THE MARKEL REPORT: Are Graded Baseball Cards Being “Juiced” (Aesthetically Enhanced)?

[ScottFandango]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Trust me on this one; as an avid reader of the PSA boards; the person Markel is talking about is not allowed to be discussed on the boards. My instinct; tells me it's something more; something similar to WIWAG.

A really good company does not practice suppression; instead; it lets these stories play out their courses. (It's called dropping off the front page )

I will say; in my years at Beckett; almost no thread ever left the message boards; even when we were all called "Idjits" or worse. That was something I was always impressed with Beckett and the moderators

Rich

please rich get real....what happened to the Brady Rookie threads...the card that went from 8.5 to 9.5 by getting shorter? wont mention names here but most know who im talking about......

beckett killed their board on purpose cause they saw more and more of those...

[sox1903wschamp]

Dan M: Great work and I appreciate it. This one is exposed and maybe it will throw a scare into others who alter cards. I think this thread has more merit then the Towle thread who openly admits to his practices. Towle takes stuff off and that of course is open to debate but this is plain deceitful and it might give everyone who collects slabs a trip the the medicine chest for some pepto .

[carrigansghost]

Great work in tracking these cards. I cannot thank the board members like yourself that are trying to make this a hobby again enough.

Rawn

[stone193]

I just want to insure that we're being fair here and that they are indeed the same cards:





If ya look at the Topps #176 baseball - there's a white speck next to the 1 in #176 - not present in the other.

If ya look at the S in Sam - in one there's a white speck in the bottom of the S - not present in the other.

When sheets are being printed at mass speed - the slight anomalies are going to be reproduced in many of the sheets - thus the individual cards might look very similar if not exactly the same.

I have a group of 78T Bradshaws and they all have a black print dot on the border in the exact same place.

Now - I'm not sure about fisheyes and whether they will be exactly the same.

I just don't think these two cards are the same.

But, that's not to say that some are the same - but - perhaps - not this one.

[Zach Wheat]

Wow, very enlightening. Great Job Dan.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by ScottFandango

please rich get real....what happened to the Brady Rookie threads...the card that went from 8.5 to 9.5 by getting shorter? wont mention names here but most know who im talking about......

beckett killed their board on purpose cause they saw more and more of those...

The Beckett message boards still exists; however; many of the old threads disappeared when the "new" website was created. This included good and bad threads. Since the ownership that created the whole problem with the BMB are no longer running the company -- I don't want to speak ill of those no longer there. But note a couple of things

1) I said almost no thread was ever taken off. Sean C used to be a moderator (he still may be for all I know) and can talk about his hands-off policy (or his hands-on if there was one)

2) Like I said the BMB went through some changes last year when the new web site came up; I like much of the new web site; but frankly, I'm in the minority there and many of the posters have disappeared.

3) I usually did not read the football message board; so I can not specifically talk about the Brady card and what happenend. However; I do remember that the seller of that card (I think was Kevin Burge) has been the subject of many threads on BMB and almost none of them were eliminated

4) I stand by what I said

Regards
Rich

[WhenItWasAHobby]

Stone - First off, thanks for coming over.

Regarding those two white specs you are concerned about, I can assure you those are extraneous to the card itself. I've just re-scanned that card and those are just loose specs of lint.

[Sean_C]

To respond to Rich's post:

I was and still am a moderator over on the Beckett boards. We do have a much more aggressive policing policy that Leon has here, but far less restrictive than the ones over on the CU boards (the post over there referencing this thread has been poofed already). We would not delete the threads about questionable BGS cards (those in the hobby that know me know that I've been complaining about altered cards in all TPG holders, and specifically BGS grading sheet-cut cards for years), and in fact, I posted multiple times when the thread about the altered Brady card was first posted.

I can't and won't post our guidelines for deleting threads or suspending users, other than to say that reposts of deleted threads would obviously be deleted, and ones that contained personal / private information and conversations) would be edited or removed if editing would destroy the point of the thread (similar to what Dan did removing some of the contact details in his posting of his communication with Scott, although we would have probably removed all of the back and forth communications with Scott as well and left the rest of the post). There may have been very specific reasons why a thread would be deleted, and if it were done by the actual staff of Beckett and not the moderators, it was likely due to a complaint by one of the people mentioned in the thread (IE: Scott contacting Leon or Dan and making threats because of the content of this thread).

