Originally Posted by swarmee (Post 1633331)

The way I read your last post Cortney, is that you believe SGC will holder a known trimmed/altered card with a number grade instead of Authentic. I am not sure that is the case. PSA will not either, since there are no qualifiers for trimmed or skinned or recolored. Those are Authentic - Altered at PSA as well. Yes, a card with writing on it could be a PSA 8(MK) or an SGC 1.5, and those are drastically different things. But if SGC is grading trimmed cards with a number and you have proof of that, that would hurt them as well.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1633257)

There is a lot of upside to TPG, but the inevitable downside is that they are going to miss a certain amount of highly-skilled card doctoring. There are people out there who are just really good at what they do, and they put a lot more effort into it than TPGs have the time or resources to always detect. It's like PEDs, the masking technology usually runs ahead of the detection technology. What I find interesting and somewhat discouraging is that so many people, particularly high end collectors, seem indifferent to that, and care only about the flip.

Originally Posted by Whodunit (Post 1633333)

I'm not an SGC expert by any stretch of the imagination, so I may have been off base on that one. If so, please forgive me.

Originally Posted by Whodunit (Post 1633337)

Peter,

Most high end collectors aren't indifferent to that (or at least experienced ones). As a rookie, like everyone else, I bought the holder as opposed to the card. As I became educated, I started ignoring grades and buying the card. Granted, I may have wanted a PSA 8 52 Mantle, and could have gotten a 7 that looked like an 8, but sometimes, you just want the grade b/c it grows in value faster. But, in that situation, I (personally) wait until the "right" 8 comes along.

Just last week I had a VERY good friend come to me for advice on a particular card in the 30K range. It was an attrocious 8.5 and one I'd cringe at everytime I pulled it out to look at it if I owned it. That being said, I talked him into waiting for a 9 to come along (for a multitude of reasons but mainly b/c of how bad the 8.5 was and the difference in 8.5 to 9 in terms of long term value/investment on vintage). And, also to make sure he does the same thing with a 9.............get one with great eye appeal.

Don't lump all high end collectors into the same pool. Some of us started out with the right idea but it took being seasoned or burned due to value to realize that all "8's" are not created equal.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1633341)

I would emphasize the word "created." In my opinion having collected as an adult since the early 90s, many of the very expensive high end cards out there, starting with the Wagner, have been worked on in some way prior to being submitted. I did not mean to imply that you personally, or EVERY high end collector is indifferent to that, but my interactions with many people convince me that many are in fact indifferent to it, or resigned, or in denial, or some combination of the above.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1633341)

I would emphasize the word "created." In my opinion having collected as an adult since the early 90s, many of the very expensive high end cards out there, starting with the Wagner, have been worked on in some way prior to being submitted. I did not mean to imply that you personally, or EVERY high end collector is indifferent to that, but my interactions with many people convince me that many are in fact indifferent to it, or resigned, or in denial, or some combination of the above.

Originally Posted by Leon (Post 1633347)

Every old timer I have spoken with agrees with you 100%. These great, great looking pre war cards just didn't exist before. If folks are collecting cards in super high condition then they should know there is a good chance the card they own has been cleaned or worse.... Here is a message I got a few days ago from someone that anyone who has been in the hobby 10+ yrs knows the name of...but he asked me to keep him anonymous so I am doing so..

Don't these buyers of high end cards realize that this 36 DiMaggio is just the very tip of the iceberg, that there are in fact thousands and thousands of altered cards that end up slabbed? Skilled paper restorers learned a long time ago that most of their work will go undetected by TPG's, and these submissions have been going on for many years. Old time collectors who were around in the 1960's and 70's all agree they rarely ever saw pristine vintage cards. Now, they are all over the hobby. They are the engine that drive the very profitable registry market, so it's conceivable the graders turn a blind eye to them. I wonder if this part of the hobby will ever be publicly exposed by say an FBI investigation?

