Fraud in the hobby

[jchcollins]

"Fraud" in the hobby has been around as long as there has been a hobby, I hate to tell you. It's just got a lot more light on it now because we have graders and dealers and auction houses who can stand to benefit tremendously more from the fraud, and the technology / scans / wherewithal to detect 1/16 of an inch or less of perfect trimming, recoloring, bleaching, soaking, what have you. We also perhaps more importantly have the technology to share and disseminate the details of this fraud en masse quickly. Is this bad? Sure. But did certain unscrupulous people also do similar, if much cruder card doctoring in 1968? 1975? 1982? 1990? Of course they did. It simply did not get a ton of light on it due to the way the hobby worked and communicated at the time. Even so, one could argue this was the impetus for the birth of professional grading. But I digress.

Bottom line, are you happy with your cards? Do you know enough about them to detect the red flags of what may be a basic doctoring job? Then don't buy those cards. I've been doing this for 35 years and most of the vintage (my main focus as a kid...) that I had then was beat up to begin with. I will admit to liking nice, properly slabbed midgrade cards, but if too many of those become ripe with suspicion over alteration, then it's no problem for me to go back to buying lower grade raw cards (for cheaper...) that I don't suspect of having been altered. Just speaking personally, it would take things getting a lot worse than they have been over the previous 3-5 years with the scandals for me to get that much more disgusted with the hobby to where I would consider leaving entirely. But each unto their own.