Jim Crandell's personal thread

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

If ever there was an example of the adage "no good deed goes unpunished", this would be it. As I recall when Jim C first raised the issue about card alterations, he publicly asked all the major auction houses to respond to the issue. Mastro was one of the very few that did, and to this day except for Barry Sloate participates on this board more than any of its competitors. Doug Allen, as president of Mastro Auctions, point blank responded that his company no longer engages in the practice of prepping cards for grading. I don't think it takes a genius to realize that based on his remarks and by implication, they engaged in the practice previously and that a number of their auction offerings contained cards that were prepped. I also think that if its the case that PSA's and SGC's policies are not to grade such cards if they have knowledge of the prepping, that Mastro did not disclose it to them. I respectfully opine that at this point perhaps a more constructive avenue might be to thank Doug for responding and being a participant on this board, as opposed to continue to hammer him on this issue. Maybe then some other auction houses might be more willing to respond to similar inquiries and be regular participants on this board, to the benefit of all.

As to the legitimate concern Jim C might have as to how many of his slabbed cards might be altered, a more efficient way to determine that than asking Doug to precisely quantify how many cards Mastro prepped would be.........