Article about Collecting and Fraud in the Hobby
 

Hi Gang:

A recent article appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News regarding the hobby. Some of our members and are interviewed and shown in photos. Sadly, I can't show the photos and the article can be seen by subscription only, but I copied it below

SPORTS
Fraud is ‘rampant’ in sports collectibles. Here’s how the industry and collectors are trying to fight it.
The hobby has struggled to regulate itself, creating opportunity for bad actors looking to cash in.

A fan holds an autographed baseball.
A fan holds an autographed baseball.
Aaron Doster / AP
by Jon Marks, For The Inquirer
Updated Sep 13, 2022

The collector had no idea he had been scammed. He had bought autographed baseballs for 25 years, amassing 263 in his collection that include some of the all-time greats: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Cy Young, and Christy Mathewson, as well as current stars such as Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Bryce Harper. He even had all-star team balls signed by every player, all of them authenticated as legit.

So there was no reason to suspect the Thurman Munson ball he purchased a decade ago was a fake until the auctioneer he bought it from contacted him last year.

“They had been tracking this [forger] because there was a painting he forged,” said the Montgomery County collector who prefers to remain anonymous. “They followed the money.

Pictured is the autographed baseball collection by a Montgomery County collector, including a fake Thurman Munson ball (fourth from the left on the second row).
Pictured is the autographed baseball collection by a Montgomery County collector, including a fake Thurman Munson ball (fourth from the left on the second row).
Jon Marks
“The way it was explained to me, he’d pay his people with checks and they were able to trace where the money went and found other people who did this and they all came clean. The FBI got back to the auction house and said this ball was forged and they called me and said, ‘It’s a fake and we need it back.’ They turned it over to the FBI.”

He’s not the only one to fall victim to a practice that has grown in recent years. Despite ongoing FBI investigations and better public awareness, fraud in the sports collectibles industry has become a problem.

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“There’s a lot of money out there,” said Brian Brusokas, an agent with the FBI’s Art Crimes Team, which was created in 2007 to investigate suspicious activities in several areas, including sports collectibles. “That’s when the unscrupulous actors start to take advantage of collectors.

“That’s what myself and my colleagues in the FBI are looking to root out.”

Al Crisafulli of Love of the Game Auction House, which specializes in vintage pre-war cards.
Al Crisafulli of Love of the Game Auction House, which specializes in vintage pre-war cards.
Jon Marks
While the vast majority of collectors and dealers are legit, Brusokas said there is that element that will try to take advantage of unsuspecting customers. The 1999 FBI investigation called Operation Bullpen and subsequent Operation Foul Ball resulted in numerous convictions in several states and recovered millions in phony memorabilia, but instances of fraud have been on the rise in recent years.

‘Rampant’ fraud
“It’s rampant and it’s been rampant for years,” said Al Crisafulli of Love of the Game Auction House in Kingston, N.Y. “The authentication companies have done a pretty good job on the autographs side, so you’re usually good as long as what you’re buying has been authenticated by a reputable company.

“The hobby has not done a good job policing itself and it’s not regulated. If you have a car with 100,000 miles on it and roll back the odometer, you can go to jail. But in this hobby, there is no governing body. No laws that prevent somebody from theoretically doctoring a card, getting it past the grading company, and having it go to auction. There hasn’t been anybody who’s paid a really stiff punishment.”

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Perhaps that’s why there were long lines in July at the National Collectors’ Convention in Atlantic City for the Professional Sports Authentication and James Spence Authentication sites, considered the foremost authentication authorities.

“There’s a lot of fraudulent memorabilia in the market,” said Chris Carlin, the director of customer care at California-based PSA. “We employ some of the most renowned autograph experts in the world, which is why people are in long lines here today.

Jay and Jim Lutz of Bucks County Baseball Co. in Bristol. They are a father-and-son team, specializing in the Phillies and other Philadelphia team memorabilia.
Jay and Jim Lutz of Bucks County Baseball Co. in Bristol. They are a father-and-son team, specializing in the Phillies and other Philadelphia team memorabilia.
Jon Marks
“Grading services are where we will authenticate and encapsulate trading cards and assign them a numeric grade from 1-10. Autograph authentication is done by PSA/DNA.”

PSA/DNA is a detailed four-step authentication process that includes using invisible ink containing a synthetic sequence specific to PSA.

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“Our services are designed to protect the consumer,” said Carlin, who added they’ll soon be changing the name from PSA/DNA to PSA Autograph Division to avoid confusion since no actual DNA is used. “If we don’t have confidence in what’s presented to us, we will not pass it through the process.”

One major case
Just as the collectibles industry has expanded, so have the degree and levels of fraud. The fraudulent autographed Munson ball referenced earlier, as well as fake Ruth and Lou Gehrig autographs on bats by using wood from that era, are believed to have been perpetrated by Donald “DB” Henkel, who was indicted in April by the Department of Justice along with his brother Mark and another man. His Michigan studio was reportedly raided in July 2020, although the FBI would not confirm that since it’s part of an ongoing investigation. All three men have pleaded not guilty to federal fraud charges for allegedly scheming to create and sell false works of art and memorabilia.

“[Donald Henkel] is one of the best who ever lived,” said Jeremy Kraft, who has worked for Hunt Auctions in Exton for 14 years after spending four years as an authenticator. “It’s unreal what he can create.

Chris Ivy, Heritage Auctions Director of Sports Auctions, holds a 1952 Mickey Mantle card that sold for a record $12.6 million in August.
Chris Ivy, Heritage Auctions Director of Sports Auctions, holds a 1952 Mickey Mantle card that sold for a record $12.6 million in August.
LM Otero / AP
“Certain forgers’ work can be identified. That case is more of an anomaly, as forgers who are not necessarily talented can operate for some time.

“Most never get called out. But there are guys who are talented and who pump stuff out. At one time, there were tens of thousands of bad [Mickey] Mantle and [Joe] DiMaggio pieces that came into the market.”

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Besides producing fake autographs, there’s also the business of altering cards. Smoothing out rough edges, changing the degrees of color and realigning the print face can change a card’s value. So a card originally graded as a 4 suddenly is a 5 or 6 and so on.

But that’s not the case with the prize collection recently auctioned off by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. The company, which also specializes in world and ancient coins along with comic books, auctioned off a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card last month that graded 9.5. It sold for a record $12.6 million, easily surpassing the $7.25 million that a T-206 Honus Wagner card went for in a recent private sale.

