Outed PSA 10 Gary Carter being sold for second time by PWCC after PSA "review"
 

Compare the thread outing the card
https://www.blowoutforums.com/showth...ghlight=carter

With the current auction
https://www.ebay.com/itm/14404608875...IAAOSwNj1gpwDc

And read Brentsy's somewhat deceptive description. NO, the prior question wasn't really the accuracy of the grade, it was whether the card had been altered.

"Be advised that this item was previously listed for sale and a question was raised regarding the accuracy of the professional grade. This item was subsequently re-submitted to PSA for their technical review. Upon review, PSA confirmed that the grade is in conformity with PSA’s current grading standards."

It appears what PSA did with AJ's Leaf Jackie is how they are going to handle these going forward. One would have hoped the new regime would do better.

Maybe they should just abandon their so called and worthless guarantee. Very misleading and rigged process from the start.

So they just say send it back for review, subsequently returning it back saying it’s fine and fits their grading standards ?

Key Words He Uses Technical Review and Professional Grade.....I feel That’s PWCC Lawyer Speak way out of any liabilities by disclosure with gibberish.

Nothing is ever going to change with both companies. I’ve accepted it.

Remember when people were saying there was no conspiracy? Are they still saying that?

The ultimate power play, just reaffirm the bad grade. When you control the market you can do that.

If I say it's safe to surf this beach, damn it, it's safe to surf this beach.

PSA giving the finger to Blowout IMO is an existential necessity for them given their potential exposure under their "guaranty".

Also, as has been discussed before, the notion that PSA would ever objectively re evaluate a card resubmitted under their "guaranty" IMO is oxymoronic.

As I posted somewhere it's like the old Outer Limits opening. To paraphrase, do not adjust your television set, we control the horizontal, we control the vertical.

Even more broadly, it seems reaching an accommodation with card doctors is an existential necessity for TPGs, auction houses and many dealers. These scumbags have completely overrun the hobby and have it by the throat. And how ironic, given PSA's original mission/justification.

Exactly......to me it will never changes. Very Disappointing....as alway with them...it’s either shut up and except it or move on.

"A world-class blue-chip which is deserving of the finest portfolio."

That's all that matters.

Props to the guys over at Blowout, doing the Lord's work as they say.

He just doesn't give a damn. Anything for the dollar. And to think how many people here defended him passionately.

To clarify, he obviously knows the card is altered (how could he not?), but is not only selling it but touting the heck out of it.

The passionate defense appears to have further emboldened him.

The only thing that still surprises me is that this Carter is worth $83.11 with just a hint of slight wear on the top corners. It is worth $16,600 to make the corners just slightly sharper. Something like a 1% improvement in the cards appearance produces a valuation 200x higher, and takes it from the cost of dinner to the cost of a car.

I still can't see any reasonable basis on which this can make any kind of sense, before we even get to the fact that so many of these cards are provably altered scams. As long as people will pay a fortune for labels, people will hack and alter cards to receive the much more valuable label. As long label buyers collectively don't care (should they even care? If they want a label saying their card is the most special, and that's what they get, they seem happy), nothing meaningful will happen, even if the government occasionally takes down a specific scammer.

For $20 each, I will print a label saying any card is just the most spectacular, amazing card I have ever seen. You don't even need to own the card to purchase my label for it. Your card, real or imagined, is a 12 on the 10 point scale. DM me for my PayPal.

As I've said countless times, somewhere along the way the flip became the commodity. Many factors involved perhaps, but ego is probably number one.

Believe me, he didn't need any emboldening.

A registry-fueled "competitive collecting" segment of the hobby...

Here is the bottom line, it’s unfortunate but this is what it is, and you guys are really smart and know this as well, Until Their Brand PSA Stops Selling as Number 1 this will continue. So many people are addicted to grading through PSA...it’s an addiction of dreams of getting that grade and making more and more money. That’s all it’s about. This won’t stop if and until they’re no longer #1.

“We have investigated ourselves, and found nothing wrong.”

You have accepted it.

I removed the name from the quote because when I say "you", I mean it in the collective sense.

"YOU" accepting it is actually the issue.

