Is it ethical to alter cards and sell them without disclosure?

[philliesfan]

OK here are two more ethical or not questions like all the other examples in this thread....
If you sent a card to PSA and Beckett and both times it came back as trimmed and a third time sent to SGC and gets a numeric grade of 6, 7 whatever, would you have to disclose the two trimmed results when selling the SGC card?

OR, if you cracked out a PSA 4 and resubmitted and got a 7 the second time , would you need to disclose that it was previously a PSA 4 and now its a 7?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by philliesfan

OK here are two more ethical or not questions like all the other examples in this thread....
If you sent a card to PSA and Beckett and both times it came back as trimmed and a third time sent to SGC and gets a numeric grade of 6, 7 whatever, would you have to disclose the two trimmed results when selling the SGC card?

OR, if you cracked out a PSA 4 and resubmitted and got a 7 the second time , would you need to disclose that it was previously a PSA 4 and now its a 7?

In my opinion no, but if asked about prior history you have to answer honestly. One could argue it either way though.

ADD: If you KNOW the card is trimmed, but snuck it past SGC, I would say yes there is fraud unless disclosed.

[Leon]

+1. No need to tell of previous grades if it's graded UNLESS asked. It's never ok to not tell the truth.

As for the original subject, the term "altered" can mean too many different things to answer the question.

One thing I am always a bit amazed by - super sharp corners on a pre war card with tiny borders. I guess some people don't care or are just ignorant.

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

In my opinion no, but if asked about prior history you have to answer honestly. One could argue it either way though.

[packs]

I agree. Not sure why you'd need to disclose previous grades (assuming we're not talking about sneaking a trimmed card by). The grades rendered by TPG are opinions. I wouldn't tell someone, hey, two previous dealers thought this card was VG but a third guy said it was VG-EX while trying to sell my card.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by philliesfan

OK here are two more ethical or not questions like all the other examples in this thread....
If you sent a card to PSA and Beckett and both times it came back as trimmed and a third time sent to SGC and gets a numeric grade of 6, 7 whatever, would you have to disclose the two trimmed results when selling the SGC card?

OR, if you cracked out a PSA 4 and resubmitted and got a 7 the second time , would you need to disclose that it was previously a PSA 4 and now its a 7?

No, of course not. Unless of course you trimmed the card yourself and are just trying to resubmit until you can sneak one past the goalie, but I don't think that's what you meant here. Graders get stuff wrong often. Even the experienced ones.

I actually got into a huge bidding war recently over a 1953 Topps Jackie Robinson that was graded as "trimmed" by SGC. I ended up winning it for about 3.5x "comps". Clearly, I wasn't the only experienced grader who disagreed with their assessment. They typically sell for about $500 in an AA slab, but I paid $1670 for it, which is about the price of a 4. That's how confident I was that the graders were wrong. I cracked it out and sent it to PSA where they promptly gave it the PSA 6 that it deserved.