“It’s got beautiful corners and everything about it is perfect,” said Crisafulli, whose auction house specializes in vintage pre-war cards. “Now, if you had this same card with a smushed-in corner, maybe that’s going to be a 4 worth around $70,000.

“If there was a way to take that smushed-in corner and straighten it to fool graders into a 5, that might go for $120,000. A 6, even more. With these kind of incremental changes, you can impact the value by trimming cards’ edges to make them a little sharper or adding color. It’s not easy to do, but for the people who do it, it’s fraud.

Julie Develin, founder of Women in the Hobby.
Julie Develin, founder of Women in the Hobby.
Jon Marks
“You’re lying about what you have and it devalues the card. The other thing it does is it causes the person who buys it to shell out a lot more money than they should for the card.”

In the mail: Nothing
Then there’s simply the old switcheroo.

“I met a guy who wanted to do a trade with me,” said Chicagoan Sam Nubani, who said his collection is worth $10 million. “I thought I could trust him.

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“He said he would mail me my cards and I would mail him his at the same time. I go to FedEx to mail my box when I get notification he mailed his. Two days later, I get the box and it’s empty. I lost about 70 grand.”

It comes with the territory.

“Yes, it’s something we always worry about,” said the founder of Women in the Hobby, Julie Develin, who grew up playing softball in Plymouth Meeting. “I feel like 95% of those in the hobby are probably good actors, but fraud absolutely happens.

“From my niche, women in general are probably preyed on more because we’re perceived as not having as much knowledge, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I’ve been scammed on eBay. I think all of us have.”

But the longer you’ve been around, the more you learn to sense when something might not be right.

I found in the ’90s, there were more fraudulent companies out there, but some of those items are still out in the marketplace. Today’s autographs are much more secure. Where it becomes harder are those older autographs.

Jim Lutz of Bucks County Baseball Co.
“Experience kind of tells us where we can see things that are kind of red flags,” said Jim Lutz, who works with his son, Jay, at Bucks County Baseball Co. in Bristol, where they used to get Mike Schmidt and other notable players to make personal appearances and sign for their customers. “When there are items people are trying to sell us, we kind of vet things.

“I found in the ‘90s, there were more fraudulent companies out there, but some of those items are still out in the marketplace. Today’s autographs are much more secure. Where it becomes harder are those older autographs.

“Even with the best authenticators, all they’re giving you is an opinion. It’s an educated opinion, but Connie Mack used to have a secretary do his signings.

“She was as good as he was. That’s a true story.”

Brusokas said that while the industry has made strides to inspire customer confidence over the last 20 years, collectors should remember that grading memorabilia is not a science but “an educated opinion.”

“Collectors should purchase sports collectible items because they enjoy looking at them, learning about the players or because looking at the item takes them back to a special time in their life, not for the resale value,” Brusokas said.

And as Carlin advises, if a deal looks too good to be true, “it probably is.”

Published Sept. 13, 2022
JM
Jon Marks, For The Inquirer
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A

"No laws that prevent somebody from theoretically doctoring a card, getting it past the grading company, and having it go to auction."

Hard to read, who said that? It's not right if the third part above is included. We've been through this extensively. Mail and wire fraud apply to knowingly selling an altered card and not disclosing that it's altered, at least if most people would view the alteration as material (eg trimming). It isn't a defense that you fraudulently graded it. That's why we have, or had, an FBI investigation.

Peter:

in reading the article the wording you are questioning seem to be in quotes from Al Crisafulli

Well I am not going to judge anyone on the basis of a quote in the press, as he may have been misquoted or taken out of context. But the statement as quoted is wrong, there clearly is an applicable legal framework as was discussed ad nauseum a couple of years ago and since, and the FBI would not have investigated if there wasn't. And PWCC would not have cooperated (for a long while anyhow), and his elite criminal lawyer would not have advised him to, if there wasn't. Maybe the reporter should have asked Special Agent Brusokas if he wanted to know about the law..

$$ Seventy Thousand Dollars $$
 

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“I met a guy who wanted to do a trade with me,” said Chicagoan Sam Nubani, who said his collection is worth $10 million. “I thought I could trust him.

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“He said he would mail me my cards and I would mail him his at the same time. I go to FedEx to mail my box when I get notification he mailed his. Two days later, I get the box and it’s empty. I lost about 70 grand.”



... maybe it's just me , but for 70K I would gas-up the Park Avenue , shanghai a grand kid out of school for a day to help drive , and meet in the parking lot of Los Pollos Hermanos if need be, but we be doing that 70K in person , hombre.

..

I have a friend who bought a 52T Mantle from a guy through the mail or maybe it was Fed Ex and received a 57T. It was a long painful process but we got his money back.

Fraud and manipulation have always been a big part of this industry you just have to educate yourself and as always buyer beware, that’s it. It’s up to you to watch your own ass, no one else will.

Don't disagree with you at all Peter, but what has come of that FBI investigation? I understand the Covid pandemic may have had an impact on its progress and continuation, but how many years is it now, with no further word, decision either one way or another, or even a hint of a possible resolution anytime soon? To my knowledge, any and all suspect parties seem to be carrying on with business as usual, and have really suffered no significantly discernible negative effects from being the potential targets of such an investigation.

And along those same lines, what has been going on with the BODA/Blowout guys blowing the whistle and outing all those resurfacing doctored cards that helped to start the investigation? I am not on Blowout, but seemed to almost regularly see postings and warnings on our forum of their ongoing discoveries of altered cards being put up for sale. Are they still doing that? I can't remember the last time I heard about their latest investigative findings/outings.

And as for the selling of altered cards and the potential fraud aspect of it, I wanted to make sure I fully understand your comment and point. Anyone can alter or doctor a card they own, that is no crime, period. And even if someone knowingly altered/doctored a card, their submission of it to any independent TPG for that TPG's opinion of said card is also in no way a criminal offense either, still correct, right? The trick and potential crime seems to start coming when the card is put up for sale/auction by an independent, third-party seller/AH the card doctor decides to sell the card through. If a card doctor goes to directly sell an item themself, say through Ebay, even if the card was mistakenly graded by a TPG I understand the card doctor as the actual, direct seller would still be considered responsible to inform potential buyers of the known alterations/restoration to the card, and can therefore potentially be subject to fraud implications and charges if they don't. But does that potential criminal liability for a card doctor dissipate, or possibly go away entirely, when instead of selling a card directly themself they opt to consign it to an independent third-party seller or AH?