The opinion seller doubles down on its lie, the seller of said lie doubles down on the same lie, and there bids are hidden, so who knows how many bids (and bidders) there really are.

You buyers of opinions planted this garden, watered it, and reap it's rewards (both good and bad).

Doug "YOU have accepted it" Goodman

That’s True... I may not like it Buy I Accept it.

Greg, here's a Carter in a 7 holder from a different grading company. It's only at $3.25 right now.

www.ebay.com/itm/384190424199

I know I had a Carter RC in my collection from the 70's. It's gotta be somewhere in a 5000 count box. My best recollection is that it was around vg/e o/c.

Some would say money is number one.
.

I paid $2 for my EX Carter RC, the Mini version, at a local show c. 2008. Mini's are about as common as 88 Donruss out here in the Bay Area. Coming from a Giants family, I'm pretty sure Marc Hill's RC was half the appeal to me

When people say it’s not about the Money they’re fooling themselves, it’s always about the money number one, it’s the way or the world.

In words of the late B.I G.

More Money More Problems

I disagree, it's never about the money, for me it's always the friendships you make, the mutual love of the hobby, and helping each other out to fulfill whatever collecting path we go down. I'm grateful to so many members on this board that have helped me build my collection, the underlying constant with each one of them has always been trust, respect, and integrity.

That being said, it takes money to build a collection but that's a different discussion.

From what I’ve found over the past 30 year in this Hobby is many more people especially dealers, who isn’t a dealer now nowadays. It seems to me many like having these friends around more then me, Benjamin Franklin, Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew Jackson.


I’m just teasing you here!! But it’s truth hahha

I would agree, Pareto Principal applies, but there's a lot of folks here that are collectors not dealers. Now if your business is buying and selling cards it should be all about the dead presidents cuz there's not a lot of room for altruism.

Especially if PSA won't slab it.

One thing is for sure. This hobby is never, ever, ever going to clean itself up. Either law enforcement creates some deterrence this time that is enough to make at least some difference, or more likely, it doesn't.

Do you think outside regulation of some sort would make an appreciable difference?

I can't imagine the mechanism for that. I am talking about old fashioned criminal law, severely punish some of these card-altering cocky scumbags making millions of dollars and maybe the rest of them will actually have to think about whether they keep doing it. Up till now, they've been doing it in some cases for three decades, with no consequence except getting rich.

As long as this is the case, as stated above by G1911: "Something like a 1% improvement in the cards appearance produces a valuation 200x higher, and takes it from the cost of dinner to the cost of a car." Then you are correct; the hobby will never clean itself up.

And who do you think is to blame for the 1% = 200x? PSA controls the supply side by the distribution of grades, and we control the demand side by chasing and paying exponentially more $$ for exponentially smaller improvements in a card's condition. "The lure of easy money, it has a very strong appeal."

With regard to regulation: I have heard a few people speaking in nebulous terms; however, they have not floated any remotely realistic ideas. It was likely related to all the talk about sports cards being an "unregulated asset."

As for criminal law, couldn't the card doctors (and their accomplices) be prosecuted for fraud? One conviction, whether high-profile or not, is all it would take to establish a legal precedent...

Do you think the convictions of Bill Mastro and Doug Allen changed anything? IMO only MASSIVE multiple punishments are going to send enough of a message here.

I suppose not. Sorry, I thought they got nailed for a shill bidding scheme, not for the card doctoring.


No arguments here. Perhaps I'm a bit simplistic in my thought processes; however, it seems cut and dry to me. People and companies knowingly and willingly committing fraud in the name of profits should be punished.

Read the indictments. The Wagner (for Bill) and a rebacked Plank (for Doug) were part of it.

Absolutely. Whether that happens, I don't know. Until then, these brazen pieces of garbage will continue to do what they do, seemingly facilitated by TPGs and many AHs who have compromised their integrity to accommodate them.

Additionaly:

Record sales from the past 6-12 months, coupled with massive numbers of new "collectors" into the hobby, have likely taken things farther in the wrong direction.

Indeed. The bottom line is that having a pool of cards with much higher grades than they would be in their natural state is a win win win for everyone except those of us who actually care. As one of the most successful pieces of garbage was heard to have said, I'm just making guys what they want.

