Quote:
Originally Posted by Pickles
perhaps not with full intent, but with lack of diligence and poor quality control
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I think this is the main issue. I don't think card companies making GU/GW cards have enough of an incentive to pay the costs of what it would take in time and personnel to appropriately investigate the authenticity of the GW/GU items they use. When a GW/GU collector is looking into purchasing a single item, they can do research to determine whether an item is likely legit -- or at least to determine whether there are issues that rule out its legitimacy. And when a purchase is made, they can further research it or even use a TPA. There's no way, except perhaps for a small number of high-profile items, a card company can or will conduct such research on these items. They likely take the word of the person (some honest, some not) selling the item, cut it up, and put it into the cards. At that point, it's extremely hard to detect whether the item was legit. The evidence is pretty much destroyed. (Although there have been instances in which folks have been able to tell from certain portions of jerseys that the jersey was not what it was represented to be.) I'm not in favor of cutting up jerseys or other items for these purposes, but beyond that I don't trust them either.