A new concern

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Posted By: Kevin Saucier

In another thread a collector was sold a copied Cobb inserted into a cracked SGC holder. How you say, can this happen? I posted on this subject a few months ago but it faded with little or no notice.

Just when we start to get some understanding about various card alterations, we may soon be faced with a new worry...slabs and flips. Those to can be doctored as well and has been something I have been investigating for some time.

With very little work an SGC slab can be cracked, sometimes with just a two sturdy fingernails. The frosting that is created when the two halves are separated can be buffed out until very little frosting exists. When rejoined it is hardly noticeable. If you look close enough and long enough you will be able to see that it has been cracked. Unfortunately this will be a difficult to do for online auction purchases and quick glances when viewed live.

Resealing is a skill all to itself but IMO it won’t be long until we see more of this and with better results. The hold up for most seems to be a quality flip. This is a doctoring skill that requires several steps but when done correctly the results are simply mind blowing.

Not only do grading companies need to improve their skills in card alteration detection, they also need to continuously improve their product. I don’t know if this is being done.

We may just be seeing the tip of the iceberg. I’m not saying the hobby is crashing down just be prepared and know that it is very possible.


Kevin Saucier

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Posted By: Dave F

Are you saying SGC is the easiest to do this with? What about PSA? Or for that matter even a Beckett tank?

Also..I sent you an email I think back on Saturday..please let me know if you didnt get it. Thanks.

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Posted By: Joe Pelaez

The question is NOT which grade company is easier to crack and reseal, but rather:

What are the graders doing to protect their investors???

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Posted By: Kevin Saucier

It been my experience that currently SGC slabs are the easiest to open while still maintaining the integrity of the two halves.

Information such as this is just one way collectors can stay ahead of the card doctors.



Sorry didn't you email, try again:

onlychild@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Jim Crandell

Good post Kevin--don't know if you plan to post what you sent me but its clear that altered cards aren't the only worry for collectors.

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Posted By: Jason L

for your informative posts.
Looks like things are getting too heady in this collectables market again.
This is exactly the kind of thing that can/will rise up from time to time (in times of quickly escalating prices) and drive people like myself to the sidelines for an extended period of time.

I just got back in a few years ago after being burned in the late 80's supply glut/dealer greed that surrounded the advent of rookie mania and chase cards.

If things get bad even at the low end of vintage collecting, I will certainly wait it out until market forces help to correct problems relating to dishonesty.

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Posted By: leon

At the last national I bought a D304 Matty in a PSA 1 holder.....the holder had been cracked and put back together...it was obvious. Everyone needs to really look at the seams of holders for any clouds or glue...or anything that doesn't look right, especially if the card doesn't quite fit the grade on the flip....

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Posted By: Joe Pelaez

Seeing what you see ... and not seeing what you would like to see.

Not to worry about collectors ... they know how to feel, touch, smell and grade their own cards. ... They will survive.

It's the third party investors we feel for.
Without a slightly stable third party.

They are NAKED....................

You've got my support.

Joe Pelaez (friend of the people)

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Posted By: barrysloate

How do you guys enjoy collecting this stuff? It's one horror story after another.

I think I will start collecting a giant ball of string.

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Posted By: Dave F

Barry...I have one such ball of string I'll sell you.

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Posted By: Jason L

nail on the head, my friend.
It becomes far less enjoyable when you need to wonder about getting screwed everytime you want to buy something.

I finally pulled the trigger a month ago and bought a card I had long wanted (I think everyone here rememberes me talking about the T206 Nap (w/bat) card at one time, or twelve! -and thanks to all for indulging my chatter without chastising me)...and you know what, I had to start a thread asking for people's thoughts on alteration, -and when I got it in hand, even though I think it's fine, it just wasn't as thrilling as I had hoped it would be...becuause there is that shred of doubt in my head as to whether or not i was taken for a ride

kinda depressing state of affairs, really.

Hope someone smart figures this all out
Edit: PS - Barry, I will trade you a ball of rainbow-colored yarn for some Mastro pkg tape!!!

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Posted By: barrysloate

I'm getting very attached to my string, but that yarn is awfully enticing.

I think there are too many criminals swimming around in this hobby and for anyone sinking very large sums of money into it I would do a little reality check (but please don't stop bidding in my auctions).

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Barry, the string hobby is a disaster right now.

Sometimes you buy six feet of string and only get 5 1/2, or you bid on what looks like string but is really twine, or even worse, buy what appears to be an original ball of string but is actually string that has been unwound and then rewound to LOOK like an original ball.

My advice would be to steer clear of string until the hobby sorts itself out. There's talk of an association, sort of like a third party service that can help string collectors identify and assess string under a fairly uniform set of standards; I'd hang tight until such a service is established.

