PWCC Auctions - Mystery Bid Post Auction?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by rhettyeakley

What he said.

Why do we choose to do business with these people? It is almost like we go out of our way to lift the biggest slime-ball’s to the top of this hobby/industry!

You know the answer, Rhett.

[Carter08]

The pwcc issues sort of pre-date me getting back into collecting but I’ve read up on it a bit. Scary stuff but one thing I’ll say is I hope to not have to worry about the seller all that much. If they are selling me a graded card I can do research on it and life will be ok. If there’s an issue with the card inside the holder and it shouldn’t have received the assigned grade my first thought goes to thinking there’s an issue with the grading company that needs to be fixed. Just my two cents.

Note: If anyone sells me a reasonably priced 33 Goudey and/or 48 leaf Ruth I promise I will never look to pwcc again.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Carter08

The pwcc issues sort of pre-date me getting back into collecting but I’ve read up on it a bit. Scary stuff but one thing I’ll say is I hope to not have to worry about the seller all that much. If they are selling me a graded card I can do research on it and life will be ok. If there’s an issue with the card inside the holder and it shouldn’t have received the assigned grade my first thought goes to thinking there’s an issue with the grading company that needs to be fixed. Just my two cents.

Note: If anyone sells me a reasonably priced 33 Goudey and/or 48 leaf Ruth I promise I will never look to pwcc again.

There may be an issue with the grading company, but now (hypothetically) you're the one with the bad card and good luck getting the grading company to help you.

I would guess most collectors are not doing any research before buying those slabs. Kudos to you if you are.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

There may be an issue with the grading company, but now (hypothetically) you're the one with the bad card and good luck getting the grading company to help you.

I would guess most collectors are not doing any research before buying those slabs. Kudos to you if you are.

Serious question. What if the majority of collectors today simply don't care if a card was "restored" or not? What if they only care about how it looks and that it is slabbed and that there is a market/demand for it?

I'm not belittling the opinions of the purists, they're certainly entitled to their preferences, but in nearly every other hobby, "alterations" or "restorations" or whatever else you want to call them are widely accepted. Sometimes it just feels like the purists are attempting to demand their preferences on the masses. But what if it's actually the purists who are outnumbered?

I personally don't care about the majority of the alterations I've seen. Hell, I've even been buying up some pretty big cards in 'authentic' slabs lately (52T mantle, 52T mays, 48 leaf Jackie, 33 Goudey Ruth, an MJ/Lebron RC dual auto card, and more, all in authentic slabs). In many cases I actually prefer the restored card to the "before" pictured cards in a lot of the BODA posts. That 52 Mantle card on Blowhard that started much of this controversy is a prime example. Give me the "restored" version of that card all day long. I'd even pay top dollar for it. Those alterations don't bother me one bit. As long as it's well-centered with good eye appeal, crease free, and measures to size, that's all I care. I don't know what percentage of collectors in this hobby don't care about these alterations, but I guarantee it's a much much higher percentage of people than one would think if their only exposure to the hobby was through the forums. All those BODA threads, while ultimately informative and helpful, are just filled with the same dozen or so voices constantly regurgitating the same arguments over and over and they all just circle jerk together while they play whack-a-mole on anyone with a dissenting opinion. A very small number of people are responsible for well in excess of half the content in those threads, and many are extremely rude, aggressive, and abrasive toward anyone with a different opinion. It pushes people away. It's like the Twittersphere of this hobby. Just a bunch of monkeys throwing shit at each other. I believe if it was a more open discussion with dissenting views being tolerated, we'd see a much more healthy debate and far more people chiming in who aren't bothered by all these altered cards. But posting in those threads is like walking into a landmine field. So people just avoid it altogether.

Don't get me wrong. I still avoid rattlers. I still avoid hideously recolored cards. But it's because they look mangled that I don't want them in my collection. But if I were at a show and the dealer told me that the raw 1954 Topps Al Rosen card in VG-EX condition I'm interested in buying for $5 was previously oversized and stuck out like a sore thumb in a stack so he micro trimmed 1/32" off the bottom and now it measures correctly to size, I honestly couldn't care less as long as it wasn't noticeable, and I would gladly put it in my set to replace an off-centered copy with a crease that hadn't been altered. If a card has been altered, but the alteration is undetectable, then what difference does it make? Honestly? At what point are you guys just yelling at clouds?

