Small Traditions LLC/SCANDAL UPDATE

[Exhibitman]

I'd almost prefer it was some sort of fraud ring inside PSA. Overwhelming incompetence is not a reassuring substitute.

[swarmee]

Chris Collins (Congressman about to serve jail time) has had some of his Mantle cards exposed in this one. I'm am cataloguing them over at Blowout. One of our board members bought a trimmed matchbook from David Thorn.

And Peter Spaeth seems to be concerned about the fake provenance being given by Thorn to make it look like these cards came from some advanced collection rather than being purchased by the auctionhouse and submitted through PSA in order to falsely put the card at arm's length.

If you are appalled at this fraud, the website to submit a complaint to the Colorado Atty General is around page 25.

[Johnny630]

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showth...345291&page=26


WTH!!! PSA you’re a complete fraud

Look The before And After of the last Yankees Exhibit Card. The guy siting on the right look at his sleeve on the 4 then the 8.5 he cut his arm/sleeve way off and PSA misses this ?? yogi too on the left sitting cut his knee off wtf OH BULL S they missed this....look at penciling of the corners on the top right corner. WOW unbelievable

This is sick they ought to be ashamed of themselves

[BeanTown]

This came off a different forum.

[philliesphan]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

I'd almost prefer it was some sort of fraud ring inside PSA. Overwhelming incompetence is not a reassuring substitute.

THIS. Thank you Adam. For me, the past 15 years in the hobby is less and less graded, and more pre-war, more larger cards, and less chasing the Registry whore cards.

[mintacular]

Somebody might want to alert PSA to this thread (no I don't think PSA is "in on it") as Small Traditions sponsors one of their Sweepstakes

https://www.psacard.com/sweepstakes?...s_january_2020

[drcy]

Originally Posted by mintacular

Somebody might want to alert PSA to this thread (no I don't think PSA is "in on it") as Small Traditions sponsors one of their Sweepstakes

https://www.psacard.com/sweepstakes?...s_january_2020

There was a thread about it on the CU forum that went poof

[swarmee]

https://web.archive.org/web/20200119...-boda-exposure

Oh, PSA is well-aware of how their pants are down in this scandal. But feel free to bring it up to them and have your submission privileges removed... ;-)
They keep their message board like the Chinese version of Google.

Edit: And it's funny that they keep deleting posts. They should realize by now any juicy thread like that will be archived in the wayback machine to prove just how much they want to continue cheating their customers from knowing the truth.

[Republicaninmass]

Most people knew this guy was a huge Jeter Collector. It wasnt a surprise when every auction had a slew of jeter inserts etc. I thought it was common knowledge he was selling his own cards. Now the rest, certainly makes a fella think. Faking provenance, sound like the latest craze

[swarmee]

In case you missed Post #277 by auburn35, this is pretty damning.

Small Traditions, Better Business Bureau reviews are fairly interesting.
https://www.bbb.org/us/co/denver/pro...iews#366918759

Several positive reviews within days of each other (almost like customers were asked to do so), in March of 2019. Even Tim "Trim by Tim" Burridge makes an appearance but this was the most interesting "positive" comment.

Ronald S
03/17/2019
★★★★★
Excellent service, honest and straightforward. Dave did all the work getting my cards graded and sold and even did a few “repairs “ to get a higher grade and resubmitted some to get a better grade. I know he got me at least $700 extra in one case doing that. Highly recommend.

Response from Small Traditions LLC:
03/19/2019

Thanks so much, Ron. We really appreciate your honesty here as well as the opportunity to have worked with you and your collection. To be clear, any "repairs" we did consisted simply of removing wax from more than a few of your cards as well as unfolding some very damaged corners on some very low-grade cards. Doing that definitely helped the grades on several of those increase from the 1 or 2 range to 3s or 4s and maybe a few 3s and 4s up to 5s and 6s. I want to be very clear to distinguish this from "card doctoring," which consists of fraudulent things like cutting cards or recoloring them. I like to tell our customers that if a card has a booger on it, naturally you would flick it off before submitting it for grading, which is the case with wax when found on the fronts of cards. It was very common because most 50s and 60s era cards came out of wax packs, and it rubs off quite easily and leaves a nice shine. As for badly damaged corners, I like to say that if you had a Mickey Mantle rookie card that was folded in half, naturally you'd unfold it before submitting it for grading. This is essentially what sometimes happens to the corners of badly damaged or low-grade cards, when the corners sort of flip in or flop over. If it's bad enough or obvious enough, it helps to gently lay them flat again before submitting for grading. Again, thanks for your very specific and honest feedback here, and thanks to the BBB for the space here to respond.

The FBI should have an even easier case against David, as in his own words, he admits that it's fraudulent to cut and recolor cards.

[conor912]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

Faking provenance, sound like the latest craze

What did we expect? How many threads over the last several months have had multiple posts touting the importance of provenance going forward?

The crux of this whole problem is collectors’ desperation to believe anything they have to in order to feel good about a piece. It’s like dating a former porn star and convincing yourself she’s only been with you. The human brain can quite easily convince itself of anything it wants to.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by mintacular

Somebody might want to alert PSA to this thread (no I don't think PSA is "in on it") as Small Traditions sponsors one of their Sweepstakes

https://www.psacard.com/sweepstakes?...s_january_2020

Fuck PSA

[hcv123]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Fuck PSA

THIS!!!!

Where's the thumbs up emoji?

[swarmee]

The cover up continues. PSA revoked my website account so I can no longer notify their customers who bought altered cards through the set registry. And there are still people who think PSA is not complicit in the fraud?

[Republicaninmass]

Turnaround times have never been longer even after staffing and building upgrades. Maybe they downsized and didnt tell anyone

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by swarmee

The cover up continues. PSA revoked my website account so I can no longer notify their customers who bought altered cards through the set registry. And there are still people who think PSA is not complicit in the fraud?

John Keep fighting the good fight brother don’t stop .....In my opinion this is what needs to happen.

All this Stuff HAS to be on SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS MEANING ALL THE BASEBALL CARD SPORT CARD RELATED FACEBOOK GROUPS

BUYING SELLING VINTAGE CADS ect
TOBACCO ROW
TOBACCO CARD COLLECTORS
99% PSA
AND MANY OTHERS INCLUDING THE RAZ GAMBLING FACEBOOK GROUPS AND AUCTION GROUPS TO INCLUDE

TWITTER/instagram ect....

Also A booth at every major card show set up next to PSA and other TPG grading offenders exposing with big screens their thousands upon thousands of altered cards in there holders

[bswhiten]

Originally Posted by swarmee

The cover up continues. PSA revoked my website account so I can no longer notify their customers who bought altered cards through the set registry. And there are still people who think PSA is not complicit in the fraud?

Sorry to hear that John. Thanks for pointing me to the link that showed one of my Berra matchbooks had been trimmed.

Ben

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by swarmee

The cover up continues. PSA revoked my website account so I can no longer notify their customers who bought altered cards through the set registry. And there are still people who think PSA is not complicit in the fraud?

wow