Card doctoring video

[nwobhm]

Originally Posted by Eric72

This is one of the most breathtakingly ignorant statements I've read on Net54 in the 10+ years I've been here.

Breathtaking….:eek…..….

Show me 1 criminal case where someone has been convicted of card trimming…..

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by nwobhm

Breathtaking….:eek…..….

Show me 1 criminal case where someone has been convicted of card trimming…..

Read this very thread re Bill Mastro.

[Rhotchkiss]

Here is a general definition of criminal fraud (each state probably has its own variation).

Altering a card is not a crime. Submitting an altered card to a TPG is not a crime. But the submission is an attempt to have the TPG (unknowingly) conceal the alteration. Then, the alterer sells the card in the TPG flip, misrepresenting (via implication or directly in the sales pitch/language) that the card is authentic/unaltered bc it sits in the flip, and they do this with the intent of making financial gain. That is fraud and fraud is a crime. Facts

[nwobhm]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Here is a general definition of criminal fraud (each state probably has its own variation).

Altering a card is not a crime. Submitting an altered card to a TPG is not a crime. But the submission is an attempt to have the TPG (unknowingly) conceal the alteration. Then, the alterer sells the card in the TPG flip, misrepresenting (via implication or directly in the sales pitch/language) that the card is authentic/unaltered bc it sits in the flip, and they do this with the intent of making financial gain. That is fraud and fraud is a crime. Facts

Not that any of us needed that….but ok…..

Let’s come at this from another angle.

Guy pulls a 52’ Mantle out of a pack in 1952…. Hates Mantle so it sits in a box until he dies in 1992. It passes to his son that loved Mantle. He sees it’s oversized and uses his own expertise gained in another field to trim it to the equivalent of a PSA 10 and it’s still slightly oversized. The son dies in 2022 and his son gets the card and sends it to PSA completely unaware of what his father did to his grandfathers Mantle. It comes back a PSA 10.

Since no one knows…. Is it still a PSA 10?

If a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound?

[Rhotchkiss]

It’s a psa 10 bc it sits in a psa 10 flip. But it’s still altered

Your fact pattern is not fraud for 3 reasons: (1) the grandson has not tried to realize financial gain (he has not tried to sell it, (2) submitting it to psa alone is not fraud, and (3) he did not know it had been altered

If the grandson new it was altered, submitted it to psa and got a numerical grade and then sold it for financial gain, knowing it was altered, and not disclosing it, then it’s fraud.

You are arguing with several people who have gone to law school and either actively practice law or have practiced law. This is like you telling a radiologist how to read an X-ray. You may not like it, you may not agree with it, but the fact pattern I have laid out meets all of the elements of fraud and fraud is a crime.

And with that, I wish you the best.

Ben, it is not fraud if the seller discloses it - there is no misrepresentation or omission/concealment (attempt to deceive).

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

It’s a psa 10 bc it sits in a psa 10 flip. But it’s still altered

Your fact pattern is not fraud for 3 reasons: (1) the grandson has not tried to realize financial gain (he has not tried to sell it, (2) submitting it to psa alone is not fraud, and (3) he did not know it had been altered

If the grandson new it was altered, submitted it to psa and got a numerical grade and then sold it for financial gain, knowing it was altered, and not disclosing it, then it’s fraud.

You are arguing with several people who have gone to law school and either actively practice law or have practiced law. This is like you telling a radiologist how to read an X-ray. You may not like it, you may not agree with it, but the fact pattern I have laid out meets all of the elements of fraud and fraud is a crime.

And with that, I wish you the best.

Ben, it is not fraud if the seller discloses it - there is no misrepresentation or omission (attempt to deceive).

1 and 2 are to me the same point, but I agree with your analysis. No sale and no intent, accepting the hypothetical at face value.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by nwobhm

Not that any of us needed that….but ok…..

Let’s come at this from another angle.

Guy pulls a 52’ Mantle out of a pack in 1952…. Hates Mantle so it sits in a box until he dies in 1992. It passes to his son that loved Mantle. He sees it’s oversized and uses his own expertise gained in another field to trim it to the equivalent of a PSA 10 and it’s still slightly oversized. The son dies in 2022 and his son gets the card and sends it to PSA completely unaware of what his father did to his grandfathers Mantle. It comes back a PSA 10.