-Al

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Posted By: Patrick McHugh

My feeling is this. A fake card in a legit holder can be spotted. The real problem is a psa 3 green cobb put into a psa 5 holder. Disclaimer this is not a fact only a possibility. For my raw card collection i can crack a psa holder in 5 seconds sgc is much tougher to crack. Kevin really has alot of knowledge and I for one am thankfull he is sharing it.

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Posted By: Jim Crandell

Yup, Kevin is the best thing to happen to Net 54 in a long time--keep it up Kevin.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I was making a light comment but I have to tell you I am pretty fed up with what I hear. And the scary part isn't that I don't believe all this stuff is happening- but it's that I do believe all this crap is going on. Trimmed cards, altered cards, shill bidding, bogus holders, collectors fighting, criminal investigations...and the bad news never stops.

One of these days I am going to call it a career. I don't know how much more of this sh*t I can listen to. And if it was all false it would be easy to dismiss, but I'm starting to think it's in fact all true. It's an unregulated industry where every scoundrel can get rich beyond his wildest dreams. I think it all just sucks. Sorry if I ruined your day.

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Posted By: Joe Pelaez

A combination that is hungered for in moments like this.

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Posted By: Jason L

"I think it all just sucks. Sorry if I ruined your day."

Quite the contrary!
You've turned me on to the potential new hobby of string and yarn collecting! Unfortunately, Al immediately illuminated that hobby's pitfalls, which could lead to its ultimate unraveling...



And Al,
"...hang tight" ?!?!?
That was terrible, just -you should be ashamed of yourself!

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Posted By: John S

Barry,

I was just talking to my wife about how much the hobby has changed in the last 15 (especially the last 5) years. I still love it, but I have become very selective about what I buy (and who I buy from). Money and greed definitely have changed things. That is why I want to vomit when I see Rosen's picture with his fistfull of $100's.

A headmaster at a former school where I taught saved/collected very strange things (he had his toenail and fingernail clippings organized in an office drawer...no kidding). He was fired very shortly after I started working. If you decide to auction string I am sure that he would be happy to diversify your offerings with some vintage toe-jamb or a ring-finger clipping from 1987.

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Posted By: barrysloate

John- your eccentric professor aside (toenail clippings?) many people ask me why I no longer collect anymore. My answer is that the fun was taken out of it for me a long time ago. It has now become a business, and not without its more pleasant moments, but I could never deal with all the things that are going down in the hobby today. The hobby I once enjoyed as much as anyone else no longer exists.

I accept the fact that life changes, I can live with that, but this has become a very mercenary and unethical industry, and each day I have to push myself a little to go forward. It stopped being a labor of love farther back than I can remember.

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Posted By: Joe D.

your posts are awesome.

thank you for the info.

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Posted By: boxingbaseballgolf33

One good reason, I started buying more ungraded cards this year

Jimmy

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Posted By: Pennsylvania Ted

I totally agree with you regarding the ease of cracking SGC holders. It's also the reason I usually try to acquire
cards graded by SGC, as I am going to remove them for my collection.

Incidently, that phony Cobb you alluded to, was identifiable without examining the plastic. It had an impossible
back to begin with.

TED Z

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Posted By: Josh Adams

Kevin,
Thanks again for posting this.

This information is so helpful for collectors of both graded and raw pieces of cardboard!

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Posted By: Anonymous

Jim - Please no...thanks.


Ted - Yes the cobb was an obvious based on the card itself. Although I am not a back expert. If ever there was a question regarding front/back combo's I would turn to you, the expert.

No knock against the collector who bought it, we all make mistakes. Hopefully we can prevent them with advanced warning or knowledge but if not we can always learn from it.


It took some time but I dug up the pic I posted of a cleaned slab. This one is a PSA slab that was cracked in two and had the tamper reisistant frost polished off. It was very much frosted at the start. It is time consuming, dirty and arduous work. As you can see it is close enough to fool most IMO. SGC's slab is much easier in all aspects.






(next topic - how to identify altered string and balls of string & yarn )


Kevin Saucier

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Posted By: Charlie Barokas

Barry,

This is an unregulated hobby/business. Why are you surprised that there are con men of all shapes and sizes in the hobby/business? What makes this hobby/business any more or less scared than any other fast growing market/business? It would be more shocking if there weren't all these problems. I know you read the NY Times, have you missed all the corporate fraud in the last decade. Heck, it cost Crandall's boy's the House and Senate.

The truth is there are many honest and great collectors, dealers, etc.. in this hobby/business. Far more than crooks and con men. I am not sure that the percentage of crooks and con men in this hobby/busines are out of purportion to any other business.

