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

[botn]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Corey, good point. There probably are registry guys who wouldn't care if you proved to them their cards were trimmed, so long as the label reads 8 or 9. Incredible that things have come to this juncture, where the flip means so much more than the card itself.

Peter,

I don't think much has really changed. In in the infancy of grading, when auctions appeared in SCD, dealers used to joke about not really needing to show the entire card but just the label so they could fit more cards on a page and save ad space. Think there are simply more collectors who have bought into that and more collectors with more money. Not sure how many of them really care if their cards are altered, as long as their grading company of choice remains in business.

[base_ball]

Shocked, shocked!

[WhenItWasAHobby]

There were several topics up for discussion since I last posted.

Leon wondered about several things. This may help:

1. Yes, the postal inspectors office in Dallas and Houston are both aware of what's been going on and in Dallas for quite awhile. An agent at the Houston office said they are backed up but have an interest in this case and may get to it in the near future.

2. Besides the postal inspectors, a criminal complaint was filed through the F.B.I.'s website to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) on July 31st. The Complaint Id is I0907311626469362.

3. Michael O'Keefe was contacted by one of the team members several months ago and was asked if he would publicize a civil case related to this issue and he said he would. As far as I know he hasn't seen this thread.


The other topic was PSA.

I'm not going to say anything good or bad about them right now. This is what I know. Susor had a long history of having a significant portion of his invoices rejected for trimming. We know this by checking his cert runs. By the way, a very invaluable thanks to the Network54 member who designed that program on Card Target. That saved us a lot of time. Someone did a calculation of his rejected for evidence of trimmings in 2007 and it was 38%. So in short, I don't have any reason to believe PSA was in bed with him.

One other thing. I talked to a PSA Customer Rep named Shane at the January 2008 Tri-Star in Houston for about 20 minutes. Shane was very nice and I warned him that I was convinced that someone was intentionally submitting altered cards to PSA. I explained Susor's MO to a tee without mentioning his name and give him a lot of circumstantial evidence. His response was in essence: "We always catch the bad cards, so if someone wants to throw his money away and try getting altered cards past us - go ahead." He also said that when an invoice goes over a certain percentage of trimmed cards, something like 30%, they call the submitter. I walked away shaking my head thinking they must have Susor's number on speed dial.

One other thing, shortly after that conversation, the PSA website would no longer show if a cert number was rejected for evidence of trimming to the public.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by WhenItWasAHobby

There were several topics up for discussion since I last posted.

Leon wondered about several things. This may help:

1. Yes, the postal inspectors office in Dallas and Houston are both aware of what's been going on and in Dallas for quite awhile. An agent at the Houston office said they are backed up but have an interest in this case and may get to it in the near future.

2. Besides the postal inspectors, a criminal complaint was filed through the F.B.I.'s website to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) on July 31st. The Complaint Id is I0907311626469362.

3. Michael O'Keefe was contacted by one of the team members several months ago and was asked if he would publicize a civil case related to this issue and he said he would. As far as I know he hasn't seen this thread.


The other topic was PSA.

I'm not going to say anything good or bad about them right now. This is what I know. Susor had a long history of having a significant portion of his invoices rejected for trimming. We know this by checking his cert runs. By the way, a very invaluable thanks to the Network54 member who designed that program on Card Target. That saved us a lot of time. Someone did a calculation of his rejected for evidence of trimmings in 2007 and it was 38%. So in short, I don't have any reason to believe PSA was in bed with him.

One other thing. I talked to a PSA Customer Rep named Shane at the January 2008 Tri-Star in Houston for about 20 minutes. Shane was very nice and I warned him that I was convinced that someone was intentionally submitting altered cards to PSA. I explained Susor's MO to a tee without mentioning his name and give him a lot of circumstantial evidence. His response was in essense: "We always catch the bad cards, so if someone wants to throw his money away and try getting altered cards past us - go ahead." He also said that when an invoice goes over a certain percentage of trimmed cards, something like 30%, they call the submitter. I walked away shaking my head thinking they must have Susor's number on speed dial.

One other thing, shortly after that conversation, the PSA website would no longer show if a cert number was rejected for evidence of tirmming to the public.

Hmmm...PSA may not be in bed with him, but they are obviously aware of what he is doing. I sure hope they've reported this suspicious activity to the FBI.

[Peter_Spaeth]

There are, as most of us know, any number of people with reputations as card doctors. Obviously they continue to submit to the grading companies. It will be interesting to find out, some day through litigation, what the grading companies know about these people and how they deal with them.

[WhenItWasAHobby]

The term "microtrimming" has been tossed around on this thread.
This next example by eBay seller "scottsusor" is worth a look.
The raw card was sold to scottsusor by a member of our investigation
group.





The alteration on this edge of the card appears to about the
width of one or two razor blades. Here is the reserve upper right
corner before and after:

[WhenItWasAHobby]

Again a PSA 8.5 from eBay seller "scottsusor". The raw card sold
to scottsusor on eBay around March 2007

[onlychild]

The term "microtrimming" has been tossed around on this thread.

From experience, to trim so thin in a specific area and with the side fibers smoothed (or removed), my guess is that this the result of delicate card sanding as opposed to the conventional blade job. Again, just an educated guess.

Great detective work Dan...and team!


Kevin

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by botn

I don't think much has really changed. In in the infancy of grading, when auctions appeared in SCD, dealers used to joke about not really needing to show the entire card but just the label so they could fit more cards on a page and save ad space. Think there are simply more collectors who have bought into that and more collectors with more money. Not sure how many of them really care if their cards are altered, as long as their grading company of choice remains in business.

I think a lot has changed in that NOW there is serious question what the correlation is between the number on the flip and the card that lies within. In contrast, in the infancy of grading, I suspect there was much less concern over the percentage of cards that were altered and whether they would pass undetected by the grading company. Yes, one could say that a collector not caring to see the card signifies that the grade matters more than the card's physical appearance. But underlying this statement would be the purchaser's assumption that the card is unaltered. Or, to put it another way, the fact that a purchaser doesn't care to see the actual card speaks only to the question that grade means more than APPEARANCE. It doesn't necesssarily follow that to such a purchaser grade means more than the card being UNALTERED.

[barrysloate]

Corey expressed something I've been thinking about throughout this thread. I'm sure there are many collectors who would be more than happy to see their card receive a 9 even if they believe it only merits say an 8. A little grade inflation would be welcomed by just about anybody.

But it's hard for me to imagine that the same collector would be just as happy if he found out that the 8 he just purchased for big money was altered. That's not a scenario where the buyer would feel whole because the label reads 8.

I see a distinct difference between overgraded cards and altered ones. The guy whose 9 should really be an 8 might feel he beat the system in some way. But the one who unknowingly bought an altered card would think the system beat him. Big difference.