What do you think makes this Mantle authentic/altered?

[vintagebaseballcardguy]

Originally Posted by G1911

I've never understood, personally, why this is considered Altered and ungradable though. To me, "Authentic - Altered" is a card that has taken unnatural damage during the course of a fraud. Like trimming, having sharpie touching up a 1971 Topps card, a card that has gone through a chemical bath and wreaks of Bleach, a card that has a ink color removed long after creation to try and fool someone into buying an 'error'. This doesn't look nefarious at all, just some kid writing on Mantle's face and erasing it. To me this is just a normal 2-Good condition card.

If you write on Mickey's Face, you can get an 8-MK, but if the kid then erased it, you get a 0. Doesn't make sense to me, though I am probably in the minority here since this is something of a standard now.

Yeah, there doesn't appear to be anything nefarious going on with this one.