detected the alteration.

Pete, if that's the case, then no way PSA would spot any issues with your card; thus, no reason not to slab it as a 'missing name' card. If they refuse to, then it means they just guess about things.

well scott...not sure if u saw that psa DID grade it...gave it a #...called it miscut...and made no mention of the name missing.

I'd personally rather get shilled on 10 cards that are legit than to end up with one altered card. one feels somewhat similar to the other, but shall we say, sans lubrication.

I missed that, but congratulations - it means they didn't detect alteration, and we know it's not a miscut.

Peter, that's not a fair question. The card doctors are not altering edges through a slab, how can I detect it through a slab? I can't detect it though a locked box either, so that statement is kind of ridiculous. I have to be able to see it the entire card.

The edges are about the only thing that you can't see through a slab though - everything else you can. On the cards in question, there is no doubt in my mind that if I had the cards in hand (slabbed or not) I could detect the alteration.

As far as edges go, even though you can't see them completely through the slab, you can still get a pretty good look. So, if I were buying a slabbed card and I thought there may be a problem with one of the edges, but couldn't tell for sure since it's in the slab, then I would pass.

David you are proving my point. A high percentage of cards on the market are slabbed, and thus no matter how good you might be at detecting alterations, and I will just take you at your word there, you and everyone else are at a huge disadvantage once the card is slabbed.

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I would use a combination of magnification (Scott and I were looking at 200x power, by the way), gloss (including in comparison to other T206s), black light, infrared and provenance.

Duly note that it was provenance (past sales) that identified these cards. Card collectors often dismiss provenance, but if you can document that a Magie has been around in that state for twenty years, the sage collector would pay a premium. On the other hand, a forger can't show where he obtained the cards-- because he made it.

As board member Jim Stinson once said about another form of collectible, “Authentic autographs have a history or source … forgeries do not. They just ‘appear’.”

Obviously, provenance isn't fool proof and has obvious limitations, including because rare cards really can be found in shoe box collections and in attics and inherited and because for every forged JFK signed baseball is a made up story where it came from, but it is something collectors should keep in mind. And I included it in my list as a supplement to, not a replacement of physically examining the card.

P.s., forgeries, alterations and shilling are all bad. Why is there this debate? As my dad would say "The answer isn't either/or. It's a both/and." Or if I asked "Where would you rather live, Siberia or the Sahara Desert?," he'd say "That's easy. Neither."

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There's a very simply solution to card doctoring (and shilling for that matter) ... stop worrying so freaking much about the condition! (Okay, doesn't stop this Magie doctoring but stops most doctoring).

I honestly can't understand the fascination with PSA 10s. A decent chance they were altered or even more likely, favorably graded by a high paying client of the grading company. Even IF they happened to be legit ... who give's a rat's butt whether the corners are perfect or near perfect? Does your enjoyment increase because your microscope says one is better? Why is a 9 worse? Why is a 7 worse? Heck why is a 4 worse?

Why are you paying a premium for ANY grade over the next one? You essentially have two typoes of cards. Common cards that you can buy raw (with whatever levels of flaws you accept - so maybe a nominal price difference for one versus another) and rare cards that you buy authenticated (because they are rare and you want to be assured they are real). But why does it matter if that "authentication" is an A or a PSA 1-10? Either you have a real 1952 Mantle or you don't. It's a binary event.

So why are you paying more for a PSA 5 Mantle versus a PSA 4? The only answer - because you are using the card as an investment so you can profit later.

I know, I know some of you will (ridiculously) claim "I don't like creases/corner wear/whatever." But if you are honest with yourself, your answer will be you don't like creases because the industry has trained you your whole life to not like creases/corner wear because you won't get your profit whenever you choose to sell. You didn't care about creases when you were a kid - because you put these in the spokes of your bike. You collected for fun, not profit.

So the people complaining about shilling and doctoring ... are the exact same people that are trying to make a profit off the hobby by selling cards ... and they are the exact reason the practice of shilling and card doctoring is happening in the first place.

Too funny.


(Now watch the dealer crowd crucify me. Can't threaten those profits by introducing rationale thought!)

Not so sure I agree with your boast...as most on this board are NOT the people spending ridiculous amounts of $$$$ on high grade cards?

I think most of us are "Collector" grade collectors just looking to "clean up" the hobby so it is fun and safe.

For me...the problem is that these inflated prices for high grades/altered/shilled cards...trickle down to the armpit cards that I want to buy.

I agree with this up to a point. I collect lower grades than I used to because I got sick and tired of worrying whether cards were trimmed or not and getting really pissed off when I thought they were. Now I don't pretend that people don't alter midgrade cards -- they do because there is money to be made at all levels of card doctoring -- but I think a card with a modest amount of even corner wear is still much less likely to be trimmed (the alteration that bothers me the most) than a higher grade card with sharp corners.