If any third-party seller/AH that ends up selling an altered/restored card without proper disclosure is truly independent of the card doctor who consigned it to them, and was never made aware of the alterations/restoration to that card they were selling, I would think that at least technically they are not criminally liable and potentially guilty of fraud. And since I've never consigned anything for sale to a third-party seller/AH I have to ask, do any such sellers/AHs ever directly and specifically ask consignors of cards to be sold if they have been altered/restored to that consignor's knowledge, despite what a TPG may have graded and encapsulated a card as? And are there any specific federal/state/local laws that may otherwise require those sellers/AHs to ask such specific questions of consignors. Absent positive responses to either of these questions, I can see how the FBI's investigation may have stalled if one of their goals was to somehow implicate and charge these sellers/AHs/TPGs with being a potential party to such fraud.

But unless the card doctors can somehow get out of potential criminal fraud liability by using unrelated and independent TPGs, sellers, and AHs to kind of buffer and insulate them from such criminal fraud charges, I'm a bit surprised that the FBI's investigation hasn't then just focused on going after the card doctors. If for nothing else than to bring charges against them, and then use that as leverage to sway the card doctors to turn against the TPGs, sellers, and AHs that may in fact have been working in cahoots with those same card doctors all along after all. But maybe it is still too early in the FBI's investigation, and we just haven't reached that point yet.

So Peter, if the FBI's investigation is unable to link the TPGs, independent sellers, and AHs as conspiring and working with card doctors to defraud the public, you're saying the card doctors can 100% still be held criminally liable for fraud themselves under the way they seem to be selling their altered/restored cards now, right? Or is it possible that without air-tight evidence of collusive activity among the suspected parties involved that even with the Blowout/BODA investigative work and findings, the FBI may not be able to get convictions against individual card doctors alone from such evidence.

Our hobby does not have a definitive, agreed upon, single set of standards and measures, appears to be based a lot on mere opinions of supposed "expert" third parties that can very easily be shown and proven to lack consistency and whose opinions are ripe with errors and mistakes. Also, not all people in the hobby necessarily look down or disapprove of restorations or improvements being made to items like cards. In fact, arguably the most famous/infamous, as well as arguably most valuable, card in the hobby is now definitively known to have not been properly issued as it should have been, and deserves no numerical grade whatsoever. This isn't even debatable given the supposed standards the opining TPGs and the hobby as a whole supposedly promote and follow. And yet, the card's grade has never been corrected, nor has the TPG involved corrected the listing of the improperly graded item in their own population records. Start putting that kind of information and evidence in front of a jury of non-card collecting nerds, like most on this forum, and who knows what kind of reasonable doubts that could raise in just one juror's mind.

I have no idea about the status of the FBI investigation. Certainly, we have seen these things take even longer, you may recall that the indictment only came down recently for the T206 forgeries that happened if memory serves five or so years ago. I also speculate, and it's pure speculation, that if it had ended with no action, certain people would have been proclaiming their innocence in public. But again, I have no idea.

One of the three BODA guys is still active. I suspect the others just got back to their lives, it was a huge commitment of time and effort, all unpaid.

In my judgment a card doctor could not insulate himself from mail/wire fraud by arranging for someone else to make the sale, any more than the fact that the card doctor defrauded a TPG would somehow be a defense. The card doctor/consignor is still directly responsible for the misrepresentation/omission assuming he doesn't disclose it to the seller. I haven't researched it but I have to believe the statute would reach that. The AH or other seller, on the other hand, if innocent, and that's debatable in many of these situations, would not have the necessary mens rea to be guilty of a crime.

I agree with your thinking, but was wondering from the legal side if you thought/knew there was possibly some specific ambiguity(ies) in the law that could potentially keep prosecutors from reaching that "beyond a reasonable doubt" level in juror's minds. Given all the inconsistencies and such as are in this hobby, a non-collector in looking at a lot of what we've come to accept as normal would likely laugh and roll their eyes at us collecting nerds.

And you're probably right about the FBI still being in the midst of investigating. No one has been, or looks to currently be, in danger of any physical harm or violence, so timing isn't as critical for the FBI to stop someone in this case. And the potential theft/loss some people may have initially incurred, when buying these altered cards from the card doctors selling them, could have been (and very likely was) quickly turned around and negated if and when these initial victims later turned around and then unknowingly resold these altered/doctored cards to other unsuspecting victims. In many cases for possibly even bigger profits and amounts than the card doctors got away with to start, given the huge jump in card prices in recent years.

And that leads to another question concerning such fraud. I know in the case of a card's theft, if after the theft the card changes hands a few times involving unsuspecting and innocent buyers, that card, if later discovered by authorities to have been taken in a theft, can forcibly be taken from the then current owner, and rightfully returned to the original theft victim. What would happen in a fraud case to the then current unsuspecting and innocent owner of a valuable card if it suddenly was discovered and came out during a trial of the person that originally doctored/altered the card that their card they now owned had been altered, and was now worth thousands of dollars less than they paid for it? And to further complicate things, the altered card you now own had changed hands several times after the initial sale by the card doctor, right after he first altered the card and then got it erroneously graded by some TPG. There's no theft victim for the card to be returned to, so without question you own the card. But now that its alterations are outed and you know it, you can't sell it to anyone else without fully disclosing those alterations (unless you now want to potentially be liable for fraud also). So say you do sell it, after properly disclosing the alterations, and lose your ass on it. What actual legal recourse(s) do you have, if any? Can you go back against the also innocent person/dealer you bought it from, or do you go back against the original card doctor? And what about the TPG that improperly graded it, can you just go back at them assuming they don't voluntarily make you whole for their original mistake, even though you never dealt with them personally in regard to getting the card graded? Or is this TPG issue further complicated by having to now go back and read, decipher, and interpret the various agreements and contracts that were signed and entered into at the time the card in question was graded, even though you were never involved nor signed or agreed to anything with the particular TPG that graded your card? Or are you just SOL, get hit with the loss, and can only end up checking with whatever insurance coverages you might have to see if by some miracle one of them will agree to cover and pay you at least something for your loss?