Please lighten up a little, you are turning into a nihilist. Especially in light of the fact that you are one of the very good guys in the hobby/business.

CB

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Posted By: Jason L

Kevin,

1) if that is a re-worked, once-frosted PSA holder, then I have NO chance of protecting myself. None. I now look forward to your posts on string and yarn.

and

2) Why does that PSA flip have no printing on the right-hand side?!

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Posted By: barrysloate

Charlie- I am not so much surprised as I am fed up with it. This isn't stocks and bonds, it's not commodities, these are freaking baseball cards. People collect baseball cards to get away from all that other crap. Will we start seeing dealers at the National taken away in handcuffs like the Enron people were?

You seem to find a little pleasure and intrigue in all of these sheningans. Any particular reason why? Would you prefer a cleaner hobby, or are you happy with the wild west nature of it? Just curious.

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Posted By: T206Collector

...is how this is any different from the concerns which arose from the WIWAG scandal years ago. I have assumed in my graded card collecting since Day 1 that these plastic cases were tamper resistant -- not 100% tamper fool-proof. As with any life situation, there is what there is and what there appears to be. (I learned that by watching the Matrix on DVD.)

One of the benefits of my style of collecting is that I made most of my original T206 purchases with PSA (since that was once all there was) and then crossed my collection over (what would cross over) into SGC holders, thus ensuring that these cards' holders had not been tampered with. And the only time I have ever dropped serious coin on an SGC graded card (i.e., over $1,000) the condition was SGC 40 or lower and could be independently assured of its authenticity, if not its untamperedness.

Where I think the bait and switch is most disturbing is really in the high grade markets where 7's can be switched in for 8's without much evidence one way or the other. The incentive is too high for there not to be some illegal fraud taking place here with some unfortunate level of regularity. WIWAG was one, but there have been and will be others.

If you have not been on your guard for this, then you really should have been. If this is your wake up call, so be it. Hopefully, this will result in an outflow of collectors of pre-war cards (a lowering of demand) which will reduce prices and with it the incentive to cheat.

But, as with all walks of life, there will never be a way to arrive at 100% purity of proof one way or the other. If you are unwilling to take risks in your life, then you are not going to be doing much of leaving your house.

But I can certainly understand why someone would want to get out of purchasing PSA 8 or SGC 88 T206 cards without some way of tracking the card from its raw form or without a confirmable cross-over attempt. If I were in the market for a PSA 8 T206 card, I would absolutely require that SGC take a look at it and guarantee a crossover -- or vice versa from SGC 88 to PSA 8.

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Posted By: Charlie Barokas

Barry,

It's all about money. Last time I checked the same money is used to buy stocks/bonds is used to purchase baseball cards.

If you choose to collect raw cards in off-grade than the hobby can be without much stress. However, if you are a dealer or collector of expensive cards, you better not let your guard down when forking over huge sums of money for pieces of cardboard.

People will spend $1000 on a laptop computer and spend months shopping and reseaching it. The same person will spend $10,000 on a baseball card over the internet based on a grainy camera phone picture from somebody with 10 feedback on ebay. And then, if something goes wrong, the fall back is... I was only spending $10,000 on baseball cards to get away from my daily grind. I think that is a specious argument.

If you plan on spending lots of money on any collectible, due your homework, buy from trusted sellers/auctioneers and always keep your antenna up for the scams.

CB

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Posted By: barrysloate

That's a fair appraisal and I can't even think of something clever to rebut it. It's just a shame that every day we have to hear about the latest scam. I may not be a nihilist, but I suppose I am an idealist.

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Posted By: Joann

I'm surprised there isn't more of the slab-tinkering going on. Breaking apart a slab is easy.

With a sonic welder these could be reassembled in no time flat. A fixture for a grading slab is about the easiest fixture I can imagine building - a flat rectangle - duh. Sonic welders aren't that expensive and don't need any special wiring or ventilation to run.

In fact, if I really want to go out on a limb, a tool for molding slab halves wouldn't be all that expensive either. You wouldn't even need to fix the broken apart slabs - just mold new ones. All that's left is printing flips.

Buy raw, slab at home with PSA-style slabs and you're all hooked up. A person wouldn't even need to bump grades a whole lot, if at all - just slab raw cards a grade or half grade above.

Until the serial numbers got you caught, it would be easy. And to substitute like cards of slightly lower grade into existing slabs w/flips - just a sonic welder.

Now this is scary. I don't buy high end, so I'm not all that worried about it. But if I did, I'd be very concerned about slab manipulation.

