Leon/Barry,
With such incendiary talk, it's not hard to see why they might have felt they were being treated in a racist manner. Certainly their intelligence is being called into question in a vehement manner, and they might be left to wonder where the anger stems from.
I understand that you guys are simply heated because you see their card as an obvious fake and wish these two would simply drop it.
That being said, didn't they pay $1,800 for it? Not a ton of money for a Wagner card, but certainly a lot more than the $2 reprints that I've bought. Perhaps they unconcsiously feel like they couldn't have been swindled? Or more likely, they think they have the real thing. The $1,800 they paid for the card makes me think they were out for more than a grand hoax and 15 minutes of fame.
But they sure are the whipping boys, when far more egregious players have been involved in fraudulent play with regards to Wagner and other high profile memorabilia, and those crooks have been respected members of the card memorabilia community for decades.
Also, it's beyond proveable that certain persons or entities have recieved special treatment from the graders, and the man who graded the PSA 8 Wagner came out in O'Keefe's book saying that he knew it was trimmed.
Yes, it is highly unlikely that anyone would switch out the Cobb/Edwards card, were it to be graded. That is paranoia that reminds me of some of my delusional pothead buddies. But to act like the grading companies are to be trusted is to defy logic. The cards look beautiful in their graded holders, but beyond that, the whole system has ruined vintage collecting as much as these low-numbered, high value inserts have ruined newer cards. It's become the province of the "investor." Yes, you can still buy raw cards, but it's almost impossible to get the really great stuff without having to buy from the graded market, and its grotesque mark-ups.
All of which points back to O'Keefe's excellent book, which called a spade a spade, the most definitive section being when the Baseball Hall of Fame comments on the memorabilia market. That section hit the nail on the head.
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