And I'm asking this as a very serious question, as given the presumed decades over which card doctors are believed to have been operating, and the unfathomable number of altered cards thought to be out in the hobby market/community today, the chances for any of us with even just a somewhat modest collection of graded cards to unknowingly have an altered card or two in our personal collections is a lot stronger than I know I'd ever care for it to be. I'm guessing the possibility of ever catching and really outing a truly significant percentage of these altered cards in the hobby is virtually nil. Despite the best efforts of the BODA/Blowout guys, they're probably lucky if they've even scratched the surface on what altered stuff is out there. But having said all that, who knows if the FBI investigation does not one day pan out, and they nail one of these card doctors, who then in cooperation with the feds to hopefully lessen their punishment and sentence turns over records and documentation of literally thousands of cards they've altered over the years, along with which TPG slabs (and cert #s) they got those cards into. So, in case something like that ever came to be, I know I'd like to be aware of my potential recourse options if I suddenly found cards I owned on such an outed list.

Any good thoughts, comments or legal advice in regard to the above?

Well, your first remedy might be to ask PSA to review it under their marketplace guarantee. Good luck with that. See Leaf Jackie Robinson.

There's probably a misrepresentation/mistake theory in most or all states under which you could seek rescission against your immediate seller, even if they're innocent, although there may be limitations issues depending on how long ago your purchased. But if the seller isn't willing to accept the return, are you really going to litigate it with all that entails?

And exactly why I was asking. LOL

I've also heard in some instances where TPGs that supposedly have guarantees in place just almost automatically tell the affected party(ies) to go back to the seller as well. So much for guarantees right.

And trying to go back against a seller that was also just an innocent buyer at one point themselves, and prevailing, now turns that seller into a victim as well. So what recourse does that new victim possibly have then, but to try going against the person/dealer they bought it from as well. And potentially on and on back till it may actually get to the card doctor that originally altered and sold it, or the trail of prior sellers goes dark if it was one time say bought at a show years ago and the last victim has no record/receipt of who they bought it from. And with the possibility some of these altered cards have been out there for decades now, who knows how many innocent prior owners may be involved in one single card. What a potential cluster-you-know-what!

This seems to turn the potential outcome for victims in instances like this into nothing more than being players in a game of "Hot Potato". You just hope and pray you're not holding and owning a card when it gets outed and it is made public that it was altered. And the idea that TPGs may not be held accountable in such situations is appalling, and just another sign and reason why their control and sway over the hobby should be removed, and they should be subject to independent, outside review, and all TPGs forced to go by and adhere to one formally standardized and universally recognized set of consistent and unchanging standards. And no more contingent grading fees based on a cards value should ever be allowed either. That is totally wrong and clearly indicates a potential bias and conflict of interest for the TPG. And what about all the threads we have here on the forum asking about how the same card graded by TPG-A, will it be worth and sell for more (or less) if graded by TPG-B instead? That is like asking if say Amazon or Tesla's stock would suddenly trade for more, or less, if they decided to switch from one big auditing firm, like KPMG, to another big firm, like Ernst & Young. In the case of the stock prices, the correct answer is that it doesn't matter which accounting firm audits and opines on Amazon or Tesla's financials, they do their work following and adhering to the exact same rules and standards as all the other auditing firms out there. And the same should be the case for TPGs. It shouldn't be the TPG company that audits and opines on the condition of a card somehow impacting that card's perceived price/value, independent of the card's actual condition and grade. And it shouldn't matter which TPG grades a card as they should all come up with the same grade when looking at the exact same card..........period!

When the scandal first broke, Steve Sloan, PSA President, issued a statement telling people who thought they had altered cards to go back to their sellers. Of course the other problem with the guarantee is that it's like the Outer Limits -- we control the horizontal, we control the vertical. If they say your card is good, even if it isn't, you're out of luck.

Exactly, I remember that. So what good is the guaranty then if they don't plan to honor it?

What gives the supposed extra value to a graded card is that a knowledgeable, independent, and unbiased expert is supposed to have examined it and given their opinion as to its authenticity and condition, based on a recognized set of uniform and consistently applied standards. And even if a TPG is only giving an opinion, if they are unable or unwilling to stand behind that opinion, then that opinion really isn't worth shit. The TPGs fully realizes that people are making financial decisions based on their opinions, and sometimes some very expensive ones. How they can escape liability by hiding behind it only being an opinion they are giving is exactly why the TPGs should ALL be required to follow a similar set of uniform grading standards determined and handed down by some hobby group or authority, not determined separately by each TPG as to what they think/want the grading standards to be, and then changing them to suit their own whims and wishes.

The point where the hobby has gotten to today has made it virtually impossible to ever expect the TPGs to give up their position and control over the hobby, either voluntarily or by force, without there being either some absolutely horrific incident/scandal that totally destroys a vast majority of the people/collectors/sellers in the hobby's current faith and trust in TPGs, or the government decides they need to step in and wrest such control from the TPGs, for whatever reason. I'm not holding my breath though.

I sold an unsigned raw card to Roger Till last week. These people are still rampant in the hobby

Funny, someone else I know did so last week as well.

Let me guess, the player has been dead a very long time.

I'm sure you've saved screen grabs of all pertinent sales info along with high-res scans of both sides of that card. Hoping it pops up "signed" soon enough and you can show your proof to the powers that be on whichever site it's encountered.

Coaches corner

If I recall correctly, PSA also reviewed some modern serial numbered cards where there were clear before and after pics showing trimming and simply reslabbed them with a new number.

Which comes back directly to the question of who is an expert, and who decides.
I think I'm pretty good, but wouldn't call myself an expert in many situations. I doubt saying "I've studied papers and printing for decades in multiple fields where it matters financially" would qualify me.
(My recent excursion into paper varieties of the various stamps issued by the allies occupying Germany..... sooo humbling! even with excellent catalog descriptions)

I have little doubt that the FBI has people who study those things in detail and who absolutely would qualify as experts.

PSA? nope. Maybe a few, but they basically abandon grading cards that aren't easy.

I don't understand the argument that selling a doctored card can be considered mail fraud if the underlying act of doctoring a card is not itself a crime.

