altered? - what are your thoughts?

[Archive]

Posted By: cmoking

I won the E90-1 Lionel Carter near-set in the Mastro auction and gave a few of the Authentic cards to Kevin. Here are some thoughts on his questions:

1) When were these cards purchased or obtained?
In another thread, I asked when LC stopped collecting. It was shown he was still collecting into the 1990s, but that doesn't really help us know when he picked up the E90-1 cards or these two cards specifically. I don't think we'd ever know unless we asked LC, and I'm not even sure he'd remember.

2) Was this set pieced together, obtained all or partially at once?
The grades throughout the set was really mixed. These two SGC Authentic cards do look nice, but there were other SGC Authentic cards that were erally beat up, some with pinholes, some that were really 3/4th of a card instead of a whole card. My guess is he got a bunch in a lot, but then tried to piece the set together slowly.

6) Did any others by chance get past any graders?
I hope not, because I own 90 cards. The good thing is SGC caught these two (among others), so IMO the chances of them missing others may be minimized. Also, their history of catching altered cards has been pretty good IMO.

8) If these were purchased long ago, the modern chain of custody for this set would have been; Carter to Mastro to SGC back to Mastro. Is this correct?
Back to #1 - if he was collecting through into the 90s and upgrading or putting together his sets, then possibly he bought some of the E90-1 in the 80s or 90s when trimming started becoming an issue. Then again, it sounds like he wouldn't have paid up for a mint card (even though he liked mint cards), so its less likely someone profited greatly by selling them trimmed cards. Also, e-cards were fairly cheap in the 80s/90s, so there was even less incentive. I'm not expert, I didnt' start collecting these til a couple of years ago, but that's what I hear.


edited to add note: in case anyone was wondering due to my initial post in this thread, I was not aware these were the same cards that I gave him when Kevin first posted them (not that I mind they were the same cards).