Posted By:
Al CrisafulliMy opinion on this - and granted, I'm new here on this board - is that the seller is not obligated to take back the card.
However, and this is a BIG "however", this hobby - particularly with 19th century cards - is driven by a smallish group of collectors who share their experiences with one another online.
Lots of dealers have taken serious losses in sales over the years by developing shady reputations.
Even the most reputable card sellers and auction houses are only one or two negative customer experiences away from being lumped in with the unscrupulous sellers that all of us know very well.
If I were a card seller, I would be eager to eat a $550 sale, rather than run the risk of having a person telling everyone that I sold him a trimmed card and wouldn't take it back. Regardless of the circumstances. It just seems like good business to me.
If I purchase a raw card - and almost EVERY card I purchase is raw - I still expect it to be the WHOLE card. No alterations, no trimming, no recoloring, no fakes. If the card is not described as having been altered, then the supposition is that it hasn't been. Regardless of how long the buyer took to get it graded shouldn't matter. What happens if the buyer NEVER got it graded, and three months later, he bought another card from the same set, compared them, and realized the first one was trimmed? What happens if the buyer was new to the hobby and didn't know how to identify a trimmed card, but, upon learning, realized the problem?
If I were in the buyer's shoes, my opinion would be that the above-board dealers who will take that card back three months later are the ones I will go out of my way to buy from in the future. The ones who are steadfast in their refusal? I'd probably not buy from them ever again.
-Al