"The Feds Are Here To Stay"

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Posted By: Joann

The later part of today's article (the one Jeff posted)refers to trimmed, colored or repaired - actions that pretty much everyone agrees are unethical alterations.

But the first part of the article talks about a card doctor and defines this as someone who "fixes dog-eared corners, removes stains, flattens out creases". Wow. These are not quite so universally considered alterations. Some people in the hobby defend these actions, along with soaking and erasing pencil marks, as benign and acceptable ways to spiff a card that fall short of unethical repairs. At minimum it is more debatable than trim/repair/recolor.

The first thing I thought when I read that was to wonder if Doug would regret coming on this board and admitting that Mastro used to do those kinds of things. Wow. Because clearly Mastro did not think they were doing anything wrong at the time, and now it might be some kind of crime?

Will the feds somehow determine what is an illegal, fraudulent alteration to a card when the hobby itself has been unable to agree on where the line should be drawn? And if anyone gets in legal trouble for pressing down corners or removing stains, it will be hard for me to see how that would be fair.

Think that's what's going on? Or is that just O'Keeffe's spin on the scope of the questions?

J