[BobC]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

+100

The issue is not whether the card is altered, but whether an “expert” authentication and grading company has certified/slabbed an altered card with a numerical grade, implying it has not been altered.

There are countless examples of PSA reaffirming their grades in the face of overwhelming evidence of grading. Beckett snd SGC are hardly clean themselves (although I openly favor SGC and think they do the nest job/make the fewest mistakes?

And that is a huge part of the issue/problem in that the TPGs are all for profit businesses, so they only do so much and spend so much time looking at each and every card they grade so they can turn a profit. They don't have the resources, time, and people to research each and every card like the BODA guys do in their findings of likely cards that have been altered/doctored before ending up with a numerical grade in some TPG's holders.

And the TPGs aren't stupid. Even when all the BODA evidence is shoved in their faces, they are going to ignore or deny it. Because if they ever actually listen and start acting on what the BODA guys are saying, that lets the entire hobby community know that they can't do as good of a job as the BODA guys, who do all their work free. And if people start realizing the are admitting to their inabilities to properly grade and authentic cards, it might actually turn more people off to using them in the future.

Even with all the BODA evidence and scans showing the likeliness of cards being altered, yet getting graded and slabbed with numerical grades, it could still be nearly impossible to legally prove that with every BODA outed card. A good defense attorney would just bring out multiple examples of a card that BODA says was altered and then slabbed. They'd parade them all in front of a jury and say they all look alike to a card the BODA guys are saying was altered, and do you really think some random jurors are going to be able to really tell the difference? I sure wouldn't bet on it. So what do the attorneys do next, call in the experts to tell the jury their opinion on the cards. Oh wait, that's right, the TPGs are the recognized and accepted experts when it comes to grading and authentication. The BODA guys are just independent guys doing this on their own. And I also don't see any one TPG coming to testify against another, as they are likely aware they all have erroneously graded tons of altered cards over the years. So by one TPG testifying against another, they could be putting their own company's neck on the chopping block and open themselves up to similar charges and litigation in the future. All the TPGs have likely had these discussions multiple times with their own legal counsels already, and will probably just say nothing else, and simply continue to give their "opinions" on cards, just as they've been doing all along. Remember, all they give is an opinion.

Now if they (the TPGs) really wanted to do something to actually try to combat and stop the misgrading of altered cards, this is where some of those earlier discussions about using AI to grade cards could actually prove useful. It was brought up, by Snowman of all people, that using AI for grading wouldn't probably work due to the time, effort and human interaction involved for it to function properly, and even then the probabilities for errors still likely wouldn't be as low as for a human grader. However, it was brought up that through such AI technology you could tremendously magnify scans of cards, down to the individual pixel level, and at such a magnification level it turns out that each card is actually unique after all. The AI scan could possibly be treated like a fingerprint or DNA to then legally prove a card had been altered. That way if someone submitted an altered card, the TPG's AI system could definitively match it to the unaltered version of the and alert the TPG that something had been done to the card. The problem though is that for this to work and catch the alteration, the TPG that the altered card was submitted to would have already had to have scanned the unaltered card into their AI system. So card doctors could still easily continue altering and submitting cards for grading. They'd just have to make sure they started with raw cards that likely weren't scanned into any TPG's AI system, or if they did acquire a graded card to crack out and alter, just be sure to submit it to a different TPG than the one who's holder they originally cracked it out of.

So at the end of the day, using the AI like this probably won't help entirely stop alterations after all. Knowing cards were now being subjected to such AI scans, I doubt card doctors would be dumb enough to submit an altered card right back to the same TPG that had already graded it, and I certainly don't see someone doctoring/altering a card more than once. But if TPGs did start using this AI technology and commenced taking such detailed scans of every card they handled and graded, it could eventually start to catch some altered cards. Unfortunately, it woud most likely come from innocent buyers who unknowingly purchased an altered card in a graded holder, and they go to have it crossed over to another TPG or try to resubmit it for a possible grade bump, and it gets tagged as having been altered. In this case with fingerprint/DNA type of proof, the innnocent owner may have a better chance to go back to a seller for some justice, which in turn might get more sellers concerned and cautious in dealing with or being involved with these card doctors to begin with. This would work better if all the TPGs did such AI scanning, but I doubt they'd ever share such technology and cooperate with each other. In fact, if say only one TPG were to commence using such AI technology, I could see it improving the reputation and desirability of the slab for that TPG over those of other TPGs as many people would likely assume card doctors would push more of their altered cards towards the TPGs not using the AI technology.

The other big problem is that there are likely more altered cards out there in TPG numerically graded slabs than we can ever imagine. And there is pretty much nothing any of us can do about it, despite all the BODA threads and outed cards.

Serious question, to anyone's knowledge, has any card outed by the BODA guys ever taken a serious hit in a sale or auction because it was outed as possibly altered? I'm going to guess for the most part, no. Maybe a few potential buyers/bidders that were aware of the issues stayed away. But I'm guessing there were more than enough bidders/buyers that didn't know, or care, to still get the sellers a final price around what they were expecting. So really, anyone know an owner taking a hit for an outed card by the BODA guys?

Which leads me to another question. What if some seller takes a big hit on selling a BODA outed card in an auction, and finds out from the winning bidder they (and everyone else) now think it is altered because of what they heard on Blowout, or even here on Net54, could the BODA guys (or anyone else passing the info along) possibly be found liable for the loss suffered by the card's owner? Just like a TPG, the BODA guys are just giving their opinion. And I think that despite the evidence the BODA guys put out there, not entirely sure what they are claiming can be definitively and legally proven. So again, just curious if a seller lost enough to make it worthwhile to sue, think they'd have any chance of success against the BODA guys, or possibly others?