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Posted By: davidcycleback

If you disclose what you did to a card or work or art, you have no legal issue. If you don't disclose alterations you performed, and the alteration and non-disclosure was done to raise value, you could get into legal trouble. It's perfectly legal to cut off the edges, bleach and rebuild the corners of all your baseball cards and Monet paintings. But you are required to disclose what you did to the cards and paintings when you sell.

People like to philosophize about the relative harm and ethics of spooning and wrinkle pressing and the like, but fraud really is a financial law and possibly fraudulent situations are substantially judged by the financial impact. Say blatant alteration and lack of disclosure was done to falsely raise the sell value by $10,000. What may most matter to a prosecutor and judge is the $10,000, not the kind of alteration performed. If wrinkle pressing to super high PSA grade and autograph forgery on a baseball result in the same $10,000 loss to a citizen, don't be surprised if a judge considers them equivalent crimes. The financial impact of the alteration and non disclosure may be far more important to the judge than the kind, style or technique of alteration used to reach the financial impact.