PSA Response from President Steve Sloan

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by swarmee

List of things I'd like PSA to do:
1) Publish the entire list of Moser's submissions and decertify them from the pop report. In the case the proven "before" card was also PSA slabbed, remove that cert from the pop report as well.
2) Inform the public that this was done. SMR Magazine, Set Registry banquet at National, front page of your website. Have a returns line set up at the National for your aggrieved customers.
3) Get PWCC to pay for as much as they can afford.
4) Pay for the rest. It seems your company has not done a reliable job of this in the past; I have seen references to collectors having to "fight tooth and nail" to get reimbursed. This is the kind of thing that will only increase the bad press.
5) Open up your "internal investigation" to an independent auditor. As a publicly traded company, this makes sense, right?
6) Are you and Brent really working with any law enforcement? If so, why has the agency not been named?
7) Name the other "isolated bad actors" that still submit to PSA and decertify their cards. We're at the beginning of a Set Registry year; collectors will have 11 months to refill their sets with cards to replace their fraudulent ones.
8) Retrain your employees. The amount of various alterations detected so far has been vast: trimming, pressing out creases, recoloring, stain removal, claims of reglossing, rebuilding of corners, adding of rough cuts. Reject undersized cards as Minsize. Tighten up the minsiz requirements for sets like T206, 1952 Look N See, etc. Figure out how Moser beat you and think like him to figure out where PSA is sloppy. Maybe start a white-hat submission program to submit cards to your staff anonymously to see if they catch the alterations you claim you can.
9) Add a historical search for cards to your authentication step. Look for cards that have been photographed already on the internet. This will add personnel costs and timeline to your service, but it's required to regain trust. Otherwise, the scandal will continue to occur.
10) Openly disavow (or approve) Brent's Marketplace Tenets. Disavowing them will show that you believe in the collector's agreement with PSA's longstanding definitions of card alteration. If you approve them, you'll have to explain why the company failed so miserably and confirm that if you can't detect alterations, you'll have to concede your corporate expertise lacks.

I agree there are things that PSA can do to improve its product.....but, I think that is missing the main point.

In the movie "Other People's Money" Danny DeVito in arguing that technology had made the product the target company was selling obsolete analogized to a company that made buggy whips when the automobile became commercially available. No matter what that company could possibly come up with to try to improve the quality of its buggy whips, it did not matter because people were now driving automobiles.

In the case of baseball card grading, where 5,6, and even 7 figure cards have replaced yesteryear's era of 2, 3 and 4 figure cards, the financial rewards of expert alteration have made PSA's method of grading cards obsolete. To say it another way, unless and until a TPG begins to use the best commercially viable methods technology has to offer to evaluate cards, altered cards will continue to slip through.

It is for that reason why I have stopped purchasing graded cards that have no provenance -- the leap of faith required to believe the card is accurately described by the flip is simply too great.

To those who will respond that my view that a person cares the card is not altered and will look to buy the card, not the flip, represent the exception, not the rule amongst collectors/investors, perhaps that is true. But as I've said before -- I believe that as people really begin to understand how commonplace alterations are and the absurdity of form ruling over substance when one is spending 5, 6, and 7 figures on an item, the s*#t will hit the fan and things will change.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Corey do you have any specifics on what technology TPGs should be using, and its cost?

[swarmee]

Start up your own company, show proof of concept, go on Shark Tank. Then come back to me. All we have is buggy whips.

[MULLINS5]

PSA already grades conserved cards with an A.

But, if they want to take a page from the comic book community, then PSA needs to have a different color label for "restored" grade.

These cards would sell for less than red flip numerical grades.

There's no reason for debating conservation. What Moser did to his cards was OK. Brent selling them was OK. The issue here is that they defrauded buyers by selling something vastly different than advertised to make money for themselves - and PSA's involvement, for now, remains a question.

[dplath]

The comparison to comic books is often brought up, so I’d like to clarify how the grading works and how the market looks at conservation/restoration:

CGC is the biggest comic book TPG. When a book is graded, it can receive a universal (no restoration/alteration), restored or conserved label. Additionally, the book is given a numerical grade in any of those three labels. So though it’s fair to say that there’s a line drawn between restoration and alteration, the key is that the market doesn’t look at the three labels the same way. Given the same numerical grade, a book in a conserved label will still trade at a steep discount to a book given a universal label and a book in a restored label at a steep discount to a book in a conserved label.

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by dplath

The comparison to comic books is often brought up, so I’d like to clarify how the grading works and how the market looks at conservation/restoration:

CGC is the biggest comic book TPG. When a book is graded, it can receive a universal (no restoration/alteration), restored or conserved label. Additionally, the book is given a numerical grade in any of those three labels. So though it’s fair to say that there’s a line drawn between restoration and alteration, the key is that the market doesn’t look at the three labels the same way. Given the same numerical grade, a book in a conserved label will still trade at a steep discount to a book given a universal label and a book in a restored label at a steep discount to a book in a conserved label.

So in the comic book realm...are there instances where altered/restored richie riches end up in unaltered holders??

[dplath]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

So in the comic book realm...are there instances where altered/restored richie riches end up in unaltered holders??

I’m sure it happens but I don’t know of anything as widespread as what we’ve got going on right now.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by dplath

I’m sure it happens but I don’t know of anything as widespread as what we’ve got going on right now.

