Which cards must be graded/authenticated to be sold online?

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's just weird. None of the three are good at catching alterations, and won't back up their grades.

And yet here's everyone wanting to make it required to give the incompetent still more money?

Well, to me, this is for liability purposes for a company like COMC who is doing the best they can to filter out altered and fake cards from their inventory. They are not always the card experts; most are just guys processing cards. If COMC is on the hook for a $5,000 + refund because the card was counterfeit or trimmed, it's better to have to make sure their submitters had to go through a first line of defense. Necessary evil? The Hornsby is funny to see PSA/PWCC screw up on, but that's really a once in a blue moon kind of thing. And theoretically, now has PWCC's refund guarantee and PSA"s grade guarantee to fall back on. COMC has removed thousands of trimmed cards in altered slabs from these same companies from their servers and processed a ton of refunds even though the cards were graded. I'm really just talking about authentication here.

1914/1915 Cracker Jack stars/SPs are another one.
1933 Goudey Sport Kings?

[glynparson]

Any card I’d buy graded I’d buy raw as well

[steve B]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Well, to me, this is for liability purposes for a company like COMC who is doing the best they can to filter out altered and fake cards from their inventory. They are not always the card experts; most are just guys processing cards. If COMC is on the hook for a $5,000 + refund because the card was counterfeit or trimmed, it's better to have to make sure their submitters had to go through a first line of defense. Necessary evil? The Hornsby is funny to see PSA/PWCC screw up on, but that's really a once in a blue moon kind of thing. And theoretically, now has PWCC's refund guarantee and PSA"s grade guarantee to fall back on. COMC has removed thousands of trimmed cards in altered slabs from these same companies from their servers and processed a ton of refunds even though the cards were graded. I'm really just talking about authentication here.

1914/1915 Cracker Jack stars/SPs are another one.
1933 Goudey Sport Kings?

They do ok on authenticating - as far as saying a card is what it appears to be. A 33 Goudey instead of a reprint for instance. But that's the easy
part.

As far as figuring out if it's the same as it left the factory aside from normal wear? Nope.
And their "grade guarantee" is only "send it back to the seller" so they dodge all responsibility. I'm not sure where things stand with PWCCs guarantee, there hasn't been any updates in a while.

I suppose the liability thing has something to it, but personally I wouldn't want to shield myself behind a company like PSA.

If I was organized enough...