My take on Michael O'Keeffe's book, "The Card"

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Posted By: MikeU

I finally got around to reading my copy. I will be a contrarian and say I enjoyed the book. However, I do not think it is a healthy introduction to the hobby for newcomers or the casual observer and will likely hinder, to some extent, new hobby growth.


Some more interesting quotes from the book that I have not seen posted (DANGER EXPLICT LANGUAGE):

Pg 80 First Paragraph:

Lifson agreed that the card wasn’t cut properly. Sevchuk had told them at the Hicksville shop that it had come from a sheet. He remembered calling Sevchuk later from his parents’ house to ask if there were more sheets where this one had come from – Sevchuk had said in the store that day there might be. “It had an odd shape,” Lifson said of The Card. “It was obvious that card had never been in a pack of cigarettes. I’ve always been adamant about that. They said it was in a sheet. Otherwise, cards don’t survive like that.”

Pg. 86 last paragraph and 87 1-3 Paragraphs:

“Look, McNall was saying, what the ****? The card is trimmed? Sotheby’s was the agent – they didn’t know,” Evans said. “Copeland was the guy that bought the card from Mastro. Mastro set all this up. He had to take care of it. He had to prove it was not trimmed and get it graded,” said Evans.

Fortunately for Mastro, one of the first graders hired by PSA was Bill Hughes. Mastro and Hughes had known each other for years. Hughes was a well-known card and memorabilia dealer with weekly ads in Sports Card Digest, a visible face on the card-show circuit.

Evans even speculates that Mastro had a hand in picking Hughes to grade it. “I can hear him saying it now: I don’t want no ****ing talk about that card being trimmed. I want it to be ****ing authentic.”

Pg. 112 paragraph 3 and 4.

Still, not everyone was convinced. A few weeks after the card was graded, Mike Gutierrez, a consultant for McNall’s Superior Galleries, told the Chicago Tribune that he had some problems with the card. Regardless of PSA’s opinion, The Card had been altered, he said. Gutierrez didn’t know about the dealings between Mastro and Ray at the Hicksville store, but he knew by examining the card for McNall that it didn’t look right. “The card was definitely cut at some point,” Gutierrez said. “I don’t know when it was cut, or by whom, but it sure was. I have not doubt.”

Pg. 137 paragraph 2

Gidwitz may seem quirky, but he is a sophisticated collector. Gidwitz knew all the rumors about The Cards flaws and, based on his experience as a collector, suspected it had been trimmed. “It never came up,” insists Lifson, of whether Gidwitz would have even cared. “It just didn’t matter.”

Pg. 139 paragraph 2

“I want to make it clear,” he said. “Do you understand? It really ****ing irritates me. I want to make it perfectly clear who sold the Honus Wagner card. It was me and Rob.

Pg. 184 paragraph 2

Lifson is convinced that his cleanup campaign is the only way the collectibles industry can right itself and survive. There is too much graft, too much fraud, too much money being changed in too few hands to think otherwise. Lifson put what is going on in simple terms. “It’s called stealing,” he said.

Pg. 195 and 196:

Hughes’s confession didn’t shock hobby old-timers. Josh Evans, Bill Mastro’s long-standing rival, said Mastro told him several times that he had trimmed the card to make it the best card in the history of the hobby. “The first time he said it, was at a show after it sold for $110,000 to Copeland,” Evans remembered. “I said, how could you trim a card like that? He said, what’s wrong with that? It was oversized. I said, it doesn’t matter. You still have to tell the people who bought it. It was always an interesting topic of conversation. We also talked about it after Gretzky bought it.”