Originally Posted by Leon (Post 1633347)

Every old timer I have spoken with agrees with you 100%. These great, great looking pre war cards just didn't exist before. If folks are collecting cards in super high condition then they should know there is a good chance the card they own has been cleaned or worse.... Here is a message I got a few days ago from someone that anyone who has been in the hobby 10+ yrs knows the name of...but he asked me to keep him anonymous so I am doing so..

Don't these buyers of high end cards realize that this 36 DiMaggio is just the very tip of the iceberg, that there are in fact thousands and thousands of altered cards that end up slabbed? Skilled paper restorers learned a long time ago that most of their work will go undetected by TPG's, and these submissions have been going on for many years. Old time collectors who were around in the 1960's and 70's all agree they rarely ever saw pristine vintage cards. Now, they are all over the hobby. They are the engine that drive the very profitable registry market, so it's conceivable the graders turn a blind eye to them. I wonder if this part of the hobby will ever be publicly exposed by say an FBI investigation?

Originally Posted by swarmee (Post 1633331)

The way I read your last post Cortney, is that you believe SGC will holder a known trimmed/altered card with a number grade instead of Authentic. I am not sure that is the case. PSA will not either, since there are no qualifiers for trimmed or skinned or recolored. Those are Authentic - Altered at PSA as well. Yes, a card with writing on it could be a PSA 8(MK) or an SGC 1.5, and those are drastically different things. But if SGC is grading trimmed cards with a number and you have proof of that, that would hurt them as well.

Originally Posted by MW1 (Post 1633358)

Leon,

I think we both know this isn't completely true. There have been dozens of important finds of high-grade cards, both pre-war and post-war in the last 30 years. Some of them have been publicized on this very forum. I have personally seen a large quantity of these high-grade cards when they were first discovered--everything from T206s, Sport Kings and Diamond Stars taken from unopened packs to perfect condition 1933 Goudeys. And we all know of the 1914 and 1915 Cracker Jack factory sets that have been found and graded as well as large accumulations of candy/caramel cards such as those which constituted the "Black Swamp" find. There have also been many collections, like that of Lionel Carter or the discoveries of Alan Rosen, that have brought thousands more original, high-grade cards into the marketplace.

Originally Posted by Bicem (Post 1633359)

SGC will grade altered cards with numeric grades. I owned this Flick and it was clearly trimmed.... (as mentioned by REA)

http://bid.robertedwardauctions.com/...e?itemid=41097

The concept and idea of grading is a good one, what it has become is ludicrous in my opinion. The price differences people will pay between grades when the entire system is severely flawed is absurd.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1633371)

Regarding Michael's comment to Leon, of course there have been great finds. I am sure Leon did not mean to imply, and I certainly did not, that every high grade card has been worked on. But to my mind none of that changes that card doctoring is rampant in this hobby.

Originally Posted by MW1 (Post 1633370)

Jeff,

First, Cortney was arguing that he collects PSA because SGC doesn't use qualifiers, not because SGC grades altered cards. Second, the example you give is a statistical outlier. To the best of my knowledge, there were some issued 1908 PC770s that have normal postcard cuts and some that were unissued and have somewhat haphazard hand cuts--they would be similar in nature to Wheaties or Post Cereal cards cut off of boxes. Certainly, these types of cuts were not meant to be deceptive or to artificially improve the condition of the postcard in question.

Originally Posted by Leon (Post 1633347)

Every old timer I have spoken with agrees with you 100%. These great, great looking pre war cards just didn't exist before. If folks are collecting cards in super high condition then they should know there is a good chance the card they own has been cleaned or worse.... Here is a message I got a few days ago from someone that anyone who has been in the hobby 10+ yrs knows the name of...but he asked me to keep him anonymous so I am doing so..

