[jchcollins]

At what point does alteration with cards become acceptable in the way it has with vintage comics? The problem in grading between the two hobbies (at least as I understand it; I don't know a ton about comics besides my lower grade raw collection of vintage MAD magazines...) is that the card hobby is still trying in many cases to put over altered cards as unaltered in numbered, regular slabs. Whereas with comics it's more acceptable for pages to be restored, etc. I get that a trading card is different than a comic in that it's just one piece of ephemera, not multiple pages stapled together. But at some point if this just keeps happening, would it not make sense to treat them the same? I know that "restored" comics go for less than true high grade unaltered, but in our hobby it's kind of the same thing already. A lightly trimmed Mantle card in an A holder that appears NM or better to the naked eye still isn't going to be cheap, if you know what I mean - even if it doesn't sell for the same heights as a truly unaltered PSA 7.

I see both sides of the argument. If we don't complain, "whine" about it, then the skulduggery aspect of this on the card side is unlikely to change. However, it's unlikely to change in reality based on what we have seen over the past 3-5 years anyway, isn't it? So is our only real hangup that we have this deception aspect of grading in our hobby where some other types of collectibles have moved on from that?

Me personally, I'm basically too small time to make a difference. I enjoy mid-to lower grade postwar vintage on a budget, for the most part. I've gotten pissed at graders (mostly SGC) lately, but more to do with their defective slabs and yo-yo pricing models. From here on out, I will likely be focusing mainly on lower grade, raw vintage from sellers that I have already grown to trust online. That way I figure both prices and risk of alteration can remain low. I would agree we are in a very odd place in the hobby with this as an issue right now...