Since no one knows…. Is it still a PSA 10?

If a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound?

Unlike some very good board members I am NOT a lawyer, but I believe from my reading fraud is a crime of knowledge and intent. Unless I'm mistaken you can't accidentally or unknowingly commit fraud.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Here is a general definition of criminal fraud (each state probably has its own variation).

Altering a card is not a crime. Submitting an altered card to a TPG is not a crime. But the submission is an attempt to have the TPG (unknowingly) conceal the alteration. Then, the alterer sells the card in the TPG flip, misrepresenting (via implication or directly in the sales pitch/language) that the card is authentic/unaltered bc it sits in the flip, and they do this with the intent of making financial gain. That is fraud and fraud is a crime. Facts

What if the seller openly admits the graded card is altered? Would it then be a crime since it was disclosed?

I collect weird stuff and have bought and sold more than one counterfeit card in a PSA slab. When selling(one to a fellow member) I disclosed I believed the card to be counterfeit. I have also done this with a altered card in a SGC slab with a number grade. I disclosed the alteration and that sale was also to a fellow member.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by bnorth

What if the seller openly admits the graded card is altered? Would it then be a crime since it was disclosed?

I collect weird stuff and have bought and sold more than one counterfeit card in a PSA slab. When selling(one to a fellow member) I disclosed I believed the card to be counterfeit. I have also done this with a altered card in a SGC slab with a number grade. I disclosed the alteration and that sale was also to a fellow member.

No crime in that case, there is no concealment. It's the concealment of a material fact (the alteration) that makes it a potential crime.

How often does that happen though LOL. Rob L occasionally would opine he thought a card had been trimmed. In one of Al C's auctions where he only found out at the last minute a card he was listing had been outed as altered, he disclosed it. Maybe there are more examples, but the overwhelming majority of the time, nobody is disclosing. Gee, I wonder why.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

No crime in that case, there is no concealment. It's the concealment of a material fact (the alteration) that makes it a potential crime.

How do you determine whether a fact is material or not though? And material to what? Material to the value of the item in question? I think this is where the two camps diverge. We have one camp (generally the long-time purist-leaning collectors) who say that an alteration that cannot be detected devalues a card, despite there being no evidence of it on the card itself, and then we have the other camp (generally the younger and more carefree collectors) who say that there is no devaluation of the card because "what difference does it make if something has been altered when that alteration is undetectable?"

We are all free to decide which camp we belong to, but only one of these two camps is right with respect to whether or not a card has lost value. Either the card has indeed been devalued, or it hasn't. And what ultimately determines the value of a card is the open market. And the market bases its values on what can be observed. PSA doesn't care what story you attach to a card. Sticky notes reading "my grandpa said he pulled this card straight from the pack and kept it in a book untouched and unaltered for 67 years" and "the guy I bought this from said it was trimmed" both hold no weight at all in their determination of the card, and the market has clearly decided that it relies on PSA/SGCs decisions to determine value.

If the card hasn't actually lost any value on the open market, then whatever has been done to the card couldn't possibly be a material fact with respect to its valuation when sold.

I think you have zero chance of getting a jury to convict someone based on your arguments.

Try this... Go explain the trimming scandal to your non-collector friends. Tell them about how some hobbyists will buy cards that are oversized, then trim them down to the correct size in a way that is undetectable, then submit them for grading, then resell them on the open market and ask those non-hobby friends if they think that's a crime. They will all laugh at you. I asked about 20 people a few years back when this first came up because I was trying to get people to bet against me on the outcome of the FBI investigation. I wanted to see how a potential jury of non collectors might view the situation. Every single one of them said it wasn't a crime, and several even said things like, "sounds smart to me" or just laughed at the situation or rolled their eyes at what they saw as old men yelling at clouds. Zero people saw it as fraud.

[G1911]

Damage to a collectible is relevant to value. Value usually goes down with damage. Missing pieces of a card is very, very obviously damage.

