Quote:
Originally Posted by perezfan
Bob, you made a lot of good comments in your post, some of which may have gotten buried (due to the length of it). But one of the keys is that nobody knows how many altered cards are in numbered slabs. Card Doctors have been at it forever, and it's only recently (through use of the internet and excellent detective skills) that these alterations have been identified.
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Sorry for my long posts, but I'm old school and not a child of Twitter and Instagram. If I'm going to say something I'm going to try and present a complete picture/argument/statement and not just put out a quick line or two. All too often someone puts down a line or two and it is so vague or incomplete that most people misinterpret or misunderstand what they are trying to say, and then more or less ignore or really don't even think about what they read. If someone reading my posts realizes I'm not just blurting out or making a knee jerk reaction or statement as to what is going on, it will hopefully get more people really thinking about the issues and problems.
The questionability as to the alteration of so many cards is already out there, the proverbial horses have already left the barn and they aren't coming back!!! Absent card doctors coming forth and admitting what they have done and what graded cards are out there that have been altered, we'll never know for certain which cards are or are not good. And that is only if they kept complete, accurate records and finally agreed to/were forced to share that information with the public. But because of all the time that has likely passed and the myriad of cards they have likely altered and put into the hobby over the years, who knows how many of those cards over time have been cracked out of their originally misgraded holders, re-submitted, changed from one TPG to another, or put back into raw form so that none of them can ever be traced back to original card doctor records. It is already too late as the taint to so many cards now exists, and unless we can come up with tests and measurements that definitely prove that a card has or has not been doctored/altered, we'll never be able to tell for sure the correct nature of almost any graded card, and unfortunately, maybe even quite a few raw ones out there that had been broken out of their holders. And even if it were possible to come up with definitive tests and procedures to prove or disprove alterations, who is going to bear the brunt for the costs to have every card out there re-tested and graded, and who is going to be the group/company to do it? And maybe even worse, if you have a large collection or inventory of graded cards, do you really want to have someone go through them and then let you know a large portion of them are not completely legit and have been altered? There are so many innocent collectors/dealers out there that stand to get hurt it is frightening.
And as Swarmee mentioned in one of his earlier posts, in previous scandals the powers that be in the hobby would be quiet and merely wait for things to blow over and then go back to business as usual. This may be a little different though as the current scandal may be a lot bigger than previously thought and more far reaching. Also, as I've tried to point out, with the possible involvement of a publicly traded entity, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, it has added a new, unique perspective and twist to the issues and also the potential for another stage on which news of the issues can be presented and brought to the media and public at large. Issues and potential scandals involving baseball cards is really only of interest to a very small part of the public, and a lot of people in the mainstream think we're weird and strange to begin with because we still collect cards as adults, so they really aren't going to be that interested and care much about are situation or problems. However, now have those same issues and scandals possibly affecting a publicly traded company and its stock value and suddenly you have a whole new and potentially larger portion of the public that may be interested in what is going on. So all the more chance it finally gets more publicity and notice. PSA/CU is not really a very large company, even though publicly traded, and likely won't ever get front page mention on the Wall Street Journal, but you never know!!