New York Times Article on the Scandal

[topcat61]

I gather this wasnt written by a card collector, but with that being said, there are a few glairing remarks made in this piece

1) "Mr. Huigens declined repeated requests for comment. His public relations representative said the company was involved in an investigation, but declined to provide details or the name of Mr. Huigens’s lawyer"

People have asked this question, and I've asked it -which agency is investigating and who is the investigating agent? Pretty simple.

2) P.S.A. charges up to $5,000 to grade a card. Mr. Moser said that its graders were not as knowledgeable as they purported to be and that they were overwhelmed by the volume of submissions and rushed the process. The grade you get, he said, depends as much on the grader as on the card.

Fraud in collectibles markets is rife but difficult to prove, said Carter Reich, a lawyer who specializes in art fraud cases. He, too, blamed grading companies for not following a universal standard.

“It’s their own standard,” he said, “and some other grading company has a different one.”


This brings me to universal standards and graders. So, here are my questions/thoughts-

Back as far as the early 1970's Dr. James Beckett came up with mathematical formulas and statistics to set grading and condition standards which worked fine until PSA had to reinvent the wheel. Once that happened, collectors and dealers got lazy and figured that didn't have to study this stuff and allowed a third party to think for them. No problem until something like this happens.

Secondly, has anyone ever asked these grading companies who are the graders and what are their credentials/training?