The long awaited PSA half grade!

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

Actually I think the intent issue is easier to prove IF the policy is to return slabbed altered cards in the original slabs. Such a policy in effect says they don't care whether collectors continue to be defrauded by their re-authentication of altered cards, which to me makes it a much smaller step to establishing the necessary intent that they knew. For example, if someone is trying to persuade law enforcement personnel that he truly forgot to file his taxes this year and it was not an intentional evasion of his obligation to pay taxes, who would you be more likely to believe -- a guy who has published six articles that the tax code violates a person's constitutional rights or a guy who continually trumps the need for the IRS to hire more auditors to catch tax cheats. BTW I should add that in a civil matter such as we are dealing with with PSA, actual intent I do not think is what matters. The necessary intent could be imputed to them under the reasonable person standard --- should a reasonable person have known the card was altered? And I don't think any prospective jury/trier of fact would be too sympathetic to them because their policy so brazenly thumbs their nose to collectors concerned about slabbed altered cards.

If, though, the policy is to take slabbed altered cards out of circulation, at least then they could make a good faith argument that consistent with this policy they were looking to take slabbed altered cards out of circulation and simply missed (again) the alteration.

As to why a collector reasonably would not want to resubmit his cards for reasons other than concern they were altered, sure, I agree, such arguments could be made. The question though is will prospective buyers believe them. It seems to me that for at least the valuable highly-graded cards (e.g. an 8 HOFer), given that the card owner could be enriched by literally thousands of dollars by a half-grade bump up, prospective buyers might be a bit skeptical of explanations citing resubmission cost, waiting time, belief the current grade accurately portrays the card's condition.