There are also the people who get stuck holding the bag somewhere down the road when their "mint condition" card is exposed as Authentic Altered. This would presumably cause the value to drop significantly.

For this to happen, though, there would have to be a larger number people who care than there are currently.

Sadly, I believe that the number of people who care will be less and less as time goes by. And when there is this much money to be made altering cards, the amount of time and money put into making those alterations will always greatly exceed the limited time that the TPGs put into grading the cards. Personally I have never believed that the TPGs had the ability (not to mention the motivation) to truly detect micro-trimming and other expertly done alterations, a belief that kept me away from high grade cards since I began collecting vintage.

As much as many of us would like to believe otherwise, great looking cards in A holders could be one of the best long term investments that you can make in vintage cards right now. If at some time in the future ALL high grade vintage cards are suspected to have been altered, even if most weren't, why would the great looking card in the A holder be worth a fraction of the price of the others? And if, in the future, some great new technology does somehow allow the TPGs to detect alterations accurately, do you think that they're going to start putting 30% or 40% or 50% of all previously high grade big dollar vintage cards in AA holders!?! There is no way that would happen, they'd be slitting their own throats financially. They are more likely to spend their money burying that technology to make sure that it never sees the light of day.

Plenty of room for ethics though

100% agree Scott, there are a lot of good dealers in this hobby. I wish they got half the press the unethical folks do.

I recently read the book The Man in the High Castle after watching the series on Amazon. This passage really struck me as interesting (slightly edited):

…no one could possibly estimate the percentage of forgeries in circulation. And no one—especially the dealers and the collectors themselves—wanted to.
…it had never occurred to them to ask themselves if the so-called historic art objects for sale…were genuine. Perhaps someday they would...and then the bubble would burst, the market would collapse even for the authentic pieces. A Gresham’s Law: the fakes would undermine the value of the real. And that no doubt was the motive for the failure to investigate; after all, everyone was happy. The factories…which turned out the pieces, they made their profits. The wholesalers passed them on, and the dealers displayed and advertised them. The collectors shelled out their money and carried their purchases happily home, to impress their associates, friends, and mistresses.
Nobody was hurt—until the day of reckoning. And then everyone, equally, would be ruined. But meanwhile, nobody talked about it, even the men who earned their living turning out the forgeries; they shut their own minds to what they made…

In the words of GEOEGE COSTANZA

JERRY JUST REMEMBER....IT’S NOT A LIE IF YOU BELIEVE IT.

CAN WE CHANGE TO THAT FROM NEVER GET CHEATED?

Money and greed is what leads trimmers to do what they do. Ego is what causes a Millionaire/Billionaire, to spend 12 grand on a Gary Carter Rookie card that already has red flags attached to it.

.....and let's be honest. You might not be rich and saved up for that bucket list card for that amount. Prior to the last 24 months, it might have been a very nice Mantle, Cobb, Aaron, Mays, Gretzky, Chamberlain, Jordan or even Ruth.

Nobody has an already outed Gary Carter Rookie card on their bucket list, unless they have boatloads of disposable income, 35+ lbs. of non-recyclable plastic housing hundreds of 1975 Topps cards (likely a good portion of them also trimmed), and gunning for high placement on a magical "registry list", that might one day get them a pat on the back, a paper certificate, and a few free vouchers from PSA, if they're feeling especially generous.

They don't especially care whether that card has been trimmed or not. They just want to win the "I have the most money to spend on a 1975 Topps Baseball set" ribbon.

To some extent, the folks who are enchanted with graded cards and the number grades enable the crap of which some complain. Maybe break cards out of that plastic; and return to the joy of having the card, instead of the joy of the slab (as if there's any joy in that). And if you're buying that altered / doctored / regraded card, buy the CARD, and break it outa the deceptive slab as soon as you get it.

If you're upset with the altering and regrading, add to that being upset with your own faith in the third party grading; and then quit financially supporting it.

You’re right. But they won’t, because they’re addicted to the Money...

That's about as persuasive as saying women should stop enabling assault by dressing provocatively.