[benjulmag]

It makes sense that if the technology exists to in a cost-effective way provide a significantly more reliable method of "grading" cards that it is just a matter of time before such a service is introduced to the market place.

Whether PSA would be the one to do it, that is another question. If it is PSA, that would be some spectacle -- PSA offering a new service that would put into plain view all the trimmed/altered cards that were missed by its old service. Just curious -- would a submitter be willing to pay a company for a service that shows that the company misgraded the card initially? In my view the reason many of the cards were misgraded initially was not because the old grading methods could not reasonably spot the alterations. They were initially misgraded because of sheer incompetence. So why then should someone have to pay the company to get it right the second time? And even if PSA would not demand the submitter pay if the re-grade established the initial grade was wrong, what about their warranty that accompanied the initial grade? I would think the first thing the submitter would do is demand PSA buy back the card. Then we would be getting into the whole mess of whether PSA would be required to make good on its warranty and the legal issues that could follow. In fact, the more I think about it, given this contingent liability, I question whether PSA would have any incentive to offer a more-technologically advanced grading service.

I continue to marvel at the spectacle of people caring little what was done to the card as long as the flip says what they want it to say. I'm trying to think of another "commodity" where the price is based not on what the commodity is but on what false branding says it is. An analogy would be the price of, say, gold being independent of whether the product being sold is real gold or gold-plated bronze. Maybe I am being naïve but I just can't believe the day will not come when such a superior grading service has become common-place and the market will demand that for a card to hold its value it will need to be re-graded by this new technology. Should that happen, I sure would not want to be an investor holding a long position in high-grade PSA vintage cards graded under the old method.