People collect sneakers. Some pay big bucks for them too. You can clean up an old pair of Jordans and surely get more money for them than you could if you sold them grungy. Surely, there are sneaker "purists" who would prefer their sneakers to have never been "tampered" with, but that doesn't mean they get to set the rules for everyone on what is and isn't allowed. It's not a crime to clean and sell sneakers. It's not a crime to clean and sell comics. Surely, it's not a crime to clean and sell baseball cards regardless of how much profit someone makes in the process.

I've said this multiple times before, but I maintain that someone could openly admit to altering cards in front of a jury (even without having representation) and they would never be convicted of a crime under any and every circumstance imaginable.

The arguments for criminalizing this sort of behavior just comes across to me as wishful thinking on the part of those who would like to impose their views on others.

Assuming you are talking broadly about altering cards and not just cleaning which some don't view as alteration at all, are you suggesting I don't know this area of the law and you do? Are you suggesting Brent's elite criminal defense lawyer who along with me explained this at length in the day and later advised Brent to cooperate doesn't know the law but you do? Are you suggesting SA Brusokas has spent years investigating activity that was perfectly legal? Come on Travis, stop it.

As to your question, which is fair and you should have stopped there, you need to understand the nature of mail and wire fraud. just altering the card hasn't yet defrauded anyone through the wires or mail. It only becomes a crime when those elements are met, in other words when there's been a scheme carried out through the wires or mail by means of a material misrepresentation or non-disclosure. In other words, it's not the sale per se of the altered card that's the problem, it's the non -disclosure of the fact that it's altered. If I trim a card, get it past the graders, and sell it with full disclosure, there's no fraud. So your logic -- if it isn't illegal to alter it, it can't be illegal to sell it -- misunderstands the nature of mail and wire fraud. Oh, and in your free time read the Mastro indictment and the part about the Wagner. The part that allegedly was mail fraud was not the trimming but the concealment.

Now if your REAL point is not that it couldn't be a crime, but that it isn't something that SHOULD be prosecuted, that would be a different point and discussion.

We all know to avoid PWCC so we are good 😊

Sadly, fraud is rampant because a lot of collectors only care about the grade of the card/item, not how it got the grade. They don't want backstories, they don't want to know, they just want a high grade.

bob, I suspect that the FBI has their hands full at the moment with the events unfolding at Mar a Lago and that lower priority cases are on hold.

Bottom Line 99% of the hobby doesn’t give a crap what was done to the card as long as it’s in a holder with number grade. It’s just the way it is. Right or Wrong criminal or not. Idk it’s not a crime to alter cards. I think not disclosing “restoration” is wrong but criminal. it’s super hard to prove….The juice to me is not worth the squeeze.
PWCC has been exposed by the court of public opinion and removed from eBay, that’s enough for me. I just avoid.

If you're right how remarkable, given that the very premise on which PSA was founded was the hobby needed an objective firm to identify altered cards. Read the early ads.

Never mistake a company’s ads for their actual goal ;). The first big card they graded was altered, and as I recall the evidence, they knew it.

David Hall said otherwise. Bill Hughes was quoted by Mike O'Keefe as sort of acknowledging it if memory serves, but as I understand it he disputes that.

LOL

Great point, but that is a much more recent incident. Still, I hope the FBI prevails in both cases to getting the correct answers and just outcomes.

Sadly Johnny, your 99% figure is probably not that far off. I would guess (hopefully) that more than 1% of the people in the hobby cared about this issue, but probably not much more. And you're absolutely right that it may not always be so easy to prove that someone had doctored a card, and defrauded someone by not disclosing the alteration/restoration. When you look at the hobby and how the reliance and faith that is put in the major TPG's graded cards seems to override everything else, those TPG grading standards are accepted as the final word by a vast majority in our hobby. And to an awful lot of people, I feel the thinking might be that if the alteration/restoration is so good the top TPG's can't even detect it, then the card is good as is, and it is only the ultra-nerdy purists, like many of us here on Net54, that really give a rat's ass about this.

It can be easily pointed out how restoration (and even some alteration) being done to items is completely accepted in other collectible circles, like fine art. Cleaning of paintings is considered universally acceptable in conserving and enhancing the look, and maybe even more importantly the value, of works of art. Meanwhile, erasing or removing writing or glue residue on cards, or cleaning stains off them, will get different answers and levels of acceptability from different card collectors. And if you start putting such conflicting and differing views in front of a jury, I can see them having at least some reasonable doubts as to there being criminal fraud having occurred when someone sells a card that was altered/restored, and then passed the inspection of one of the major, accepted TPGs when it was graded.

Look at another example. If you sell a house, and don't disclose a significant problem or issue, the buyer could possibly come back at you. But what if you sold the house "as is", with no guarantees given or implied? Or, alternatively, you went ahead and paid for an inspection by a qualified, reputable home inspection company that found and opined there were no major problems or issues with the house, and you provided the buyer a copy of that inspection report, which they then relied upon, prior to them buying the house. I know that the sale of a house doesn't likely get someone involved with mail/wire fraud, like selling and then sending a card through the mail does, but I think the use of an inspection company can go a long way in protecting a seller should some issues later come up. And wouldn't there be some correlation between a TPG opining on a card's condition, and a home inspection company opining on a house's condition?

The real problem is the TPGs cannot accurately and consistently detect ALL of the restorations and alterations that are being done to cards, yet pretty much a vast majority of the hobby community accepts the TPG opinions as the final word over anyone else's. Heck, wasn't that the very reason TPGs came about, because you supposedly couldn't trust what dealers and sellers told you are a card's condition? So which is it, the TPGs are basically right and their opinions stand, or they aren't basically right and none of their opinions should stand? And then throw that at a jury of people who likely couldn't care less about card collecting. Unless the FBI can somehow tie any TPGs, sellers, and auction houses that may be involved in their investigation into knowingly and collusively working with card doctors to intentionally defraud people, it may be more difficult to convict just a card doctor alone of fraud than many may think. Think about it, if altering/restoring a card gets it a higher TPG grade, and someone will then spend more for it, how are they defrauded if they turn around and can also sell it at a higher price based on that altered/restored grade to someone else? THERE IS NO UNIVERSALLY RECOGNIZED AND 100% AGREED UPON LIST OR LINE AS TO WHAT IS OR IS NOT CONSIDERED AS AN ALLOWABLE ALERATION OR RESTORATION TO A CARD!

And a follow-up question(s) to my last post.

