Restoration debate

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Posted By: ScottIngold

I know we've gone through this a million + time's. But what do you think about the Plank in the current Maestro auction.

It is listed as restored. But they play up how the restoration is done with period paper fibers and how difficult it would be to detect.

Does someone spend there $'s and send it out for grading ?

From the write up it sounds like it would get through one of the big three. If not all of them.

Is it time to just accept that pro restorations are here to stay on high $ cards ?

I would be really curious to see what happens to this card after the sale.

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Posted By: Dylan

It looks really good... Its stated that it was in VG condition prior to the restoration. Im curious to see what it sells for. I would find it hard to believe someone alter a VG, thats a pretty valuable card to mess with!

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Posted By: barrysloate

The card has a beautiful appearance but I doubt it will pass any of the grading standards; even "authentic" might not apply here. The owner was free to restore it and the auction house is properly describing it. The fear is that one day it may end up in the wrong hands and be passed off as high grade. But even that is doubtful. In this case if I were the buyer I would want to see a picture of it before the work was done.

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Posted By: dennis

if I were the buyer I would want to see a picture of it before the work was done." great point barry!
i find it hard to believe it was in vg prior to restoration. maybe the vg is fritsch standard (with paper loss & tear/missing piece, run over by a truck)
i actually would prefer a vg than a restored nm. as i am sure most here would also.

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Posted By: T E

Just curious. If I send in a Home Run Baker T206, I would imagine it wouldn't raise any eyebrows at the grading company, I imagine they would just send it off to whoever they use to grade T206s. But wouldn't a card as rare as a Plank set off all kinds of alarms, and force the particular company to make sure they got it right? I don't really understand how this grading stuff works other than I send it off with a payment and they send back my cards in a slab.

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Posted By: Sean Coe

Restoring a VG card of this value makes no sense since there was an intention to sell. Perhaps what was left of the card was in VG condition, but I have to believe that it was in such terrible condtion overall, that it at best would have received an Authentic grade.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Sean and Dennis are correct. Nobody would mess with a bona fide VG. A professionally graded VG is worth more than a card restored to look NR MT. It had to have significant flaws for it to have been restored.

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

I doubt this card would ever be graded by one of the Big 3. Unfortunately, it will likely be sold [without the disclosure] for big bucks at some future date to an unsuspecting buyer.

Frank

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Posted By: ScottIngold

Would someone spend 10k + and not try for the holder ?

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I'm half of that someone. I'd not spend 10k for restoration. But I wouldn't spend a penny on having a card graded that I was going to keep. So if one day I were to take a notion to have serious restoration done, then yes, I'd do that and not grade it... wouldn't even let them grade it for free. Wouldn't let them pay for the privilidge of grading it.

And I feel the same way about the horses the graders rode in on, too.

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Posted By: Paul

The description on Mastro's website says that blue ink was added to the background -- presumably where the original ink had been scuffed or chipped away. I think that explains why the owner might have wanted to restore the card. Of course, it doesn't seem real consistent with a pre-restoration grade of VG.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

The key word relatied to restoration is and always will be 'disclosure.' Mastro
has disclosed the restoration, which is what they should do. If a buyer
gets the card slabbed other than AUTH and tries to resell it without disclosing the
restoration, most judges would classify that as fraud. If restoration and
lack of disclosure becomes widespread in the hobby, that only means there is
widespread fraud-- not that lack of disclosure has become acceptable.

99 percent of the time, the mere act of attempting to get a known altered card
graded as unaltered ('seeing if the grader notices') can be classified as the
start of fraud. There are collectors who honestly just want a never-for-resale
novelty grade or who are sincerely testing the graders for an Old Cardboard
article, but these fall within the 1 percent.