1000% agreed. Those guys are light years ahead of the PSA guys in regards to catching alterations.

[70ToppsFanatic]

Originally Posted by dplath

I’m sure it happens but I don’t know of anything as widespread as what we’ve got going on right now.

That’s a pretty incendiary statement to make given the information we have so far.

Just how widespread is what we have going on right now?


Last I checked there are around 375 or so cards that have been “outed” on BO, plus a list of additional suspects that currently could take the total over 1000 if all of them were to be similarly outed. Note that we have no information that any of the outed cards has been reviewed by the TPG and the finding of the review confirms the findings of the message board sleuths.

While I don’t doubt that there is some validity in what has been raised I think generalizations such as this are premature, not yet backed up by publicly available “hard” evidence and are therefore irresponsible as they can cause further unease/damage that may ultimately not be justified.

[Mr. Zipper]

Originally Posted by dplath

I’m sure it happens but I don’t know of anything as widespread as what we’ve got going on right now.

This type of scandal is nothing new in the hobby world.

In 2005, there was a major comic book scandal where CGC slabbed high value comic books were found to be "micro" trimmed. Hundreds of four and five figure comics... and the trimming often bumped the grade enough to raise the value thousands of dollars. Like this scandal, before and after photos exposed everything. The books in question sourced from a high profile comic book dealer named Jason Ewert.

CGC addressed it quickly and published lists of books that passed through Jason Ewert and had a process to re-examine suspect books.

Unfortunately, it appears some of the old threads were lost when CGC upgraded their message boards a few years ago, but here are some links. Note that many images have since broken, but the narrative tells the story:

https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/top...g-books-redux/

https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/top...trimmed-books/

https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/top...irco-trimming/

[swarmee]

1) Do comic books have a longstanding Set Registry?
2) What types of labels can go in set registries?
For example, does an original unaltered 6.0 rank better than a restored 9.8?
Or are they kept totally separate and some collect restored and most collectors ignore them like Qualifiers?

Again, for the comic book corollary to make sense, the TPGs would have to spend more time grading the cards accurately. Not maintain status quo. Putting a "restored" baseball card flip in a standard set registry at a similar point value will infuriate their most invested collectors.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by swarmee

1) Do comic books have a longstanding Set Registry?
2) What types of labels can go in set registries?
For example, does an original unaltered 6.0 rank better than a restored 9.8?
Or are they kept totally separate and some collect restored and most collectors ignore them like Qualifiers?

Again, for the comic book corollary to make sense, the TPGs would have to spend more time grading the cards accurately. Not maintain status quo. Putting a "restored" baseball card flip in a standard set registry at a similar point value will infuriate their most invested collectors.

Maybe PSA could do labels with card doctor pedigree.

But more seriously, if TPGs disclosed the identify of submitters, and AHs and large ebay sellers disclosed the identify of consignors, this hobby would clean up real fast. Of course it will happen on the twelfth of never, because we have to protect the criminals as much as possible to keep up the cash flow.

How many AHs will reassure us they don't and won't take consignments from known card doctors?

[x2drich2000]

Nearly everyone here is saying PSA needs to do a better job detecting the alterations, so what would be an acceptable failure rate (as in, what percent of altered cards get past them and given a grade). 1%? .5%?

Are any other hobbies using an AI to certify items? I know in high end art they've used CAT and xray to detect forgeries, but in those situations you are talking one off items that are already suspect and the value of the item justifies the expense. How much more would folks be willing to pay to have their VG T206 commons graded? The cards discovered so far show it is not just high $ cards being manipulated. Likewise, searching for past instances of cards being sold to compare takes a lot of time and of course time is money. So how much are folks who are complaining willing to pay to have a more comprehensive review done?

I also think we would be in a much worse situation if the TPG didn't exist. A good number of cards are purchased online today. I know I have and I'm sure most people have gotten raw cards that were not even close to the advertised grade (including altered cards). This includes cards coming from major auction houses. I don't know how many of these cards would have been caught if they weren't graded by a TPG. I guess the way I view it is that if these are getting past people who look at cards all day every day, what chance would the average collector have in spotting these if they got them raw?

So where does this leave us. In my view, the top 3 TPGs have done a great service to the hobby so far. Yes, the current situation sucks. However, when I really look at the alternative, the costs of doing a more thorough review of each card doesn't seem justified and I think you need to take the bad with the good. As a result, I hope this doesn't ultimately cripple PSA.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Corey do you have any specifics on what technology TPGs should be using, and its cost?

Peter, in response to this issue there have been posts by those with expertise in this area who opine the technology exists and would be cost effective. There have also been posts saying that for certain high valued cards, PSA charges up to $5K. At that level, I would think a submitter should get more than a cursory look by a person who might have little experience in knowing the different kinds of card sets and the physical characteristics those cards should be expected to exhibit.

From my experience with forensic analysis, I believe detecting trimming, the addition of color, and the pressing of corners is something that can be done. And given the enormous volume of cards PSA grades each year, I would think investing in such equipment would be profitable.

As to the point that for now all we have is buggy whips, that might be true. But then at least call it what it is and stop the pretense that the services PSA offer without making the investment into new technology can provide the assurances submitters believe they are getting and are paying for.

[ullmandds]

I know nothing about the comic book world but I am guessing there is no set registry???

[steve B]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

I know nothing about the comic book world but I am guessing there is no set registry???

https://www.cgccomics.com/registry/