One idea, likely heavily flawed, for fixing some of the ills in our hobby

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

The problems that exist are a simple function of collector preferences, economics, and human nature. Unlike (from what I understand anyhow) collectors in the past, a large percentage of today's collectors (myself included) are obsessed with condition -- not in the sense that we all want high grade cards, but rather in the sense that we buy cards BECAUSE they are in the condition we want, be it low mid or high grade. In an internet economy, that means many of us inevitably are going to spend a lot of money based on the grade a third-party "neutral" assigns to a card. In turn, that creates huge incentives for people to "improve"/"present" cards in order to achieve the maximum grade from the third-party neutrals, and human nature being what it is, inevitably there are going to be people with a combination of certain skills and questionable scruples who will seek to profit from what ultimately is demand driven by collectors.

In my cynical opinion, short of things that collectors and/or dealers would find abhorrent (such as eliminating set registries which in my opinion are partially fueling the demand cycle and incentivizing (you can look it up) people to "improve" cards), or making the identity of submitters transparent, or "outing" known card doctors and/or doctored cards, there isn't a hell of a lot to do about it except for each collector to become as informed as he/she can and not blindly rely on third-party grading.