new low for the ebay authenticity thing

[BobC]

Originally Posted by jayshum

There seem to be plenty of people on this board who think they can identify a fake slab from any company just from seeing online pictures so I don't think it's impossible to think that someone working for one of the grading companies couldn't learn how to identify them with the item in hand.

Jay,

Don't disagree at all, but I'm also including the idea of damaged slabs in this. If a slab gets damaged somehow, could someone then not question that maybe it wasn't a fake slab, but possibly a real slab that somehow got opened and had a card swapped out of it for another, and then resealed? I know the chances of that are probably minimal at best, but there's still a chance, right? Who knows, a mail carrier, or even someone at the TPG, could accidently drop/step on/crush a package or envelope holding an encapsulated card, and damage the holder. How many times here on the forum have you seen people warning others about buying cards where they detect something in the edges of the holder that look like it may have been tampered with. Cloudiness in the plastic, or whatever. Also, over the years, the TPGs all seem to have made changes and updates to their holders at one time or another. I'm assuming like you, and many others on this forum, I've probably got at least one example of each iteration of all the different holders each TPG has put out over their many years of operation, including some from TPGs no longer around. But do I know all the specific and unique differences between the holders and each TPG's different iterations, or the makeup and specific qualities of the plastic formula used in each of them so I could tell you exactly how the plastic in those holders would react and look if dropped/damaged.......NO! And probably like everyone else, I'm not about to go intentionally dropping or trying to open them without breaking the holders, just to see how they would react and what they would look like if I had accidently done so. So unless someone is a true plastics expert, and also knowledgeable in the specific ways these various TPG holders and their various iterations over all the years are sealed, and all the different ways the plastics used will react and look when and if damaged or tampered with, I'm not so sure it is that simple to find a true expert that can really tell if ALL the holders they are looking at are really tampered with or not.