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Serious question. What if the majority of collectors today simply don't care if a card was "restored" or not? What if they only care about how it looks and that it is slabbed and that there is a market/demand for it?

I'm not belittling the opinions of the purists, they're certainly entitled to their preferences, but in nearly every other hobby, "alterations" or "restorations" or whatever else you want to call them are widely accepted. Sometimes it just feels like the purists are attempting to demand their preferences on the masses. But what if it's actually the purists who are outnumbered?

I personally don't care about the majority of the alterations I've seen. Hell, I've even been buying up some pretty big cards in 'authentic' slabs lately (52T mantle, 52T mays, 48 leaf Jackie, 33 Goudey Ruth, an MJ/Lebron RC dual auto card, and more, all in authentic slabs). In many cases I actually prefer the restored card to the "before" pictured cards in a lot of the BODA posts. That 52 Mantle card on Blowhard that started much of this controversy is a prime example. Give me the "restored" version of that card all day long. I'd even pay top dollar for it. Those alterations don't bother me one bit. As long as it's well-centered with good eye appeal, crease free, and measures to size, that's all I care. I don't know what percentage of collectors in this hobby don't care about these alterations, but I guarantee it's a much much higher percentage of people than one would think if their only exposure to the hobby was through the forums. All those BODA threads, while ultimately informative and helpful, are just filled with the same dozen or so voices constantly regurgitating the same arguments over and over and they all just circle jerk together while they play whack-a-mole on anyone with a dissenting opinion. A very small number of people are responsible for well in excess of half the content in those threads, and many are extremely rude, aggressive, and abrasive toward anyone with a different opinion. It pushes people away. It's like the Twittersphere of this hobby. Just a bunch of monkeys throwing shit at each other. I believe if it was a more open discussion with dissenting views being tolerated, we'd see a much more healthy debate and far more people chiming in who aren't bothered by all these altered cards. But posting in those threads is like walking into a landmine field. So people just avoid it altogether.

Don't get me wrong. I still avoid rattlers. I still avoid hideously recolored cards. But it's because they look mangled that I don't want them in my collection. But if I were at a show and the dealer told me that the raw 1954 Topps Al Rosen card in VG-EX condition I'm interested in buying for $5 was previously oversized and stuck out like a sore thumb in a stack so he micro trimmed 1/32" off the bottom and now it measures correctly to size, I honestly couldn't care less as long as it wasn't noticeable, and I would gladly put it in my set to replace an off-centered copy with a crease that hadn't been altered. If a card has been altered, but the alteration is undetectable, then what difference does it make? Honestly? At what point are you guys just yelling at clouds?

There's a difference between cards that are altered being sold in slabs that actually indicate it compared to altered cards that end up with numeric grades (and sell for way more than they did before altering). If the alteration is disclosed (either by the seller or through being graded as such), then people can make up their own minds about buying the card or not with full knowledge of what has been done to it. I think the issue most people have is when a card has been altered and graded without the alteration being disclosed.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by jayshum

There's a difference between cards that are altered being sold in slabs that actually indicate it compared to altered cards that end up with numeric grades (and sell for way more than they did before altering). If the alteration is disclosed (either by the seller or through being graded as such), then people can make up their own minds about buying the card or not with full knowledge of what has been done to it. I think the issue most people have is when a card has been altered and graded without the alteration being disclosed.

Exactly. It's all about disclosure. If it isn't disclosed, it's fraud. Many of us aren't interested in rewarding the skill of some criminal who can make cards look prettier. Originality may not be important to others, I get that. But that choice should be made on an informed basis, not on the basis of deception.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Exactly. It's all about disclosure. If it isn't disclosed, it's fraud. Many of us aren't interested in rewarding the skill of some criminal who can make cards look prettier. Originality may not be important to others, I get that. But that choice should be made on an informed basis, not on the basis of deception.

Some people apparently do not care if they have been deceived as long as it appears, to them, they have not been, either through denial or lack of sophistication or experience.