When submitting cards to a TPG for grading, do they specifically ask the submitter if they are aware of any cards being submitted having been altered and/or restored?

And to take it to the next step, do any auction houses or sellers ever ask people consigning graded cards to them to sell if to their knowledge any of the graded cards being consigned are incorrectly graded and have actually been altered and/or restored?

I'm going to guess the answer to both questions is likely NO!

I agree Bob, very well said :-). On the positive side, I do feel that PSA and SGC have become much better at detecting altered cards.

I think the PSA submission form requires the seller to state the cards are not altered.

Then that is great, and good to know. Have never submitted anything to PSA, and only once to SGC, to verify authenticity. And I don't recall SGC having a similar question regarding alterations, at least not at the time I made that one submission.

Still though, if a card doctor is smart, wouldn't they likely try then to make their submissions through an innocent third-party, like an AH or other seller they consigned a card to, to submit for grading and then sell for them? That was why I asked the second question in my last post. Ignorance can be bliss for some after all maybe?

Given the many millions many card doctors have earned, they seem smart enough. As I like to say, there is in my opinion an unholy alliance among card doctors, TPGs, and some AHs.

But apparently not good enough to catch ALL the stellar alteration and restoration work some of these card doctors can perform.

People talked about AI eventually being the answer, and lauded PSA for acquiring Genamint if I remember correctly, as a possible beginning to this improved alteration detection movement. But as then later discussed on here, that AI may not work anywhere near as well as many had hoped, and was likely years away from maybe ever having any real impact on the issue, whatsoever. What I do seem to remember though was the potential use of Genamint type/level of technology in the taking of high-resolution scans of cards, which could then detect and show a unique print/ink pattern of each card so you could definitively always identify one card from another, just like a fingerprint is unique for each human. That way if a car doctor altered/restored a card that had been previously scanned using this kind of technology, no matter how different that card may look after the alteration/restoration, you can forever show it was the same card. What the BODA/Blowout guys did/are doing is great, but I still don't think all their matches would garner 100% certainty like this technology could provide.

The problem though with detecting alterations and restorations with such technology is you'd have to have a scan of the unaltered/unrestored card image to compare to first. And for all the cards that have already been altered/restored, it is too late. And even in some instances where say one TPG had already graded and did the high-resolution scan of a card, what would stop a card doctor from buying the one TPG's graded card, breaking it out of the holder to alter/restore, and then submit it to a different TPG for grading and encapsulation? Or does anyone really think the TPGs would actually agree voluntarily to start sharing such information/images among themselves? I sure as heck don't see that happening anytime soon, if ever.

Well, here's a somewhat radical idea that could possibly resolve the issue. Maybe instead of fighting and arguing against alterations and restorations, have the hobby and industry embrace them. And by that I mean realize that many in the hobby have no problems or issues owning altered or restored cards, and may in fact prefer to have a much better looking altered/restored card than what it looked like in its original state. So why not recognize them as such and give them their own category? Instead of a TPG just listing an altered/restored card as "A" for authentic, and that is it, the TPG can recognize that not all alterations/restorations are the same. What if they noted the alteration/restoration done on the card, but then still gave the card a numerical grade based on how it looks, without factoring in the alteration/restoration itself. I guess maybe a little like how some TPGs would list and rate qualifiers on cards they graded. That way someone who doesn't get caught up in alterations/restorations can go out and find and pay for that 6 or 7 grade card they were looking for, and the purists can stick to only buying the unaltered/unrestored cards they prefer. For one thing, it could create new business for TPGs. Think of all the "A", altered and restored cards that are out there that their owners would send in for numerical grades.

And at the end of the day, let the market decide what different grades of restored/altered cards are worth. Just a thought and idea though.

Don't disagree in regard to that possibility at all. And exactly why I speculated a major goal of the FBI is to prove such collusion. But as some of my posed questions relate to all this, I wonder if there isn't a sort of unwritten "Don't ask - Don't tell" philosophy that permeates those in the hobby that are possibly involved. And since they all stand to make money from such business, they ask few or no questions to always maintain what for each of them then is a comfortable level of plausible deniability. And also why in my last post I proposed the possible idea of accepting alterations/restorations as an accepted part of the hobby after all. Prohibition didn't stop alcohol production and consumption, so they eventually re-legalized it, and put it under better monitoring and control. Maybe something along the same lines will help with alterations and restorations, whereby accepting them won't make the card doctors and others so prone to hide them. Who knows, what do we have to lose by trying something new at least?

BobC - not to get too deep into the weeds with your accounting firm analogy, but I'm not sure it's all that applicable here.

When an accounting firm issues an audit opinion, it's basically pass/fail. While regulators over the years have been trying to get accounting firms to be more nuanced, there's never been a real movement beyond the current pass/fail regime. Certainly if accounting firms were issuing opinions graded from 1-10, with half grades and qualifiers and sub-grades, then more people would spend a lot more time reading auditors' reports!

On the other hand, with the TPGs, if they were just opining on pass/fail, then their job would be pretty simple. But having to take all of the various factors for any given card, weight them, and then boil them down into a single number is a heck of a lot more exciting than just pass/fail.

I think when you add on issues around service, volume, perceived acceptance in the marketplace, encapsulation techniques, and other features, there are just too many opportunities for differentiation that I don't expect that the TPGs in our world will ever get to a spot where they're aligned in all respects.

And if you want to get deep enough into the weeds here, most of the major accounting firms have a list of scandals that goes pretty deep. Even if you just look at their PCAOB examination findings, they all seem to be doing an imperfect job of actually following those immutable professional standards. So hoping that the TPGs will be more like accounting firms may not be moving in the right direction.

Which isn't to say that TPGs (and auditors for that matter) couldn't do a lot better!

But to expect that the market will view TPG grading opinions no differently than auditors' reports is probably not a realistic expectation given the differences between the services offered and opportunities for innovation among the TPG services offered.

Well said! We are paying for an Opinion that’s it. To me nobody is perfect and nothing is going to catch All alterations. I like the way things are now with PSA and SGC :-)

An altered card is going to sell for a fraction of an unaltered card. We already know that from all the "Authentics" out there. Alteration is only lucrative if combined with deception.

Restoration is technically alteration though, correct? So what if some paper conservator was able to rebuild a card's corners and turn it into what would now be considered a high grade version of that card? Why not just call it what it is, a restored card, but then also give it the grade it deserves based on the card's merits and presentation, along with giving credit to the conservator for the work they performed?

