Stunning quote on altered cards

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by Seven

I've run across the unfortunate circumstance where the price boom, has made it affording the cards I want, borderline impossible, as a younger collector, the two altered cards I have in my collection, act as place holders until the day comes when I can afford respectable looking copies, in decent mid level grades. While we are seeing some regression in vintage, the main guy I collect, Mickey Mantle, does not go down in price. Which means, with certain cards, "altered" grades are one of my only option at the moment.

All that being said, personally, while I don't love the idea of owning an altered card, it's something that I've come to terms with, for now. It's also the reason why when I mainly shop around for a new card for my collection, I try to buy raw, from a long time collector or dealer, that knows the origin of the card. As it's one of the only ways I can ensure what I'm buying, hasn't been messed with.

There's absolutely no shame in owning an altered card, whether it's a placeholder or one you plan to take to the grave. Many/most of us probably have a few of them in our collections whether we know it or not.

But when the altered card is passed off as original and is assigned a numerical grade by a TPG, then we have a problem. The entire premise of third party grading is rendered pointless and meaningless when trimmed/recolored/bleached cards are continually realizing a lot more money than lower-graded original examples.

And whether it's just mistaken identification by the TPG or outright fraud, when people are profiting it only exacerbates the problem.