To Snowman's point I think there is a new breed of buyer AND a new sentiment among many collectors who really do not care what has been done to the item they are buying. They are putting 100% in the faith in the label and the faith that others have 100% faith in the label. They have the ability to write a check and it is no longer important if what they paid for is actually what the label says it is.

It is exactly why PWCC and others are absolutely killing it despite having been associated with having committed fraud.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by jayshum

There's a difference between cards that are altered being sold in slabs that actually indicate it compared to altered cards that end up with numeric grades (and sell for way more than they did before altering). If the alteration is disclosed (either by the seller or through being graded as such), then people can make up their own minds about buying the card or not with full knowledge of what has been done to it. I think the issue most people have is when a card has been altered and graded without the alteration being disclosed.

+100

The issue is not whether the card is altered, but whether an “expert” authentication and grading company has certified/slabbed an altered card with a numerical grade, implying it has not been altered.

There are countless examples of PSA reaffirming their grades in the face of overwhelming evidence of grading. Beckett snd SGC are hardly clean themselves (although I openly favor SGC and think they do the nest job/make the fewest mistakes?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

+100

The issue is not whether the card is altered, but whether an “expert” authentication and grading company has certified/slabbed an altered card with a numerical grade, implying it has not been altered.

There are countless examples of PSA reaffirming their grades in the face of overwhelming evidence of grading. Beckett snd SGC are hardly clean themselves (although I openly favor SGC and think they do the nest job/make the fewest mistakes?

And that is a huge part of the issue/problem in that the TPGs are all for profit businesses, so they only do so much and spend so much time looking at each and every card they grade so they can turn a profit. They don't have the resources, time, and people to research each and every card like the BODA guys do in their findings of likely cards that have been altered/doctored before ending up with a numerical grade in some TPG's holders.

And the TPGs aren't stupid. Even when all the BODA evidence is shoved in their faces, they are going to ignore or deny it. Because if they ever actually listen and start acting on what the BODA guys are saying, that lets the entire hobby community know that they can't do as good of a job as the BODA guys, who do all their work free. And if people start realizing the are admitting to their inabilities to properly grade and authentic cards, it might actually turn more people off to using them in the future.

Even with all the BODA evidence and scans showing the likeliness of cards being altered, yet getting graded and slabbed with numerical grades, it could still be nearly impossible to legally prove that with every BODA outed card. A good defense attorney would just bring out multiple examples of a card that BODA says was altered and then slabbed. They'd parade them all in front of a jury and say they all look alike to a card the BODA guys are saying was altered, and do you really think some random jurors are going to be able to really tell the difference? I sure wouldn't bet on it. So what do the attorneys do next, call in the experts to tell the jury their opinion on the cards. Oh wait, that's right, the TPGs are the recognized and accepted experts when it comes to grading and authentication. The BODA guys are just independent guys doing this on their own. And I also don't see any one TPG coming to testify against another, as they are likely aware they all have erroneously graded tons of altered cards over the years. So by one TPG testifying against another, they could be putting their own company's neck on the chopping block and open themselves up to similar charges and litigation in the future. All the TPGs have likely had these discussions multiple times with their own legal counsels already, and will probably just say nothing else, and simply continue to give their "opinions" on cards, just as they've been doing all along. Remember, all they give is an opinion.

Now if they (the TPGs) really wanted to do something to actually try to combat and stop the misgrading of altered cards, this is where some of those earlier discussions about using AI to grade cards could actually prove useful. It was brought up, by Snowman of all people, that using AI for grading wouldn't probably work due to the time, effort and human interaction involved for it to function properly, and even then the probabilities for errors still likely wouldn't be as low as for a human grader. However, it was brought up that through such AI technology you could tremendously magnify scans of cards, down to the individual pixel level, and at such a magnification level it turns out that each card is actually unique after all. The AI scan could possibly be treated like a fingerprint or DNA to then legally prove a card had been altered. That way if someone submitted an altered card, the TPG's AI system could definitively match it to the unaltered version of the and alert the TPG that something had been done to the card. The problem though is that for this to work and catch the alteration, the TPG that the altered card was submitted to would have already had to have scanned the unaltered card into their AI system. So card doctors could still easily continue altering and submitting cards for grading. They'd just have to make sure they started with raw cards that likely weren't scanned into any TPG's AI system, or if they did acquire a graded card to crack out and alter, just be sure to submit it to a different TPG than the one who's holder they originally cracked it out of.