And Barry - very disheartening, that's for sure. I just try to find a corner of the hobby with nice people and decent cards and rotting shacks and trustworthy dealers. Keeps it enjoyable. So far, that corner has proven big enough to let all the other hoo-hoo go over and beyond me.

Joann

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Posted By: Steve Dawson

All I know is that this thread got Barry so verklempt, that he misspelled "shenanigans" in his 4:59 pm post!



Steve

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Posted By: Anonymous

Scarier yet.

You don't need a sonic welder to reseal a slab and you don't need to make a fake flip. I'd say more but it would freak everyone out more than they already are.

If you were to make a new slab it would need to include the PSA logo. At the bottom right of each slab is a clear color raised PSA logo built in as a deterrent against fabricating a fake slab.





Kevin Saucier

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Posted By: barrysloate

Joann- it's funny that you've never gotten that "rot in their shacks" image out of mind. I think Bruce came up with a classic with that one.

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Posted By: leon

I thought the rotting shacks comment from Joann would be overlooked. Nice catch. I caught it too.... but us armpits stick together....Seriously, I am with Charlie on this. In about 3 weeks I will be having a blast with about 70 of my closest hobby friends at dinner. Cards are only one part of the hobby.....hootin' and hollerin', and looking out for each other are great parts too...I try not to let the crap get me down as there is so much other good stuff....

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Posted By: ScottIngold

Wow Kevin I never noticed the Psa on the corner before.

Great info again.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Charlie, your points are well-taken. Problem is, how can you spot the crooks when half the time they look like the good guys -- the very ones that are trying sometimes to alert us to the "crooks"? Not an easy task.

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Posted By: Alan

I couldn't agree with Charlie more.
Alan

P.S.
I can't wait to meet everyone at the dinner !!!

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Posted By: Joann

There are a lot of things I let go in my life, but I will never forget the "rot in their little shacks" comment. I don't think I've ever heard anything so utterly classless, and I'm still surprised someone - anyone - would have said it here.

Nope. That one will never go away. So ... no use for Bruce. Kind of has a ring to it, doesn't it?

J

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Posted By: barrysloate

Joann- the odd thing is he really doesn't even care what people think about it.

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Posted By: Joann

Barry,

I know he doesn't. In an odd way, that makes me feel more at liberty to be dismissive. If what I say or think affects how someone else feels I tend to give it a lot more consideration. But this one is easy. Classless and doesn't care - so it's kind of easy to just write him off.

J

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Posted By: barrysloate

Good point.

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Posted By: Anonymous

This issue has been around for years…WIWAG, trimmers, altered cards being holdered, auction houses, autograph scammers, etc. what I find interesting is that at least 2 local dealers have told me that years ago (back in the WIWAG days) a large chunk of PSA slabs went missing. Of course, threads discussing that went poof on the CU boards...sort of like other recently posted yet poofed threads.

Anyone who has cracked a psa, bgs, gai, or sgc slab knows that they’re quite easy to crack w/o damaging the integrity of the slab.

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Posted By: Jimmy

I was mainly a collector at first for many years, and then a few years ago my interest changed, then I started looking at the hobby as a business for myself and my family. If you are a dealer or a collector, the true fact is we are all trying to make good investments and decisions. The hobby is a lot of fun, but I am not a kid anymore and family is very important. There has been disturbing news in the hobby, but there are always ups and downs with everything. I still enjoy the shows and auctions, selling and buying to keep me informed with which way the hobby is going. We all know the grading system needs to be improved, but every business or industry does. When buying high dollar items, just use your knowledge and judgment yourself, do not let the grading system effect your choice – the card is what you are buying not the holder. I have turned to buying more ungraded cards, but still a strong buyer of graded cards so there is balance for my customers.

Jimmy

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Posted By: Anson

As long as there's money involved, there will be people out to cheat the system. Although I agree that the grading companies need to step up their efforts, I still see the crooks rising to the occasion. If there's a large amount of money to be had, the tools and techniques will be developed.

There was a time when resealing wax packs, recoloring, and reprints were the only things to worry about

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Posted By: Glyn Parson

I have some PSA holders that are cracked open and perfectly clean Ill post them when I get home from the office. These are the supposed tamper proof holders and I didnt even need to buff anything out. Ill not tell anyone how to do it though. Anyone I felt would not take advantage I have already told. When I notified PSA of the problem they didnt seem to care.

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Posted By: Jay

Joann--If you can mold new slabs cert numbers aren't an issue. Buy high grade cards, crack them out, take the flip and insert it in a new slab with a lower grade card and then resubmit the original card. That way the crook ends up with two "high grade" cards after starting with a high grade and a lower grade card.