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

[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.