So at the end of the day, using the AI like this probably won't help entirely stop alterations after all. Knowing cards were now being subjected to such AI scans, I doubt card doctors would be dumb enough to submit an altered card right back to the same TPG that had already graded it, and I certainly don't see someone doctoring/altering a card more than once. But if TPGs did start using this AI technology and commenced taking such detailed scans of every card they handled and graded, it could eventually start to catch some altered cards. Unfortunately, it woud most likely come from innocent buyers who unknowingly purchased an altered card in a graded holder, and they go to have it crossed over to another TPG or try to resubmit it for a possible grade bump, and it gets tagged as having been altered. In this case with fingerprint/DNA type of proof, the innnocent owner may have a better chance to go back to a seller for some justice, which in turn might get more sellers concerned and cautious in dealing with or being involved with these card doctors to begin with. This would work better if all the TPGs did such AI scanning, but I doubt they'd ever share such technology and cooperate with each other. In fact, if say only one TPG were to commence using such AI technology, I could see it improving the reputation and desirability of the slab for that TPG over those of other TPGs as many people would likely assume card doctors would push more of their altered cards towards the TPGs not using the AI technology.

The other big problem is that there are likely more altered cards out there in TPG numerically graded slabs than we can ever imagine. And there is pretty much nothing any of us can do about it, despite all the BODA threads and outed cards.

Serious question, to anyone's knowledge, has any card outed by the BODA guys ever taken a serious hit in a sale or auction because it was outed as possibly altered? I'm going to guess for the most part, no. Maybe a few potential buyers/bidders that were aware of the issues stayed away. But I'm guessing there were more than enough bidders/buyers that didn't know, or care, to still get the sellers a final price around what they were expecting. So really, anyone know an owner taking a hit for an outed card by the BODA guys?

Which leads me to another question. What if some seller takes a big hit on selling a BODA outed card in an auction, and finds out from the winning bidder they (and everyone else) now think it is altered because of what they heard on Blowout, or even here on Net54, could the BODA guys (or anyone else passing the info along) possibly be found liable for the loss suffered by the card's owner? Just like a TPG, the BODA guys are just giving their opinion. And I think that despite the evidence the BODA guys put out there, not entirely sure what they are claiming can be definitively and legally proven. So again, just curious if a seller lost enough to make it worthwhile to sue, think they'd have any chance of success against the BODA guys, or possibly others?

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Serious question. What if the majority of collectors today simply don't care if a card was "restored" or not? What if they only care about how it looks and that it is slabbed and that there is a market/demand for it?

I believe your question answers itself. The nouveau entrants aren't collectors, they are investors.

They are certainly free to do as they wish, including never actually handling their cards, sorry assets. But, many long time collectors, who actually love the hobby as something more than a store of value, are getting squeezed out. And, it isn't limited to the premium cards. It has filtered down to the shallow end of the hobby pool, where I swim. The prices on vintage commons have increased to the point that I am making almost no progress on set builds. When the elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Carter08

The pwcc issues sort of pre-date me getting back into collecting but I’ve read up on it a bit. Scary stuff but one thing I’ll say is I hope to not have to worry about the seller all that much. If they are selling me a graded card I can do research on it and life will be ok. If there’s an issue with the card inside the holder and it shouldn’t have received the assigned grade my first thought goes to thinking there’s an issue with the grading company that needs to be fixed. Just my two cents.

Note: If anyone sells me a reasonably priced 33 Goudey and/or 48 leaf Ruth I promise I will never look to pwcc again.

I've had two gorgeous mid grade leaf Ruth 48's in the past few months, and a few Goudey Ruths coming up in November.

I find it hard to believe you can't find these cards at better than PWCC prices.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

I've had two gorgeous mid grade leaf Ruth 48's in the past few months, and a few Goudey Ruths coming up in November.

I find it hard to believe you can't find these cards at better than PWCC prices.

The Goudey Ruths have been pulling premium prices at every AH I've been following this past year. I don't think there's an end in sight to that either. I say get em while you still can.