And maybe in regard to value, doesn't a card graded 7(MC) often (or at least potentially) sell for more than a straight 5 or 6 grade? You never know for certain what the market will do and how it will react until you actually try something new. Maybe YOU would not pay any more if an altered/restored card were marked as such, and then given a numeric grade, but then YOU are also not representative of and speaking for everyone else in the hobby. Who really knows? Look at all the threads just recently on here talking about low grade cards that appear and present well, and oftentimes go for more than you'd expect given their technical grades. I know I once picked up a gorgeous E95 Wagner that was graded "A" due to slight trimming. It looks deserving of a 6, maybe even a 7 grade, if not for the trimming. My alternative for budget purposes may have been to pick up a really crappy looking 1 or 1.5 grade, if I could have even come across one. Am very happy with my trimmed/altered card in this case, and would probably value it much higher than a crappy looking 1 or 1.5 for sure.

Or what about cards that were put in screw down holders and are slightly, but unintentionally, flattened by the pressure. They may not have been altered on purpose, but still get the technical hit from TPGs. Some of them can be downright beautiful, and you can't really discern there's any difference from a non-squashed card when looking at it. I'd likely be okay and happy to pay more for that card, altered by pressing it too hard in a screw down holder, than I would for a crappy looking, but unaltered, version of it in say a 1, 2, or maybe even 3 grade.

Just a few examples, and certainly not covering all potential options and variations that can occur or happen in the alteration/restoration of cards, but I'm guessing I would be far from alone in my thinking and valuations in at least some of these instances.

To each his own, but I don't want restored cards, don't care how skillfully restored. Originality is what matters, and cards are appropriately valued and differentiated according to how well they survived the rigors of time. This isn't art where each work is one of a kind.

Hey Nicolo,

You are going a bit deeper than I intended. LOL

The point I'm trying to present is that at the end of the day, all the accounting firms and TPGs really do is give their opinions. And both are supposed to be (or in the case of TPGs, they should be) independent, knowledgeable, and giving their opinions based on a recognized and uniform set of rules and measurement standards, consistently applied. And if that is the case and actually true, why do the exact same cards, in the exact same grades, typically sell for more if graded by one TPG over another? You mentioned additional services and opportunities for innovations among TPGs as a basis for possibly explaining why one TPG's cards may sell for more than another's. Okay, what additional services and what innovations? I understand only one TPG has a working Registry, at least for now. Is that the additional services you're referring to? Because if so, is that Registry still the huge factor it once was in driving prices? If anything, I feel there may still be some carryover influence from the earlier days of the Registry where collectors would vie against one another to get that TPG's highest graded example of that card, but how many people, and what portion of the hobby, are still so actively involved in those Registry fights, especially when it comes to pre-war or vintage cards? For example, that SGC '52 Topps Mantle is now the most valuable card sold to date, and that doesn't impact anyone's registry standing. Further, I've often felt that in those cases of Registry fights, the dealers and sellers then actively push the "All boats rise with the tide." mantra to then justify pushing higher prices to customers of all the similar, but lesser condition cards they had and were selling. And a lot of that I always felt went back to the old Beckett price guides, or the SCD catalogs, which would base card prices off of a NM (or possibly EX-NM) figure, and values for other grades would then be a set percentage of those NM or EX-NM prices. And collectors got brainwashed and bought into that thinking. And because of those Registry people early on always pushing up prices for one particular TPG's cards over those of all the other TPG's, many in the hobby were sufficiently brainwashed into thinking that for some reason that one TPG's cards of equal grade and condition were somehow always intrinsically more valuable than any other TPG's similar cards. Just like Goudey Ruth cards were shown in the old Beckett's as his rookie card, and contributed to what I still feel is the extremely overpriced nature of those readily available and not rare at all cards today.

The truth is, one TPG's cards are intrinsically NOT more valuable, unless it is two Registry people suddenly vying for the same card. But of all the Ebay card sales, other online card sales, card sales at shows, and AH auctions going on out in the marketplace today, what percentage of those transactions today are truly driven by Registry considerations? And I'm talking about mostly pre-war and vintage, not the newer, modern stuff where many are possibly still actively trying to get atop those Registry lists that haven't been established and filled for years already.

That is why, and how, I possibly see the Registry as affecting and influencing prices of TPG graded cards. And for a vast portion of the hobby that don't give a rat's ass about a Registry or their set's Registry ranking, that isn't a service, it's a marketing technique I view as an overall bane to the hobby, and how certain players in this industry have been able to make a lot more money than they otherwise would have by pushing and continuing that thinking still to today. But my point is that if the TPGs really did what they were supposed to, opine and grade cards uniformly and consistently, then it wouldn't/shouldn't really matter which TPG graded it, the same card should sell for approximately the same price regardless of which TPG encapsulated it. Just like it doesn't matter which accounting firm opines on a company's financial statements and financial condition, as it has no bearing on stocks price in the marketplace, nor should it. As our beloved cards seem to be becoming more and more like investments every day, the parties that opine on them as to what gives them value, the TPGs that grade them, should aspire to be even more independent and consistent and non-biased in what they do. And a Registry really should not be influencing overall market prices like it may have in the past, and carried over to today. That fault lies with the collecting community, and more so with Registry geeks and followers who worship at it's feet.

And what innovations are you talking about? I don't know anyone that will pay more for a card in one TPG's holder over another, just for some perceived technological innovation that is yet to come from the one TPG.

And as for financial audits being a simple pass/fail test, they are a lot more than that. In college I learned the crux was in the finding of "competent sufficient evidential matter". And as for simply pass/fail, did you not ever work on an audit where you had to give a client "proposed audit adjustments" or basically edit or even re-write/add footnotes for them? Or what about walking into a company that has never been audited before, and having to be the one in charge of figuring out what look for, ask about, find evidence to test, and on and on. Not having someone else's prior year workpapers and checklists to literally just follow and copy off of certainly is a bit more involved than just running some pass/fail tests. LOL

And yes, I'm well aware of there being many accounting scandals and firms with issues over the years. But that is the point, they are known, and the accounting firms in many cases, if not most all, were held accountable and ended up paying for their issues and scandals, sometimes dearly. Author Anderson met their demise with Enron. I have a friend who was a national tax partner with Laventhol & Horwath, who didn't like the direction and way they were going and left them because of that about three years before they imploded. Unfortunately, he found out the hard way why being in a general partnership can be bad. What big, heavily publicized cases have any of the TPGs actually lost in court, or otherwise suffered/paid dearly for? Again, all why I feel TPGs giving opinions on a card's condition should be held to standards, rules, and oversight, and be much more accountable for their actions, similar to public accounting firms giving opinions on a company's financial statements and condition. It isn't a perfect match, but close enough for me. Will we ever see my wishes coming true though, honestly, probably not.

