1914 CJ Mathewson Receives a Bath Courtesy of Legendary

[D. Bergin]

Looks like Legendary is doing their scanning in a Document setting (which will de-empahasize toning in whites and off-whites) and REA is doing their scans in a Photo setting with the "UnSharp Mask" turned up to high, which will tend to do the exact opposite but create a sharper looking picture. I'd guess the actual card is somewhere in between the two.

[cyseymour]

I've known about this issue for over a year now, and it's frustrating because it's hard to know what the card will really look like when it shows up at your door. Anything is possible, but it's hard to believe that something hasn't been done to the scans - the settings changed, hues adjusted, whatever. I will reserve judgement, but let me just say that in my experience it has made it harder for me to bid. I have bid on a couple cards with them over the last year but often I am left wondering what the card really looks like. Some of their scans of OJ's in the past have been so bright that I just didn't know if I could bid, not knowing what the cards really looked like, since it was impossible for an OJ to really look like that. But it is all subjective.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I recently purchased a CJ card and when I went back to the original Legendary auction the scan was much brighter than the card. They clearly should make an adjustment to more accurately depict the card being auctioned, in my opinion. As we have seen from certain ebay auctions discussed here previously, scans do have the potential to mislead.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I recently purchased a CJ card and when I went back to the original Legendary auction the scan was much brighter than the card. They clearly should make an adjustment to more accurately depict the card being auctioned, in my opinion. As we have seen from certain ebay auctions discussed here previously, scans do have the potential to mislead.

And by making the scan brighter it causes stains and wrinkles to disappear or lessen. I wonder why the "scanner settings" aren't inadvertently set to make the cards darker, the stains more pronounced? Gee whiz!

Funny how the victims of this fraud -- the bidders -- can trust their eyes not to lie to them but the shills who make money from the auctioneers (Bob) have eyes that see something else.

[Peter_Spaeth]

At least the card looks real. I would rather have an altered scan of a real card than a real scan of an altered card. Plenty of the latter to go around. Of course when you have an altered scan of an altered card, you have hit the jackpot, and that's when world records get set.

[T206Collector]

When buying graded cards online, I always check the whiteness of the flip against some other white on my monitor/screen. A lot of times you can see that the SGC or PSA flip is a bit gray or shadowy. That would indicate to me that the card might be a bit brighter in person.

Conversely, if the SGC or PSA flip is gleaming white, you may have an issue, particularly if the text on the flip appears faded or diluted.

Adjusting photos or video for advertisements is certainly nothing new and has been going on for as long as there have been photographs in advertising. Given the massive move in our hobby to online auctions over the past decade, this phenomena is potentially a growing problem. It will be helpful to know which auction sites do the best job in accurately capturing their cards on film.

We have third party grading to help with the technical grade. Now apparently we need to police the card scanners...