Notes from a former card Grader/Authenticator

[CardPadre]

Originally Posted by bn2cardz

If it was a trim it would have been failed by a team effort with multiple opinions given prior to failing.

First, thanks for posting and being willing to chat a bit! I went to the summer camp/hiring event/whatever CSG had a couple years ago for fun to see what all could be learned.

An important takeaway from the above is that there is basically no such thing as "evidence" of trimming (outside of blatantly sloppy work). Highly skilled trimming is essentially undetectable and it's actually dishonest of all TPGs to use the phrase "evidence" when it's just a guess and opinion. If the TPGs were required to provide the evidence they supposedly have of a trim...you'd get crickets, because they don't actually have any.

Again, not directed specifically at any particular TPG, it's all of them. Cheers!

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by CardPadre

First, thanks for posting and being willing to chat a bit! I went to the summer camp/hiring event/whatever CSG had a couple years ago for fun to see what all could be learned.



An important takeaway from the above is that there is basically no such thing as "evidence" of trimming (outside of blatantly sloppy work). Highly skilled trimming is essentially undetectable and it's actually dishonest of all TPGs to use the phrase "evidence" when it's just a guess and opinion. If the TPGs were required to provide the evidence they supposedly have of a trim...you'd get crickets, because they don't actually have any.



Again, not directed specifically at any particular TPG, it's all of them. Cheers!

Oh there is still evidence left behind. It would be disingenuous to take what I stated and deduce that there is no evidence. However, it is always good to get a second opinion.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by bn2cardz

Oh there is still evidence left behind. It would be disingenuous to take what I stated and deduce that there is no evidence. However, it is always good to get a second opinion.

Are you of the opinion that there is always evidence left behind from trimmed cards then? Or at least that there is usually evidence left behind, and that when a trimmed card slips through, it could have or should have been caught, and that the only reason these surface with some degree of regularity is because of the sheer volume of cards that these companies are handling?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Are you of the opinion that there is always evidence left behind from trimmed cards then? Or at least that there is usually evidence left behind, and that when a trimmed card slips through, it could have or should have been caught, and that the only reason these surface with some degree of regularity is because of the sheer volume of cards that these companies are handling?

That would be my opinion.
Is it possible to make it undetectable? Probably. Do the people trimming have the knowledge and ability to do that? Less likely.

[Bigdaddy]

Originally Posted by bn2cardz

Oh there is still evidence left behind. It would be disingenuous to take what I stated and deduce that there is no evidence. However, it is always good to get a second opinion.

If there was really no evidence left behind, how would you know it? It's really a matter of how much evidence and is it to a detectable level when examining a card for less than one minute.

What BODA does to detect alterations takes much longer than one minute per card.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by CardPadre

First, thanks for posting and being willing to chat a bit! I went to the summer camp/hiring event/whatever CSG had a couple years ago for fun to see what all could be learned.

An important takeaway from the above is that there is basically no such thing as "evidence" of trimming (outside of blatantly sloppy work). Highly skilled trimming is essentially undetectable and it's actually dishonest of all TPGs to use the phrase "evidence" when it's just a guess and opinion. If the TPGs were required to provide the evidence they supposedly have of a trim...you'd get crickets, because they don't actually have any.

Again, not directed specifically at any particular TPG, it's all of them. Cheers!

There are plenty of cards that bear very clear evidence of trimming. But I agree with your broader point that a lot of trimmed cards simply are not detectable. This is been shown to be true by countless examples posted by BODA with their before and after pics. Particularly with modern cards that have razor-sharp edges. People expect these graders to perform miracles sometimes. I swear they'd expect that you should be able to hand a grader a piece of paper that you cut with 3 pairs of scissors and have him tell you which cut came from which pair of scissors.