PWCC Statement on Recent Card Trimming Concerns

[Bram99]

The focus of the scandal for many on this board and the BO board seems to be the card doctors (Moser in particular) and the auction houses (PWCC in particular) that possibly knowingly sold doctored cards.

Of course this is bad behavior and possibly illegal, definitely immoral, and they and their businesses will likely suffer in undetermined ways because of their actions.

But not enough of the focus is on PSA or the third-party graders in general.

We didn't really learn anything new about the tendency of people like the card doctors and their sales fronts in this scandal. Those things have been present in one way or another for years and in fact are part of the reason for the TPG's in the first place - to give the buyer/collector/investor comfort that the card is real, unaltered, and it fits closely to the objective traits of the subjective grade that they provide.

I think a new learning would be (or at least a more solid understanding of how pervasive the condition) how inept or carelessly or willfully negligent the TPG's really are at assigning a grade and detecting alterations including trimming, recoloring, adding back corners, removing stains, removing creases, etc.

So while the particular doctors in this case may be stopped for now, and while one auction house may take a hit, the big impact of the scandals uncovered over the past few months is that our collective faith in third party graders who grade using current methods has been probably irreparably damaged.

The damage to our faith in their expertise will likely cost many who own graded cards some measure of market value of those cards.

The open question is what will come to rectify the problem of TPG's' ineptitude? Because the need is still there.

Because there is a need for uniform opinions of condition rather than the old days of "well high book value X and this card looks pretty good", and because there are many more card doctors hiding in the shadows, the need for a good third-party opinion remains. The question is - who and what will come in to fill that need now that the current TPG's have proved extremely fallable? That should be the trajectory this discussion takes while the market and legal authorities deal with those who have been exposed.

[Peter_Spaeth]

People keep saying there is no focus on PSA but there has been plenty of discussion of PSA. There is more on PWCC for now because of the nature of what's been uncovered, and all the statements they have made, and their direct relationship to certain people. But I don't see anyone avoiding PSA as a topic. Quite to the contrary. Read all the threads, it's very much there.