Posted By:
DanIt is safe to assume that each OJ or vintage card that anyone owns has been in the hands of at least 3 generations of people due directly to the age of the item. Now, lets say that each generation did it's own "alteration", one did a reback, one did a slight trim and the other soak and flattened it (all of these "techniques" have been taught on N54 by several different posts), etc... you get the idea of where I am going with this. Now, in the mid 90's someone invents a thing called Ebay and the 3rd generation kid listed above finds the site and wants to get rid of all of that cardboard stuff because after all, it was soaked and flattened (he learned how to do that by reading a post he found on www.netword54.com/forum.... So, some unassuming consumer purchases the 3 generation reworked masterpiece and assumes it to be like new (but old) condition with no doctoring.
Needless to say, most of you have altered, wanted to alter, or would love to have the knowledge of how to alter if you could. For every time that before you push a cards corner down before running it in to a top-loader, you are in a small sense... altering. Why not just jam it in there the way that you found it, corner tab just slightly raised, just jam it in there. If it ends up bent over, then that is the way that it was intended to be. When people post items for sale, rarely have I ever seen them describe it while in the holder and out of the holder, now that would be a refreshing way to look at sales.
For those of you that offer Money Back Guarantee's, my hat is off to you all. That is the way to be. The way not to be, is to bash all of those around you for the sake of doing it. How brave, fighting from a keyboard miles and miles apart from the person with whom you are picking the fight with. Meet up at the National or some other Card event and discuss it over a beer and work it out. Maybe some of the big guns of Vintage could make a universal order to Vintage collecting to declair what is authorized and what is not. I loved the discussion about simply creating a company that declairs authenticity vice a grade. Now that would be refreshing because the grading is too subjective and it all boils down to how much money you spend at company "A" or "B" to get the +1 or +2 or in some cases +3 grade over the common schmuck like me. It also boils down to what college kid is working your stack of cards and how much beer he had the night before (blurry vision), once again, a subjective grade.
I really think that there are too many old wounds that people are not willing to let heal and want to just keep throwing the salt in on top of it.
For those of you that I may have offended, woops. For those of you that I didn't, thanks. Best regards, Dan.