Cobb/Edwards and the T206 Honus Wagner

[Exhibitman]

Jeff, you really had me going with the first paragraph; nice satirical writing!

I did not get the impression from the book that O'Keefe was suggesting that racism or other unfair bias is really at the core of the Cobb/Edwards mess--he was simply reporting their excuses and the responses people had to them. I do think what he was suggesting is that anyone who refuses to accept third party grading ("TPG") as the ultimate arbiter of card quality and authenticity falls outside the orthodoxy of the card collecting world and is often treated as a pariah in the hobby sight unseen when they try to market a rare card. TPG is not the panacea for all that ails the card world. The book itself exposes some of the stinky in the po' that often accompanies big money and slabbing. It isn't particularly ground-shaking stuff--VCBC was on the TPG thing over a decade ago.

IMO O'Keefe is much like Jose Canseco: painfully right about a lot of things that many powerful players in the hobby would prefer not to have the collecting base read about.