Don't these buyers of high end cards realize that this 36 DiMaggio is just the very tip of the iceberg, that there are in fact thousands and thousands of altered cards that end up slabbed? Skilled paper restorers learned a long time ago that most of their work will go undetected by TPG's, and these submissions have been going on for many years. Old time collectors who were around in the 1960's and 70's all agree they rarely ever saw pristine vintage cards. Now, they are all over the hobby. They are the engine that drive the very profitable registry market, so it's conceivable the graders turn a blind eye to them. I wonder if this part of the hobby will ever be publicly exposed by say an FBI investigation?

Originally Posted by BeanTown (Post 1633352)

I think Cortney and Brent had a very good friendship which benefited both of them for many years. Sorry, it has gone south as hate and love both use the same part of the brain.

Cortney, I have never met you, or spoke to you. All I can go off from are your postings on this one thread. I like hearing the perspective from a buyer of high money cards in "PSA" holders where you seem to buy and sell these cards like commodities. my hunch isyourreally good at what you do and it's rare you have a bad deal. You remind me of one of the Hunt brothers back in the late 70s/80s.
Upon the rare impulse I have to buy a 25k card or higher in a PSA holder, rest assured I will attempt to win it as a snipe or a late night bid. My suspicions were dead on, that some people like to buy these cards like Apple shares.

PWCC I have always supported with positive post in recent years. Sorry you had a relationship go south from a large consignor. However, everything happens for a reason and I'm sure other future consigners will pick up the slack on the consignment front. I have said it before and I'll say it again. I think PWCC runs a professional operation and I'm very impressed with their market dominance in Ebay. I have spoke to Brent before both on the phone and in person at the National. It's safe to say I like him and support him and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Betsy has returned emails to me when I was in communication with them and she was very professional and courteous as well. I won 8 cards from them two weeks ago and I won a card from them 2 days ago so needless to say I will still be a customer of theirs.


I think at this point this thread has become a soapbox thread with Cortney and his way of outing Brent for how he feels. As much as I like reality TV, maybe a new thread should start on that theme.

Originally Posted by PhillipAbbott79 (Post 1633285)

No one is going to walk into a court room with that as a defense. I am pretty sure it is incriminating.

Originally Posted by Neal (Post 1633403)

Has PWCC's customer service or quality of consignments been questioned? I do not feel like reading this whole thing

Originally Posted by 1952boyntoncollector (Post 1633349)

I thought everyone knew that. When you buy an old cracker jack card with no staining etc and its in a PSA 7 holder, you assume something happened to it previously. Dont you? I prefer not to see that same card in a prior sale as a PSA 4 but the risk is there i would think

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1633414)

As long as you have stuff, you might as well be made of

Originally Posted by 1952boyntoncollector (Post 1633265)

I do think we would also be at more risk buying altered cards if everything was 'raw' . So many disputes as to what is Mint and Near Mint as well that do not exist now with the graded cards. Basically we would have 4000 Battlefield type sellers out there with high number of returns and negative feedback. Yes the great sellers with great reputation shoudl do well but thats how it is now as time goes on.

Just too many bad situations with no third party graders for anyone to think the third party grading will go away

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth (Post 1633257)

There is a lot of upside to TPG, but the inevitable downside is that they are going to miss a certain amount of highly-skilled card doctoring. There are people out there who are just really good at what they do, and they put a lot more effort into it than TPGs have the time or resources to always detect. It's like PEDs, the masking technology usually runs ahead of the detection technology. What I find interesting and somewhat discouraging is that so many people, particularly high end collectors, seem indifferent to that, and care only about the flip.

Originally Posted by Whodunit (Post 1633309)

Yes, this is Cortney DeLorme, the one that started this spiral around page 30 or so. I provided a screenshot showing Brent asking me to bid on the card and assuring me that I would be outbid. On that auction, I think the account that I used was the one you guys will refer to as S***N.

A lot of people think this is a one time deal. When the dust settles on this, more is to come. Anyone supporting Brent, will absolutely look foolish. I'm not saying that they are less intelligent than anyone else, but in light of the new evidence that has been shown and what all else I have, he has no defense.

