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Posted By: Charlie Barokas

Peter,

Well said.


Jim,

You are an astute collector and I am not trying to tell you how to collect cards. But, I think layering professionally third party graded cards with opinions from non-professional third party graders is a slippery slope.

Anybody who is making definative judgements regarding alteration without seeing the card out of the holder, is making an educated guess. If you want to be as certain as you can regarding alterations, the card must be broken out of the holder for a proper evaluation.

There are some cards even out of the holder that exhibit both signs of originality and evidence of trimming. Some factory cuts look like trimming and some trimming looks like a factory cut. In this case, it is really a coin flip and it is not knowable wheter the card was trimmed or not. Therefore, it is up to a professional third party grading company to stand behind the desicion to grade it or not. And once the decision is made you have the power of the brand and credibility of said grading company as your insurance policy.

CB