Quote:
Originally Posted by barrysloate
So I was speaking to a hobby buddy of mine yesterday, who reads this board (but doesn't post) and he asked a really provocative question: given how much bad stuff is out there, given that many card doctors are staying at least one step ahead of the graders, why are people still sinking such incredible amounts of money into this stuff?
And I need a better answer than stuff trumps all. Sure, good stuff may trump all, but nobody wants to sink money into trimmed, altered, and counterfeit material. Is it that only a small percentage of collectors know about this? Is it they trust TPG implicitly? Are they turning a blind eye? Do they believe that only the other guy's stuff is bad and they own only unadulterated material?
You would think that if this information was widely circulated, the market should collapse. And yet we regularly see enormous sums of money being spent on this high grade material. I'm sure somebody can figure this out.
My answer is that as long as the label reads "8", it's an "8." Case closed. But I think it's more than that.
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As a related point, I never have understood the large disparity in values of high-graded material (8 v. 8.5 for example). Even setting aside the issue of fraud, the subjectivity of the grading process