Card doctoring video

[steve B]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I completely agree with this. Yes there are many of us that can spot an alteration from a mile away. Doesn't mean a damn thing in the real world.

The part I made bold is ALL that matters and it is fairly easy to get altered/counterfeit cards in those magic plastic slabs and it HAS been proven countless times.

I will say though that I had two different collectibles that I took to a major international event in 2006. They had an expert dealer giving opinions and maybe value on up to 2 items for free. One of the ones I brought I was very confident in, but wanted to be a bit more sure before sending it in for a cert. The other I really liked when i bought it, but had begun to have serious doubts.
The expert did in fact get them both right in a very short time. (Turned out I was right about both, one very good the other not so much) The good one has a cert now, the altered one is in the "what the heck do I do with it? " box.

Getting the official cert actually took about 3 months, since the process is much more than a cursory glance.

A decade + later, I'm much better at spotting problems, and a whole lot more confident in my own opinions.
But I've seen a display done by the group that does the certs, of loads of bad stuff they've caught. Alterations, repairs, outright fakes, many of them so well done that it's very hard to tell. Which is why they take months.