Grading of restored & damaged baseball cards

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Posted By: Jerry Spillman

What would be the arguement against professional grading of baseball cards in a like manner as currency is graded? The grading companies simply state the damage or restoration on the holder label.
Here are a couple illustrations:




The first note brought $7500 and the second $1400 at auction.

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Posted By: joe D.

jerry,

I like the idea.

the issue though is mindset. While it may be acceptable to restore certain types of collectibles - the mindset for baseball card collectors is that it is a horrible thing. So, that is hurdle to jump over.


btw -
those bills are awesome!
posts like this are what make me go broke.

I could seriously see myself collecting stuff like that.... although my wallet would disagree.


Regards,
joe

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Posted By: barrysloate

I think you can sell anything in any form as long as there is full disclosure. The problem is restoration that is hidden from the buyer.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

What would an ungraded version in "about new" condition bring?

Here's the thing, as far as I'm concerned.

This whole issue is about protecting ethical people from unethical people.

SGC, for example, might take a hypothetical mint-looking Goudey Ruth and put it in a holder that says "Authentic - looks mint - rebuilt corners."

A buyer might get that card for a few thousand dollars and be happy to have it.

An UNETHICAL buyer might get that card, crack it out of the holder and submit it again and again, hoping to eventually get it into an 8 holder. He could do it a thousand times at ten bucks a pop, and if on that one thousandth time, it makes it into an 8 holder, he's golden.

So the grading company did it's job 999 out of 1000 times - a pretty solid success ratio - but that one mistake results in a five-figure profit. And if he gives up after 100 submissions, he can still sell the card raw as NMT and have a decent chance of breaking even.

The ethical seller wouldn't try it, and the ethical buyer wouldn't buy it. The unethical guy couldn't care less, nothing is going to stop him from being unethical.

Which is why I think that - like in every other industry - educated consumers are the best way to fight fraud.

-Al

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Posted By: Seth B.

What is it about the baseball card mindset?

Jerry-not being an educated collector, I can't tell what the restoration is on those beautiful bills you've shown us. As a collector, could you have seen the restoration without the grading service warning you?

I work quite a bit with antiquities I don't own (Greek vases, marble statues, Roman bronze armor, etc.), and the usual way to do things in that field is to make the restoration as obvious as possible so that anyone, even a layman, can quickly detect what part of an object is real and what part is fake. In the case of these lower-level collectables, it seems like the primary intent is to restore the object in such a way as to trick the person seeing it into believing it's a genuinely preserved piece.

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Posted By: joe D.

to be accompanied by some sort of invisible ink stamp "RESTORED".
(of course you won't get devious people to put the stamp on).

I would prefer the restoration to look as real as possible. Why would I want it to look fake?

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Posted By: Paul

I like it. I would like to see more information about the restoration on the back of the label, or a website that describes the restoration in detail. If the exact extent of the restoration is unknow, that fact should be noted as well.

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

I have no problem with PSA, SGC or GAI encapsulating Restored, Altered or Authentic cards. I just believe that service should indicate the changes on the label or in an accessible file.

Restored cards - indicate the restoration done to the card (all of it). The grading services should charge more for these cards because of the documentation that should be necessary when restored cards are encpasulated.

Altered cards - indicate the alteration (trimmed, etc.) to the card.

Authentic cards - just indicate that the cards are authentic. Let the public determine the grade/value based off of the inspection of the card. Obviously, someone selling the card needs to list all blemishes and imperfections. I like this idea because there would be no bickering about grades only eye appeal would be debated. I think eye appeal says it all.

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Posted By: Jerry Spillman

I have limited knowledge about the values for restored vs. unrestored currency in the same grade. I believe the restored has about half the value as the unrestored.

Damage, imperfections and stains are also stated on the label when it applies. The value of such notes would be up to the individual collector.

Illustrated below are two graded notes. The standard is a green lined label. The red lined label is used for restored or problem notes.




What is the down side of using this currency collectors accepted practice on baseball cards?

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Posted By: Joe D.

do you have a website with images of your currency collection?

I am really enjoying these images - and would love to see more.

Please post a link if you have a website... or feel free to email me.

Regards,
Joe

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

please send me all your W600's as you should ONLY collect currency.......

I like the idea. While Al's point about people cracking and resubmitting is true, it's true now anyway. Even if something is not graded A for authentic or whatever, in the wrong hands it gets submitted tons of times as it is. At least if they started something like what you're outlining, it would begin to take SOME of the altered stuff out of circulation into the hands of SOME scrupulous people who'd collect it in that condition--especially if it sells for a reasonable % of something in a TRUE mint type state.

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Posted By: Anonymous

i'm newly registered here...been lurking for years. i'd love to see some type of uniform mark or standard (is that possible?) among the grading companies that would easily let purchasers know that a card's been 'restored' (whether that's laying/pressing corners, recoloring, erasing pencil marks, etc.).

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Posted By: RC McKenzie

If Dave Foreman personally examined a card and deemed it 'altered' i'd be okay with it (a mark on the card). I just would be uneasy about i.e., 'Sandy' the weekend and holiday grader adding damage to cards based on his/her opinion that they are trimmed etc.. regards.