Buying Slabbed cards...security...or the contrary?

[steve B]

There's really no need to send a slab to china.

The material used is most likely polycarbonate, and that can be printed in a 3d printer. Most hobby machines probably can't achieve the quality needed to produce a nice clear item, but the professional machines can.

Check out some of the items shown on this page and ask yourself how hard it would be to make a slab. Or a mold to produce some slabs if you had an injection molding machine. (Or even a press that can both heat and press at the same time)

https://www.makexyz.com/printer/medspark

And he charges just $1.75/ cubic centimeter.

The printer he uses can be had for about 20,000 used, sometimes less.

Steve B

[conor912]

This is why PSA is putting more effort into their flips. They've realized that the future of their security lies in holograms and barcodes and not the slabs themselves, which are now reproducable by just about anyone with a good 3D printer. The good ones are still very big and expensive now, but as they get cheaper, watch out. Any jackass will eventually have the tools to 3D print a slab and put a fake card in it.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by conor912

This is why PSA is putting more effort into their flips. They've realized that the future of their security lies in holograms and barcodes and not the slabs themselves, which are now reproducable by just about anyone with a good 3D printer. The good ones are still very big and expensive now, but as they get cheaper, watch out. Any jackass will eventually have the tools to 3D print a slab and put a fake card in it.

The same can be said about the flips. All those holograms are is more expensive ink that anyone that knows someone that works in a print shop can get.

[MetsBaseball1973]

I remain 100% fine buying graded cards from trusted sellers on eBay, or reputable auction houses. Anytime a thing is expensive and affords status there will be attempts to defraud-- it could be a Rolex or a Basquiat or a Mickey Mantle.

I try to educate myself, cultivate a network of savvy collector colleagues who can help me with an opinion, buy only from reliable sources, and above all scrutinize the card, to make sure it is not either over graded or one that slipped passed the proverbial goalie. In my experience thus far, this works out just fine.

Once we start talking about an invasion of Chinese slabs, I feel the discussion is on a slippery logic slope, the kind of sky-is-falling, tin hat hyperbole for which the Internet has become so famous, LOL.

[ullmandds]

Once we start talking about an invasion of Chinese slabs, I feel the discussion is on a slippery logic slope, the kind of sky-is-falling, tin hat hyperbole for which the Internet has become so famous, LOL.[/QUOTE]

Oh really?!?!?! What more is it going to take for you to see the light? We've already had a case of the mexican drug cartels presence in the phony vintage bb card sect...we've had purported reports of significant mafia intervention regarding price manipulation within the hobby...although this particular source is MIA. Is it so farfetched that China could be involved too??????

[Jobu]

So, does anyone have any solutions for features that TPGs could use in their holders that scam artists wouldn't be able to fake?

[Peter_Spaeth]

PSA used to have a fairly large watermarked (if that's the right word) hologram. The new one is a tiny little strip. Not sure if the larger one would be harder to replicate?

[CW]

Originally Posted by Jobu

So, does anyone have any solutions for features that TPGs could use in their holders that scam artists wouldn't be able to fake?

I'm not the first person to suggest this, but it would be nice if PSA scanned each card and kept them in either a public or private database for access when authenticity needs to be verified (and maybe it only really needs to be done on cards with a value over $100 or something like that).

[packs]

Originally Posted by Jobu

So, does anyone have any solutions for features that TPGs could use in their holders that scam artists wouldn't be able to fake?

Wouldn't it be pretty simple to put some type of barely there invisible seal on the corners of a slab? That way if the slab were opened, the invisible seal would be broken? Seems like you could accomplish this with a UV seal you put on a corner. If the slab is ever opened, the UV seal would be compromised.