SGC no cert. lookup

[botn]

Originally Posted by Al C.risafulli

A cert number lookup, IMO, does nothing to tell you about the card that you're holding, except in rare instances.

I actually don't believe that the hobby is configured to protect card doctors. I believe that capable authentication companies protect consumers from far more fraud than we know. In my mind, the "old" hobby was designed to protect card doctors.

Cert number look up offers transparency, which in my opinion is much needed. What privacy violation issues are there with knowing what cards were submitted with a card in question and what the results were of their examination? You make it sound like the the identity, address and banking info of the submitter would be revealed by performing this check. The hobby has a long way to go before collectors are truly protected. The grading companies, willfully or not, are not doing an adequate job of protecting collectors.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Greg, there is only so much the grading companies can do. They are not FBI crime labs, and while they certainly will catch blatant alterations most of the time, it's much less certain they will catch subtle alterations by individuals and firms highly sophisticated and skilled in paper restoration. I believe Dave Forman of SGC himself has publicly commented on the difficulty of detecting certain types of alterations, as did Daniel Desmond in the infamous VBCC 7. I think it's just a given that a certain percentage of altered cards are going to get through, which is why any tool in the collector's hands is better than none.

And unlike Al, I think it does add value to see if a card is surrounded by a high percentage of rejects. Is it conclusive, of course not, but it would certainly encourage me to think twice about buying the card.

[Basilone]

The cert # lookup feature has been used successfully in the past to identify questionable submissions..most notably those belonging to Mr. Susor. On balance, I like the cert # look up feature and the additional information it provides collectors.

Power to the people!

[Al C.risafulli]

Cert number look up offers transparency, which in my opinion is much needed. What privacy violation issues are there with knowing what cards were submitted with a card in question and what the results were of their examination?

I don't feel that it offers transparency at all. If the submitter's name were also revealed, then it would offer transparency - but I don't think that would be a realistic thing to ask for.

There's an individual who's name has been mentioned in this thread and others as a trimmer of cards. The evidence has been, in my opinion, pretty conclusive.

But let's say I buy a card from that individual, and subsequently resell it on eBay. Someone on a message board decides to search the cert numbers around the one I'm selling, and finds a disproportionate amount of trimmed cards. That person, not knowing where I bought the card, may very well implicate ME as a card doctor, since he/she has no idea whether or not I was the original submitter. All that person can do it look up the cert number and see what cards were around mine.

Realistically, that cert number lookup says absolutely nothing about me, about my own submissions, or about the cards I sell - but could hurt my reputation anyway.

-Al

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Al C.risafulli

But let's say I buy a card from that individual, and subsequently resell it on eBay. Someone on a message board decides to search the cert numbers around the one I'm selling, and finds a disproportionate amount of trimmed cards. That person, not knowing where I bought the card, may very well implicate ME as a card doctor, since he/she has no idea whether or not I was the original submitter. All that person can do it look up the cert number and see what cards were around mine.

Realistically, that cert number lookup says absolutely nothing about me, about my own submissions, or about the cards I sell - but could hurt my reputation anyway.

The fault there lies with the reckless conclusions of said person, not with the ability to check the cert #s. Say the card was trimmed and slipped by PSA - as a buyer it would be absolutely relevant to know that the previous and subsequent 5 had been rejected for trimming.

[Al C.risafulli]

But how would you know that my card was part of the same invoice as the previous 5? How would you know I didn't buy a large lot of raw cards that were trimmed, and submitted it with a large lot of raw cards that weren't? How would you know that I didn't submit a whole pile of crackouts from a grading service known for grading trimmed cards in hopes that some of them would grade, and a few actually did?

You would be able to see the cert numbers and the results, but none of the circumstances around the submittal.

I've had a few circumstances where a few of my submissions had an inordinate amount of cards rejected for trimming. Once I bought a vending box of modern cards, and a half dozen or so were rejected - all of them graded on a second submission. Another time, as suggested above, I bought a bunch of cards graded by a second-tier grading company in hopes of crossing them to PSA and playing the low-pop game. A bunch came back trimmed and a few graded. I'd hate to think I'd be judged based on those two submissions, but that's exactly the kind of thing that could happen with the cert number lookup.

I prefer to think that if we're going to embrace grading, we're going to embrace the grading company's ability to judge each card on its own merits and reject that bad ones. If we can't trust the grading companies to do this, then we shouldn't be embracing grading.

Just my opinion.

-Al

[botn]

Finding out that a particular card was surrounded by rejected cards in a cert check does not implicate the seller. It implicates the submitter and it informs the collector, whether or not he cares, that there is a good chance the card which graded may also be altered. Simply provides more information. Cards change hands frequently so it is entirely conceivable, even on this board, where people may actually not rush to judgment and possibly unfairly or prematurely accuse the seller as the card doctor.