Have you noticed that Betsy has called me out on many occasion about a "very large unpaid debt" and that I've refuted it with screenshots and timestamps asking for an invoice prior to her post...............and, now she won't address it at all.

Then, to make it even more fun, she originally said I was blocked b/c of the debt, but when that was refuted, changed it to "Cortney DeLorme is the first person in the history of PWCC to be blocked as a person and not as a bidder". Every time I shoot em down, they reload and try to stick a dagger in me somewhere else. They'll eventually learn, I have 5 years of this stuff and I have no problem implicating whoever needs implicating to make my point.................and, again, my point is NOT that I lost 30K on the card when I sold it via Ken. It is the fact that Brent was my best friend (or so I thought), I was high biggest consignor with no close second, I trusted him wo reservation, he knew I wouldn't check behind what he told me..................and he used that against me to unload a card that he knew I'd have had no interest in had I known it's history.

Back to your original question, yes, there is proof of shill bidding requests by brent. Another quick screenshot can quickly alleviate that question.

Another question that keeps getting brought up is bid retractions. That account has 10 in the last 6 months (0 in last 30)...............when all of them were over a year ago . And of those 10 retractions, 9 were on ONE AUCTION where I had to manually retract each bid that i placed (t206 plank......therefor getting more retractions) to back out of the auction b/c of other shill bidding. So, Im absolutely positive that the "6 month" retraction goes away over MUCH LONGER time frame. I have another account that I use maybe once a month and haven't retracted since 2/16 but yet all of them are still there.

Cortney

Originally Posted by ajjohnsonsoxfan (Post 1633642)

It's kinda common sense when you have bidders with tons of bid retractions along with high percentages of bids with only PWCC that rampant shilling is taking place. But let's face it, bidders will keep bidding to get access to quality material and consigners will keep consigning to get top dollar.

I would hope that those that participate in PWCC auctions go in with a budgetary plan and a good sniping software.

As for the DiMaggio, If you have knowledge that a card has been fixed up to the degree that this one was you should include that information to your buyers even if you think some of them won't care about its history and it will hurt short term profits. Protecting your reputation is by far worth more in the long term.

Originally Posted by PhillipAbbott79 (Post 1634358)

Hmm. The thread was just about to go off the front page and we still do not have the entire conversation that Cortney was hoping to give us.

Originally Posted by ullmandds (Post 1634439)

it looks like a "lovers spat" to me...which I'm guessing will disappear under the rug in typical fashion.

Originally Posted by bnorth (Post 1634448)

Of course it will and we will have a PWCC pick up thread in the near future.

Stuff trumps everything for most people. Just look at Goldin, everybody swore they would never buy from them again after the Mastro shill list. Then he had a lawyer send members letter because they were calling out very suspicious auctions. Now he is a advertiser on this site and people are posting pick up threads and complaining about not being able to bid in their auctions. No wonder the scammers love this hobby.:eek:

Originally Posted by jefferyepayne (Post 1634626)

I have never bid on Goldin and never will. Gotta draw the line somewhere and they are below it. I just chuck the catalog in the trash when I get it. No sense even being tempted.

Same thing I did with Legendary.

Take a stand, people.

jeff

Originally Posted by mechanicalman (Post 1634771)

I whole-heartedly believe in the concept of "taking a stand" against companies with sketchy reputations, but proclaiming that you won't bid in their auctions isn't the way to do it. If even 100 dudes on the board "agreed" not to bid with a certain company, then game theory suggests another 100 dudes now have more incentive to "cheat" and bid because of the perceived opportunity for better prices. The net effect could be positive for the AH.

By contrast, I've decided that there are a few AH's to whom I will never consign material because of their reputation. Now if a 100 dudes started a movement to not consign to a certain company, that could actually have a material impact. Demand will always be there, but supply can be cut off.

Originally Posted by PhillipAbbott79 (Post 1633669)

Seems like this thread is finally run its course, until Cortney posts more of the conversation, or preferably all of it.