Posting a well documented, thoroughly explained example of an altered card like the Brady would not get the post deleted on it's own. Someone coming along and making accusations as to how/why the card was graded ("person on the inside", payoffs, collusion, etc.) that were not not substantiated by demonstrated facts would probably get the individual post deleted, the poster banned and possibly cause the thread to get locked if it got out of hand.

Beckett certainly didn't kill "their board on purpose cause they saw more and more of those..." . No business ever intends to drive away customers (well, except maybe eBay... ). The changes to the board and site were intended to attract more posters / customers, not drive them away. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't. What I can say though is that I do see a lot more direct interaction now between Beckett staff members, writers, etc. and the posters on the board now than we had in old days; not from any type of moderating / supervisory type role, but in generally just talking about the hobby and interacting with collectors, which I see as a positive.

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

The Beckett message boards still exists; however; many of the old threads disappeared when the "new" website was created. This included good and bad threads. Since the ownership that created the whole problem with the BMB are no longer running the company -- I don't want to speak ill of those no longer there. But note a couple of things

1) I said almost no thread was ever taken off. Sean C used to be a moderator (he still may be for all I know) and can talk about his hands-off policy (or his hands-on if there was one)

2) Like I said the BMB went through some changes last year when the new web site came up; I like much of the new web site; but frankly, I'm in the minority there and many of the posters have disappeared.

3) I usually did not read the football message board; so I can not specifically talk about the Brady card and what happenend. However; I do remember that the seller of that card (I think was Kevin Burge) has been the subject of many threads on BMB and almost none of them were eliminated

4) I stand by what I said

Regards
Rich

[Rich Klein]

[QUOTE=Sean_C;744168]To respond to Rich's post:

but far less restrictive than the ones over on the CU boards (the post over there referencing this thread has been poofed already).

AND the posts talking about how this thread was "poofed" were eliminated immediately. I know to some PSA supporters you may not believe this; but I truly do have an open mind on people. I think in many cases PSA does a good job, but to me, you also should admit and fix your flaws rather than just denying they exist.
To me; the fact that these threads were poofed on PSA so quickly -- and I suspect because of S.S. from Houston; tells me there is something more here. Like I said; I dont know Dan, I don't know S.S. -- but when a company is so quick to the gun to elminate any mentions of a person our their boards; a reasonable person would suspect something is up.

Regards
Rich

[WhenItWasAHobby]

eBay ID "scottsusor" is still running auctions. Is there any way we can shut this party down with what we have? I filed a complaint with eBay yesterday and didn't even get a response back nor a case number. It only said expect a reply back in 24 to 48 hours.

The majority of those cards running is his auctions right now are very suspect in my opinion. Perhaps someone can organize contacting his prior winners through his feedback left for buyers and warn them of his repugnant business practices.

[ScottFandango]

threads were zapped before the new board started ... WAY BEFORE....

and it wasnt Burge as you said....

it sounds like "BGSFAD"....a guy, when mentioned, most of the time those threads were wacked over there...he has since changed his ID since he developed such a negative connotation with his "BGSFAD" ID

[Rich Klein]

OK; I go from memory on these -- and I thought it was KB -- I'm sorry that it was BE. Needless to say; I'll stick with what I said; Beckett is much more liberal about letting posts go (as Sean verified) than PSA is.

Rich

[Sean_C]

Hi Scott.

The reasons threads would have been removed before the new boards are the same as they are now, nothing has really changed in terms of how threads are handled.

Let's try to keep this focused on the topic of altered cards, and not hijack the thread with how other sites may police their boards. If you have any additional questions, feel free to PM me, and I'll answer what I can.

Originally Posted by ScottFandango

threads were zapped before the new board started ... WAY BEFORE....

and it wasnt Burge as you said....

it sounds like "BGSFAD"....a guy, when mentioned, most of the time those threads were wacked over there...he has since changed his ID since he developed such a negative connotation with his "BGSFAD" ID

[stone193]

Thanx Dan - I see what ya mean.

Altho this is very compelling - what do you plan to do about it?

Is this a problem with guys like Susor or PSA or both?

Proving this in a court may be different - I would believe - than convincing the board membership.

Does anyone think PSA is an intentional part of this problem?

That would just seem dumb - for a few more grading fees they're gonna risk their entire collective operation?

mike