What is Ebay Playing At?

[Exhibitman]

I've come around to seeing the program as useful in two ways:

1. As I reported in my blog last weekend, at the Anaheim show a friend of mine who was set up to sell bought a 1963 Topps high grade Pete Rose RC in a PSA holder from a walk-in, and showed it to me. I took a quick look, and something seemed off. On closer inspection, the card looked wrong, too fuzzy, and muddy. I busted out the 30x loupe and 100x microscope I bring with me to shows and confirmed my suspicion. It turns out we had a scumbag walking the show selling fake high value PSA graded cards. The Rose was bogus, and the PSA slab was resealed with glue. It wasn’t a great fake, but it didn’t have to be, because my friend was busy with customers and trusted the PSA slab rather than inspecting the card carefully. My friend was very lucky that day. He went off in search of the fraudster, found him, and got a refund. if you get stuck with one of these on eBay my hunch is that you won't be so lucky.

2. It is a good negative check on whether to transact with a dealer. One guy sells lots of trimmed raw cards. I saw a hacked Hubbell RC last week in his store sell for good money. Someone got ripped off. He avoids the authentication process by tossing in a junk single or two to make it a lot. I see that and I know not to bother with the dealer.