We Need an Ancestry.com for Baseball Cards...

[JollyElm]

When I think of all the downright disgusting BS that PWCC and others have engaged in over the years with their paper cutters, X-Acto knives and magic markers, I wish there was a fool-proof way to go back over the ownership history of my cards to see if any of them ever ended up spending time in a pathetic PWCC chop shop. Too bad every card doesn't have a unique cardboard DNA signature introduced into them. So, like seeing that Great-Great Grandpa passed through Ellis Island over a century ago with two bucks and a dream, I would be able to see what stops a 1957 Topps Willie Mays made before it ultimately ended up in my shoebox.

[Seven]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

When I think of all the downright disgusting BS that PWCC and others have engaged in over the years with their paper cutters, X-Acto knives and magic markers, I wish there was a fool-proof way to go back over the ownership history of my cards to see if any of them ever ended up spending time in a pathetic PWCC chop shop. Too bad every card doesn't have a unique cardboard DNA signature introduced into them. So like seeing that Great-Great Grandpa passed through Ellis Island over a century ago with two bucks and a dream, I would be able to see what stops a 1957 Topps Willie Mays made before it ultimately ended up in my shoebox.

It's unfortunate, granted I'm no expert but reading all the horror stories, or the fact that the grading companies have let a lot of altered cards go through there process only to receive a number grade, with no designation of it being altered just rubs me the wrong way. We have no idea what has been done to cards, before or after they were slabbed unless we pulled them from the pack ourselves.

[steve B]

One day at the card store years ago, I saw someone pull a card from a pack that was ripped in half. The store had the total opposite reputation, and the guy gave him a replacement pack right away.

If I could have figured out any way to prove it came from the pack like that I'd have made an offer.

Most cards from Topps do have "fingerprints" because of the cardboard used being somewhat low grade.

Not being a computer person, and having done a small spreadsheet of variations on one small set, the database required seems massive and massively painful to assemble.