That said, I don't agree with the "blame the victim" pitch. Card doctors are scum and it's sad that law enforcement and the Net 54 community seem to have made shill bidding a much higher priority.

I agree Peter. I have never owned a high-grade 'sharp corner' T206 that I felt comfortable with. Unfortunately, the card doctors practice on the low-grade cards, then try to pass them by the authenticators, so you really aren't safe with those either.

You are right about our forum making shilling a higher priority - around 10-12 years ago I posted clear examples of card doctoring that resulted in a card being slabbed by all three major grading companies (the card doctor's test), and no one here expressed any similar concerns. I was never sure why no one seemed to care, but my assumption after all these years is that it simply scared collectors to think that a graded 'Good' card could be severely altered.

Scott, the major auction houses and dealers and quite a few high-powered collectors know damn well who is altering cards. It's not in any of their interest to accuse them and turn off the spigot. And to be perfectly candid, where the card doctors can afford and likely have retained very good lawyers, and actual proof would be difficult to produce in the face of a conspiracy of silence, the average person isn't going to go out there and name names either.

As a collector, mint condition items don't interest or impress me. Mint mostly matters to those who collect where there are 10,000 of a particular item and grade is the only way you can say yours is "better" than the others.

I do know people that have shilled
 

I also know people that are card doctors, I also know people that are both. SOme come across as very nice guys and i can actually be friendly with them but what they did is wrong. I understand the law does not have degrees of legal or illegal but I am not in a court of law. So ill state how i feel, I think those that shilled and doctored are the worst, I than think you have to look at the amount of times one or the other did what they did. Did they buy back one or two of their own cards or did they cut and trim thousands or more cards? in that instance i feel the doctor is worse, now if say the guy cut one or two cards vs a guy that shilled or had his good buddy in say Florida shill stuff for him all the time to inflate prices than i would think the shiller was the worse of the two. For the record i do not condone Shilling or card doctoring and wish we could rid this great hobby of both of these problems.
I may be expensive when i set up and sell stuff but i will always buy back something i sold if it ever comes out to be altered or counterfeit. That offer lasts as long as i am alive. I would welcome others that sell to join that pledge. I do not auction much but junk that id take whatever for, so i don't think shilling is really an issue, but my retail prices aren't cheap. But then again, and Leon can vouch for this, I don't really like to sell my cards. i d rather just hoard them, lol.

I disagree regarding law enforcement focus. Agents make cases on what can be proven. There have been plenty of criminal cases made on altered or fraudulent "game used" jerseys -- because the evidence was there. If it's there for a card altering case a case could be made as well. Certainly some of the allegations against Mastro et al. included the alteration of cards.

As for Net 54 focus, as I said above people here have all sorts of nefarious reasons to focus on one area of fraud but not all -- or to rationalize away their criminal activity. Not everyone here does this but many, many do.

What are you suggesting, that card doctoring isn't pervasive? Or that it's too hard to prove?

I guess I'm in an odd minority on this.

I think both doctoring and shilling are fairly common.

I think both are wrong.

I may have a looser definition of doctoring than some, soaking to remove scrapbook residue I think is ok especially if the scrapbook paper is very acidic. I think anything up to a light surface cleaning is ok. emphasis on light. Making a card with "stuff" on the surface look like a new card is going too far, removing stuff that will cause issues later on is fine. (I've done both, and I've been very open about it here. None of the 3-4 cards is for sale, and I'd disclose the cleaning/paper removal if I did sell them.)

Altering the card- trimming, removing color, altering text, etc are all right out. If I tried I could probably do any of it so it was nearly undetectable but then I'd feel the card should be destroyed. Knowing the technical end of things comes with responsibility not just knowledge. (I won't even clean up the Hostess cards I cut out with a pocketknife as a kid. Original is original. Others may feel differently about tidying up hand cut cards.


I also believe that currently any alteration can be detected. The only thing preventing it is the cost of doing it and the desire to do it by people in the hobby.

Another hobby of mine is currently seeing a lot of use of spectrographs of different sorts to determine the makeup of inks used in the mid 1800s through around 1900. It's either fascinating or horribly dull depending on if you like that stuff. I do. And it answers a lot of questions that have been unanswered with any certainty for over a century. Like was the red-brown ink actually made using powdered rust. For over 100 years that's been the belief and what's "known" --A couple trips through the spectrograph and that's gone, replaced with provable knowledge that the ink contains no iron at all.

