More on the subject of seller/auction house scans

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

Bill you raise an interesting point. Could you see what you perceive to be the wrinkle without taking the various photoshop steps you took? When buying higher dollar (or any)cards should one expect to subject the card to such types of scrutiny?

Todd, to answer your first question, no I could not have.

When I first saw the scan you provided from Probstein's auction, what I thought was a wrinkle actually ended up being a flaw within the photo itself. I confirmed this when I compared it to the scan from Goodwin's auction. A different card, obviously, but the same "shadow" appeared. It is somewhat hard to see at first glance, but if you look at both scans, the arrow indicates a dark diagonal line extending from the middle of Baker's left leg, down and to the right, then straightening down vertically.



Upon taking Probstein's scan into Photoshop, I caught what I thought could be the wrinkle you were describing when examining the area around that flaw. If you look at the beginning of that line down I described, from the same starting point, there is second faint line moving left to right, at least partially. Again, when comparing the Probstein scan and the Goodwin scan, it appears that both cards exhibit the same imperfection. However, above that line, the Probstein scan shows a slight darker line that the Goodwin scan does not. It appears as a shadow starting in the white border (about a third of the way up from the bottom), extends through the black outline, and into the picture. It's very subtle, and if I hadn't been looking at that area, I would have missed it. I then began playing with the picture, first inverting the image, and then messing with the hue. I thought that I might be seeing the wrinkle you alluded to, but wasn't sure.

Inverting a picture is often helpful in spotting surface flaws, as is adjusting the hue setting, even in a monochrome color card. I do this a lot when buying modern Bowman Chrome prospect auto cards because the production process involved creates metallic scan lines, and when present, they can lower the surface grade a half to a whole point at Beckett.

Example:



When I saw your scan, it was remarkable how easy the crease was to see comparatively. I've created a gif animation overlaying your scan on top of the original Probstein scan. It's as if the crease in their scan, at least in the white border, disappears completely. This is a great example of how scanning settings can completely mask imperfections. I'd like to think that auction houses would disclose any wrinkles like this. I've received two catalogs from REA, and they are very good about describing any wrinkles or creases.

Here's the comparison:



To answer your second question, I'd think any high dollar card purchase should be highly scrutinized, but unfortunately, not everybody has access to Photoshop. No matter how good a scan appears, and how carefully we look them over, it's very easy to overlook a wrinkle. This is where disclosure is so important. An auction house needs to thoroughly describe any imperfections or damage they see. Considering the buyer's commission on these auctions, I don't think that's asking too much.