Two hour interview with.... Bill Mastro

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

An even simpler difference -- baseball card restoration is done to deceive, art restoration is done with disclosure to enhance people's experience.

LOL just recalling the Brent Huigens nonsense about "conservation."

While that's true, you need to consider why there needs to be deception in cards, but not paintings. If alterations didn’t matter in cards, it wouldn't be information that is withheld. The reason it matters in cards is what I pointed out above: original survivor cards are differeiated from other mass-produced copies based on condition. You don't have that market dynamic with unique paintings.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by OhioLawyerF5

While that's true, you need to consider why there needs to be deception in cards, but not paintings. If alterations didn’t matter in cards, it wouldn't be information that is withheld. The reason it matters in cards is what I pointed out above: original survivor cards are differeiated from other mass-produced copies based on condition. You don't have that market dynamic with unique paintings.

This is the central question nobody has ever answered satisfactorily -- not Brent, not Travis, not anyone else -- if people don't care and it won't affect price, why don't you just disclose it? Ask it and watch the BS start to flow.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

This is the central question nobody has ever answered satisfactorily -- not Brent, not Travis, not anyone else -- if people don't care and it won't affect price, why don't you just disclose it? Ask it and watch the BS start to flow.

Don't be silly, Peter. They don't disclose it because there is nothing to disclose, not because it would negatively impact the price. Honesty is kept out of the equation for other reasons.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

Don't be silly, Peter. They don't disclose it because there is nothing to disclose, not because it would negatively impact the price. Honesty is kept out of the equation for other reasons.

There are days I'm pretty pessimistic and have come close to abandoning this thinking, but overall, I think at least some substantial part of the hobby still views most stuff done to cards as something they would want to know about.

And yes, it's a slippery slope, and there's no perfect definition of what is material alteration and what isn't that will satisfy everyone, I get that. But that doesn't invalidate the overarching point. I can have a valid general principle even if I can't perfectly and consistently apply it in every case. And anyhow, disclosure is the perfect solution, let people decide for themselves if they care.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

There are days I'm pretty pessimistic and have come close to abandoning this thinking, but overall, I think at least some substantial part of the hobby still views most stuff done to cards as something they would want to know about.

And yes, it's a slippery slope, and there's no perfect definition of what is material alteration and what isn't that will satisfy everyone, I get that. But that doesn't invalidate the overarching point. I can have a valid general principle even if I can't perfectly and consistently apply it in every case. And anyhow, disclosure is the perfect solution, let people decide for themselves if they care.

We know for a fact that a substantial part of the hobby cares - which is exactly why our fraudsters are so hellbent on not disclosing it. These crooks wouldn't make as much money if they were honest about the altering, it is the only motive to cover it up and hide it when selling. But of course, this too must be lied about in order to come up with a narrative that justifies their fraud.

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by G1911

We know for a fact that a substantial part of the hobby cares - which is exactly why our fraudsters are so hellbent on not disclosing it. These crooks wouldn't make as much money if they were honest about the altering, it is the only motive to cover it up and hide it when selling. But of course, this too must be lied about in order to come up with a narrative that justifies their fraud.

If snowball actually believes it doesn't matter he'd have no problem proving his assertion by keeping a very public record of sales for a substantial period of time, disclosing his cleaning clearly for one copy of each card and withholding for the other. I'm sure he's got enough doubles to make a reasonable sample size. But somehow, I doubt he'd do it. It's better to just argue it won't matter than risk being proven wrong. It helps justify his fraud in his own mind. There must be a conscience in there after all.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

There are days I'm pretty pessimistic and have come close to abandoning this thinking, but overall, I think at least some substantial part of the hobby still views most stuff done to cards as something they would want to know about.

And yes, it's a slippery slope, and there's no perfect definition of what is material alteration and what isn't that will satisfy everyone, I get that. But that doesn't invalidate the overarching point. I can have a valid general principle even if I can't perfectly and consistently apply it in every case. And anyhow, disclosure is the perfect solution, let people decide for themselves if they care.

I definitely vote for your disclosure requirement.

At the same time, a couple of cautionary tales come to mind, where disclosure has become meaningless:

1) In the great state of CA, there are disclosures on just about everything about how it may cause cancer. They've grown so ubiquitous that they're meaningless. I could see a situation where just about every card includes some throwaway disclosure like, "This card may have been altered by a previous owner." Obviously, once it's everywhere, it starts to lose its potency, and buyers would probably no longer care.

2) As one of my accounting professors used to say, "If you want to hide something in your financial statements, put it in the footnotes, because no one ever reads them." While it's not a thing today, it's not inconceivable to have a long list of boilerplate for every item at auction. If the boilerplate is long enough, you could disclose just about anything in there, and no one would ever read it.

Just to be clear, I don't condone card doctoring. I don't doctor cards myself (except in industry-approved fashion, like trimming down a card that is intended to be hand cut, like a 71 Bazooka). And I do support disclosure of any work done to a card, because knowing is half the battle.

But sometimes I do like to poke the bear. And in this case, I do worry that disclosure might not lead to the outcomes we might hope to accomplish.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I think you're overcomplicating it. It's not going to bury collectors to add one line to an auction, I used Kurt's Card Care to clean some residue off this card, or, this card was stained and I used X to remove it.

[G1911]

It takes me about 1 second to write "card is trimmed". It should take less than 1 second for the buyer to read that.

Honest disclosure is very, very easy and uncomplicated. The reasons people try to come up with to justify not telling the truth are usually pretty funny though.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think you're overcomplicating it. It's not going to bury collectors to add one line to an auction, I used Kurt's Card Care to clean some residue off this card, or, this card was stained and I used X to remove it.

Fair enough. Just trying to think through this a bit more to consider whether there are unintended consequences to going there. I probably am overthinking it, which is standard for me.

Naturally, as much as we're in favor of disclosure, I don't see any rush by sellers to go there. Obviously (at least to my knowledge) there's nothing to disclose with the stuff that I'm selling. Conversely, the people who know they have stuff to disclose are the least motivated and least likely to disclose it, for all the obvious reasons.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by G1911

Don't be silly, Peter. They don't disclose it because there is nothing to disclose, not because it would negatively impact the price. Honesty is kept out of the equation for other reasons.

THAT is exactly what Snowman wrote the last time he got rung up on this topic. Very convenient stance.