Do not disagree at all, and to each his own. Collect and buy the card, not the holder.

But heck, look at people posting right now in the other thread on the front page that Leon started, "I Don't Know About Ya'll (lower grades)". There are other members talking about embracing and starting to accept and go for some altered/restored cards. You hadn't posted in that thread, so I don't know if you've seen and read through it. If you do, you'll clearly see that not everyone follows your thinking and collecting standards. And that is perfectly fine, collect what and how you like, to each his own.

Of course, the type of thinking I'm talking about is maybe more appropriate for older, vintage and pre-war type cards where there may not be that many examples of some cards to begin with, and they aren't all usually in nicer shape, like you'd expect with more modern cards. The age, wear, and other faults more commonly find on older vintage cards also makes them much more likely to benefit from restorations/alterations that can be made to them. But I'm most definitely of the opinion that alterations or restorations should always be disclosed. I'm too much of an idealist on stuff like this, but you have to have some hopes/dreams in life, right? :)

I think it would depend entirely on what that alteration is and what the eye appeal is. If you put a 52 Mantle in a PSA "Authentic Altered" slab with no other info, then sure, it sells for significantly less. But if PSA revised their grading standards to put that same Mantle in a PSA A8 holder with a note about screwdown damage being the reason and that it otherwise looks like a NM-MT 8, then I'd wager good money that it would sell for a significant premium over the current AA holder.

I would revise your statement to say that cards are valued (appropriately or not) and differentiated according to how people perceive how well they survived the rigors of time.

The vast majority of high grade vintage cards have all been altered or restored. Ken Kendrick's collection is a prime example. So many of those cards have been trimmed. Even Nat Turner's vintage cards too. So many of those are alerted as well. I'm talking about obvious alterations too, not the ones that are difficult to tell. If they want to pay huge sums for cards to have razor sharp corners from issues that never had corners like that off the press, then the market will deliver. It always does.

I'm not making claims about anyone's knowledge of the law or lack thereof. I think my primary concern with your argument is that you seem to just declare that restoring a baseball card for the purpose of profiting from it is tantamount to fraud. That may be a majority opinion among serious collectors, but I don't think the rest of the world sees it that way. I don't even think most people would view it as slimy behavior, let alone criminal. I think they would just roll their eyes at us. The fact that someone profits from something that a niche group of people dislike doesn't make it a crime. Can you point to something specific that clearly makes this behavior a crime?

The fact that Brent sought legal counsel is not evidence of criminal activity. He has not been charged with any crimes related to this scandal, to our knowledge, despite the FBI being all up in his business. Nor has anyone else for that matter. Ever in fact (to my knowledge). And it's not due to a shortage of evidence. The feds were handed mountains of irrefutable evidence of multiple card doctors having bought, altered, regraded, and then resold cards for a profit. They know the names behind every account those doctors used on every online platform and who all was involved. In my observation, they clearly decided this was a nothing burger. I'm open to being wrong with my read of the situation, but the clock sure is ticking on that being the case if so.

I do not read support for the argument that Mastro's mail fraud charge had something to do with trimming the Wagner. To me, it reads as though it's merely a footnote that gets mentioned, but no where is he actually charged for it. Also, I believe Mastro himself references this fact in one of his interviews. I'd have to find it, but I believe he expressly states that the Wagner had nothing to do with why he was charged. Also, multiple associates of his were charged with mail fraud in the same case, yet they had nothing to do with that card. Also, I believe he said he sold it to the next owner in person in a cash deal, so how could mail fraud even come into play if so? My understanding is that the mail fraud charge was for auctioning off (and shipping) a baseball that he and his associates knew was a counterfeit.

Another disconnect that we're having though is with respect to the legal obligations (or lack thereof) that someone would have to disclose what they've done to a card prior to selling it. Obviously, it's the "right" thing to do in most cases, but that doesn't make it an obligation. I realize this may seem outlandish on the face of it for something like trimming a card, but if you continue along this path, you eventually find yourself having to defend the position that wiping off a fingerprint or a smudge from a modern chrome card is an act of "card molestation" that "must be disclosed" (I'm quoting this from Sports Card Radio's recent YouTube video where he hilariously, and quite literally, states precisely this - and he wasn't joking).

The real problem from my viewpoint is that people foolishly place PSA on a pedestal and fail to educate themselves on what they're actually buying. I have zero sympathy for those "collectors" (or "investors"). I collect raw sets. I don't need PSA's remarkably inconsistent opinion on the condition of the vast majority of my collection. I probably wouldn't even care if I found out that a few of the cards in my sets had been trimmed (so long as they still measure and look accurate). With the cards I do submit for grading, I only do so because the market dictates that it's necessary. And in those cases, I stick to low and mid grade cards, so alterations aren't much of a concern. And if I get a BS grade, I crack it out and resubmit until I get an accurate grade.

crime and whether someone wants to enforce it are 2 different things. But yeah if a 'crime' is never prosecuted its like if a tree falls in the forrest but noone is there does is make a noise..

In my life i always hear of people getting away with something but I know that if i ever did it, i would always get in trouble. (not that i would ever do it etc) However i sort of chalk this card altering business to that.

In a more serious nature there are atrocities is many parts of the world that people think are a nothing burger as well, so just saying other people dont care really is a nothing burger as well.

You are missing my point about Brent. His counsel advised him to cooperate in the investigation of which he was and may still be a target. If there was no possible crime here, he would not have so advised him. Likewise, if there was no possible crime here, the FBI would have dropped this very quickly. It did not.

I have a hard time seeing how altering an item without disclosing it for the purpose of increasing price is not fraud.

I also think the odds Brent gets charged for this are very small. The feds are not going to take the time and effort to clean up a hobby almost nobody actually wants cleaned up.