If alteration is not relevant to value or sales, if it does not affect prices, then 1) we wouldn't have a big majority of hobbyists thinking it relevant and 2) the pro-fraud wing of the hobby would not need to cover up their trimming; they could freely disclose it to no negative impact. Why don't they? Because it's bad and harms value. This shit isn't difficult. If you need to cover it up, it's material. If it's material, it needs to be disclosed whether it is a car, a baseball card, or anything else.

Personally, I don't really care if a card I buy is micro trimmed. It's slotted into my set and I'll enjoy it the same. But it's obviously material and if I covered up trimming when selling a card, I'd be committing fraud by hiding and not disclosing relevant information about the item. The world doesn't revolve around my personal narrative and what I like. Just a smidgeon of honesty and common sense goes a long way. If my dumbass can figure this out, I'm sure our resident pro-fraud 'hobbyists' that spend most of their posts explaining how fraud and scamming is fine can figure it out too.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Snowman

How do you determine whether a fact is material or not though? And material to what? Material to the value of the item in question? I think this is where the two camps diverge. We have one camp (generally the long-time purist-leaning collectors) who say that an alteration that cannot be detected devalues a card, despite there being no evidence of it on the card itself, and then we have the other camp (generally the younger and more carefree collectors) who say that there is no devaluation of the card because "what difference does it make if something has been altered when that alteration is undetectable?"

We are all free to decide which camp we belong to, but only one of these two camps is right with respect to whether or not a card has lost value. Either the card has indeed been devalued, or it hasn't. And what ultimately determines the value of a card is the open market. And the market bases its values on what can be observed. PSA doesn't care what story you attach to a card. Sticky notes reading "my grandpa said he pulled this card straight from the pack and kept it in a book untouched and unaltered for 67 years" and "the guy I bought this from said it was trimmed" both hold no weight at all in their determination of the card, and the market has clearly decided that it relies on PSA/SGCs decisions to determine value.

If the card hasn't actually lost any value on the open market, then whatever has been done to the card couldn't possibly be a material fact with respect to its valuation when sold.

I think you have zero chance of getting a jury to convict someone based on your arguments.

Try this... Go explain the trimming scandal to your non-collector friends. Tell them about how some hobbyists will buy cards that are oversized, then trim them down to the correct size in a way that is undetectable, then submit them for grading, then resell them on the open market and ask those non-hobby friends if they think that's a crime. They will all laugh at you. I asked about 20 people a few years back when this first came up because I was trying to get people to bet against me on the outcome of the FBI investigation. I wanted to see how a potential jury of non collectors might view the situation. Every single one of them said it wasn't a crime, and several even said things like, "sounds smart to me" or just laughed at the situation or rolled their eyes at what they saw as old men yelling at clouds. Zero people saw it as fraud.

Travis, it’s conceivable to me that Mastro could have gotten squeezed into bringing up what he did to the Wagner it adds to the allure of the whole luster of the government's case I believe his Partner Rob L snitched/cooperated with government against him…headline Major Auction House man not only manipulated auction sales for millions he altered the most prolific and expensive baseball card in hobby history.

I still believe that his admission into trimming the Wagner had some bearing on his conviction, do to concealment, just not nearly as much weight as the shill bidding price manipulation scheme/fraud.’

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by bnorth

What if the seller openly admits the graded card is altered? Would it then be a crime since it was disclosed?

I collect weird stuff and have bought and sold more than one counterfeit card in a PSA slab. When selling(one to a fellow member) I disclosed I believed the card to be counterfeit. I have also done this with a altered card in a SGC slab with a number grade. I disclosed the alteration and that sale was also to a fellow member.

When you sold that card that you believe to be altered in the numeric slab, did you sell it for the price of an Authentic Altered slab, or did you sell it for what the market says it's worth?

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

When you sold that card that you believe to be altered in the numeric slab, did you sell it for the price of an Authentic Altered slab, or did you sell it for what the market says it's worth?

I listed it in the auction section so it sold for the highest bid. There was no believing it was altered it was 100% altered.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I listed it in the auction section so it sold for the highest bid. There was no believing it was altered it was 100% altered.

