SGC has stopped putting Babe Ruth's name on the 1929 Churchman

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

I am positive that the player is Ty Cobb in both the Tom Barker and National Game cards that use this image. I think it is more than acceptable to have "(Cobb)" noted on this TPG label, and in my opinion something similar (but with Ruth's name) should be totally appropriate for the Churchman's baseball card.

Brian (not my sliding Cobb card...mine wears no plasticized sliding gear)

I can basically agree and that is why I said it could be an acceptable option in my original post when identification is rock solid. The catch is that I don't believe that PSA will do that again, nor after the acquisition of SGC will it be done in the future there.

I think the argument both for and against with PSA lies most recently with the 1917 Youth's Companion Stamp. The misidentification has been a pure disaster as sellers still live and die by the Ruth flips on these and will adamantly refuse to change a listing and pointing it out will usually get you blocked. However, instead of taking the road of just generically grading as the stamp series like SGC did for years, PSA now checklists it as Rube Marquard.

While that is most likely the correct identification, it sets a precedent of again adding additional unlabeled identification likely chosen to overcompensate for the previous mistake. This action by PSA creates a six in one hand, half dozen in the other discussion on should they add names to unlabeled items. I think in the future they will likely be taking the safe route to avoid more black eyes.

They also made the same mistake with the 1935-36 Muratti for years which also still surfaces with the same seller nonsense. Ruth has been removed and it is now check listed simply as Dorothy Poynton, but the mistake lives on. That single card accounts for one-third of the graded cards in that set for the reason it was mislabeled for years. I just have to lean toward playing it safe as the best course of action in my mind because some of these rash guesses with other card issues have cost people real money.