Alteration vs. Conservation Defined

[oldjudge]

Connor: The people who buy PSA graded cards probably also submit cards to PSA. Their business model should be to grade as accurately as possible. PSA is successful because of their registry which is collectors.Their business model cannot be auction house or dealer centric; it must be collector centric.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Connor: The people who buy PSA graded cards probably also submit cards to PSA. Their business model should be to grade as accurately as possible. PSA is successful because of their registry which is collectors.Their business model cannot be auction house or dealer centric; it must be collector centric.

I hear what you're saying, but I guess I would argue that the only reason to ever grade anything is because it will be sold, eventually. Maybe there are a few outliers who grade strictly for one asinine reason or another like set uniformity or whatever, but the lion's share of people who submit do so for re-sale purposes, whether it be in their lifetime or not.

[oldjudge]

Originally Posted by conor912

I hear what you're saying, but I guess I would argue that the only reason to ever grade anything is because it will be sold, eventually. Maybe there are a few outliers who grade strictly for one asinine reason or another like set uniformity or whatever, but the lion's share of people who submit do so for re-sale purposes, whether it be in their lifetime or not.

Look at the top registry sets. Many have been together for decades. All cards will eventually be resold, but that wasn’t the reason they were graded.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Look at the top registry sets. Many have been together for decades. All cards will eventually be resold, but that wasn’t the reason they were graded.

See my comment about other asinine reasons

[swarmee]

PSA has tremendous liability in this issue for their failure to detect these alterations, because of their Grade Guarantee. They don't really need to say anything about Brent's tenets because they run counter to PSA's longstanding grading practice. Many of the things Brent calls "conservation" is clearly defined in PSA's grading rules as Alteration; the rub is that they're not nearly as good at detecting them as they claim they are. Brent is putting this out there because he bears little to no risk; PSA is on the hook for doctored cards.

In the submission with the Mantle PSA 4.5, which was presumably submitted by Brent based on the number of cards that were immediately resold by PWCC, 29 of the cards were returned ungraded. Was it for Altered, MinSize, min grade? We don't know. Just that the certs aren't there for some reason. That's out of 79 cards submitted. So it's quite possible that PSA caught 29 of 79 with some type of alteration. That's a huge number. Should they have caught more in the same order? Maybe. Should they tell the submitter: you're dead to us! ? I don't know the answer to that. Were these directly submitted by PWCC or are some owned by PWCC? We don't know that either.

Someone on Blowout pointed out when you submit cards, you certify that the cards you're submitting are unaltered in the first place. Can they use this to invalidate claims against their Grade Guarantee against submitters that intentionally submit trimmed and altered cards? Guess we'll find out.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I have certainly heard in the past that PSA banned people from submitting, but as has been pointed out that's a pretty simple workaround.

It's certainly easier to hide, in general, in a world where so many sales are consignments to auction houses and major ebay sellers.

Way back in the day, everyone knew who the card doctors were, they were the guys buying centered EX and EX MT cards at shows, who at the next show would have the same cards in 8s and 9s.

Now they're buying online under anonymous IDs, and selling through third parties.

[oldjudge]

Pretty simple solution to all this, if you don’t like the way PWCC does business don’t deal with them. I was unhappy with a card I bought on EBay several months back. I returned it to PWCC, got a refund, and will not deal with them again. Everyone needs to decide for themselves who they choose to deal with.

[Kenny Cole]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Pretty simple solution to all this, if you don’t like the way PWCC does business don’t deal with them. I was unhappy with a card I bought on EBay several months back. I returned it to PWCC, got a refund, and will not deal with them again. Everyone needs to decide for themselves who they choose to deal with.

This.

[CobbSpikedMe]

Why do you need to define Alteration vs. Conservation unless you are planning on knowingly selling altered (er conserved) cards and need to justify it to the hobby. This means you know you're wrong but are trying to pull one over on everyone.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Pretty simple solution to all this, if you don’t like the way PWCC does business don’t deal with them. I was unhappy with a card I bought on EBay several months back. I returned it to PWCC, got a refund, and will not deal with them again. Everyone needs to decide for themselves who they choose to deal with.

It depends how you define "all this." If you define it as the problem of altered cards being slabbed, that problem is pervasive and the solution if there is one is going to involve law enforcement coming down on card doctors who for decades now have just mocked the hobby and become rich in the process, and the TPGs especially PSA improving their detection methods.

[oldjudge]

Extraneous words on my part. If you delete "to all this" from my post my thought remains as intended.

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by swarmee

PSA has tremendous liability in this issue for their failure to detect these alterations, because of their Grade Guarantee. They don't really need to say anything about Brent's tenets because they run counter to PSA's longstanding grading practice. Many of the things Brent calls "conservation" is clearly defined in PSA's grading rules as Alteration; the rub is that they're not nearly as good at detecting them as they claim they are. Brent is putting this out there because he bears little to no risk; PSA is on the hook for doctored cards.

In the submission with the Mantle PSA 4.5, which was presumably submitted by Brent based on the number of cards that were immediately resold by PWCC, 29 of the cards were returned ungraded. Was it for Altered, MinSize, min grade? We don't know. Just that the certs aren't there for some reason. That's out of 79 cards submitted. So it's quite possible that PSA caught 29 of 79 with some type of alteration. That's a huge number. Should they have caught more in the same order? Maybe. Should they tell the submitter: you're dead to us! ? I don't know the answer to that. Were these directly submitted by PWCC or are some owned by PWCC? We don't know that either.

Someone on Blowout pointed out when you submit cards, you certify that the cards you're submitting are unaltered in the first place. Can they use this to invalidate claims against their Grade Guarantee against submitters that intentionally submit trimmed and altered cards? Guess we'll find out.

Well...if our cards are no longer "cards" now they are "ASSets"...there has to be some form of regulation/control/accountability from all parties involved in the supply chain.