Could an oil based solvent be detected? Yes.
Would it be time consuming and expensive to tell? Yes.

Can trimming be detected in the slab? A qualified yes. It is for many sets. Perhaps not all.

Can fading be detected as fading instead of a missing color? Perhaps. I can't do it reliably with the equipment I have. It may not be possible on very modern cards, earlier postwar it should be possible and I believe it is possible with some prewar sets especially T206. (I'll have access to a SEM later this year, that will hopefully change a few things :D )

Can an altered bit of print be detected. Obviously yes if it's not exactly like the original - with the Magies it was done only from scans without the cards in hand and without an original in hand. (Ah technology!)


The real problem is that those detections take skill and time, and in some cases expensive equipment.
And our entire grading system is backwards. Why does a 1981 Topps common take 20 days to grade? (supposedly only 10 with PSA) And yet, anything over 7500 or 5000/10000 only takes a day or less. Shouldn't the valuable stuff get more scrutiny than the very common?

Yes, dealers don't like tying up cash waiting for authentication/grading. But I bet they like buying cards back even less.
I'm sure insurance is part of that, the longer something is in the graders shop the more chance of problems.
But other hobbies have it worked out. Stamps cost a minimum of $30 through the APS and it typically takes 45 days and they say to allow 90. Special cases may take longer, and there's the possibility of getting a cert that says "we decline to render an opinion" That's with an average of 615 items a month, hardly a big workload compared to Any of the big grading companies.

Change the effort expended change the expectation, and that's how authentication becomes a lot more valid. (The graded stamp guys have the same complaints about big dealers getting better grades. I'm not sure it's true consistently, but might be. Very few outright fakes get through no matter who submits them. )


Steve Birmingham

I find it amazing how the doctor did this: removed the 'arms' of the first 'E', then scooted everything to the right of it, over. How they got this by PSA is baffling to me.

It's a case by case basis in terms of what can be proven. Surely there have been more prosecutions based on altered hobby material than shill bidding, not even close. Shill bidding cases are much harder to prove, not even a question, due to the ultimate determination of loss amount. As for pervasiveness, I think card altering and shill bidding occur all the time.

Other than the Wagner being mentioned in the Mastro indictment, and as I understood it that was not the basis for his plea (but I could be wrong), are you aware of any prosecutions for altering CARDS?

They were prosecuted for the Wagner. And there were other allegations for card altering which was part of the evidence against them. As for other cases, how many different federal indictments do you think even exist for fraud in this hobby? Believe it or not, there isn't a "Baseball Card Strike Force" in every US Attorney's Office. For the most part, the frauds aren't big enough for a federal prosecutor to deal with and are not easy to prove. That there have been any federal cases at all surprises a lot of people.

Your language suggested there had been a reasonable number of total prosecutions.

"Surely there have been more prosecutions based on altered hobby material than shill bidding, not even close."

"Not even close" suggests to me a decent sample size.

But in any event, it is clear that there are no prosecutions for altered cards unless one counts Mastro, which is all I had asked. And I am guessing there aren't going to be any in the future.

So basically, the conspiracy of silence among auction houses dealers major collectors (and maybe even grading services, nothing would surprise me) will continue undeterred, as will rampant card doctoring. So it goes.

So who is Gerry Schwartz? Why has nobody jumped in to vouch for him? I mean, if he did it, and everyone including law enforcement is going to turn a blind eye to it, the least we can do is leave a flaming bag of dog poo on his doorstep or something. Has he denied doing it at least?

As I recall, prosecutors mentioned other alterations with Mastro Auctions. The example(s) I recall involved restoration than wasn't disclosed. It was the lack of disclosure at sale that was the legal issue, because there's nothing illegal about restoration, or even trimming the T206 Honus Wagner, in and of itself.

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One would think that is the work of someone with an impressive (so to speak) resume.

If this is the case he's not that good...imo.

Good enough to have made a very good living and then some off card doctoring, would be my assumption.

Now we are making assumptions of the doctor's income??? Are we aware of any other cards this doctor doctored?????

All I know is the Magie is not very good...granted it got past PSA but that doesn't mean a whole lot.

The M and the A are canted in weird ways...unlike any t206 I've ever seen.

All you have to do to make a tremendous living doing this is to get a reasonable percentage of attempts past PSA, or SGC. Even leaving Nash aside, I think it's a pretty fair assumption that this is the work of one of the usual suspects. But of course I am just making assumptions, I don't know.

True I suppose...but I can't think of any other high profile cards such as this magie...that are holdered...that appear not right...but obviously I don't see every card!!!

What if there was a 'dirty' grader on the inside that was authenticating these? You have 'dirty' people in other professions, why not graders?