OK, where did the hammer price land then? Closer to what the number on the slab said it's worth, or for what an Authentic Altered card is worth? Unless it was a 1 or 2, in which case it wouldn't even matter.

My point is, the market doesn't care about your determination or that of anyone else's. It cares about the number on the slab.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Snowman

When you sold that card that you believe to be altered in the numeric slab, did you sell it for the price of an Authentic Altered slab, or did you sell it for what the market says it's worth?

if it's disclosed, what it sells for is irrelevant.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

if it's disclosed, what it sells for is irrelevant.

Irrelevant with respect to the question of whether or not fraud has been committed, I agree. But my point was that a seller disclosing that they believe the card to be trimmed has no bearing on its actual market value. The bidders are still going to bid based on the number on the flip.

[nwobhm]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Read this very thread re Bill Mastro.

Ok…Please show me where Mr Mastro was convicted of card trimming. Was there a plea bargain? Trial? It was explicitly for trimming a card that he trimmed and sold for profit?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by nwobhm

Ok…Please show me where Mr Mastro was convicted of card trimming. Was there a plea bargain? Trial? It was explicitly for trimming a card that he trimmed and sold for profit?

If you read the thread you would see there was a plea bargain. I'm not doing your reading for you. Pathetic. First one guy in the face of all the evidence says he still doesn't believe it, now another guy refuses to even read. This is absurd, I am not wasting any more effort here.

[nwobhm]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If you read the thread you would see there was a plea bargain. I'm not doing your reading for you. Pathetic. First one guy in the face of all the evidence says he still doesn't believe it, now another guy refuses to even read. This is absurd, I am not wasting any more effort here.

Link?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by nwobhm

Link?

Read THIS thread above. It's right there. Come on, you cannot be that helplesss.

[nwobhm]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Read THIS thread above. It's right there. Come on, you cannot be that helplesss.

Yes I am. Mr Mastro was convicted, best I can tell, of shilling….but you already know that.

….since everyone seems to be butthurt I’ll just move along…..

[parkplace33]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If you read the thread you would see there was a plea bargain. I'm not doing your reading for you. Pathetic. First one guy in the face of all the evidence says he still doesn't believe it, now another guy refuses to even read. This is absurd, I am not wasting any more effort here.

Peter, you may find this hard to believe, but there are actually people in this world that disagree with your opinion.

The headline of the case was the admission of trimming but the mail fraud is entirely tied to the shill bidding. And for those that disagree, fine. But my question for you is this… if there was no shill bidding and just the trimming, does this case result in a plea deal?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

Peter, you may find this hard to believe, but there are actually people in this world that disagree with your opinion.

The headline of the case was the admission of trimming but the mail fraud is entirely tied to the shill bidding. And for those that disagree, fine. But my question for you is this… if there was no shill bidding and just the trimming, does this case result in a plea deal?

It's not an opinion, it's right there in the documents.

[Peter_Spaeth]

It's not my opinion, it's right there in the documents. It's in the charges against him and in his plea agreement. He was charged with it (among other things) and he pleaded to it (among other things). And the earth is flat, because that's what I believe, notwithstanding the evidence.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

Peter, you may find this hard to believe, but there are actually people in this world that disagree with your opinion

With respect to all parties, this is a classic!

Admittedly, I too think (know) I am right most (all) of the time.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

Peter, you may find this hard to believe, but there are actually people in this world that disagree with your opinion.

The headline of the case was the admission of trimming but the mail fraud is entirely tied to the shill bidding. And for those that disagree, fine. But my question for you is this… if there was no shill bidding and just the trimming, does this case result in a plea deal?

When the Wagner is in both the indictment and the plea bargain, go ahead and give me your legal analysis of how the mail fraud is "entirely tied" to the shill bidding.

Oh by the way, not that you would know this, but the language of that portion of the plea agreement is drafted to track the elements of mail fraud.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

This is absurd, I am not wasting any more effort here.

If I had a nickel for every time you've said that I could buy my own Wagner

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

If I had a nickel for every time you've said that I could buy my own Wagner

Sad but true.