On the Blowout Card Forum there have recently been two crazy threads about modern cards being trimmed:
1) LeBron Exquisite /99 - altered & damaged
(see
post 1,000 for some damning evidence and
here for a summary)
2)
Alleged Card Trimming Fraud, eBay IDs
What is especially interesting about these threads is that:
a) the Lebron thread has the most expensive modern basketball card in history (>$100K) being trimmed (I never would have expected that anyone would risk trimming a modern card that sells for that much unless it was from an uncut sheet)
b) The second thread shows the paper cutter being used by a fraudster to shave off 1/64 of an inch on cards, which evidently TPGs (PSA & BGS specifically) can't notice, because he seems to have lots of trimmed cards.
These threads are similar to the T206 auto thread here on Net54 in that they could drastically impact or even kill an entire market segment (in this case modern PSA/BGS 10s) because of the market's trust in TPGs.
Obviously trimming is not new in vintage baseball, since we know the most valuable vintage card in the world is trimmed. But what has amazed me in these threads is how rampant this seems to be across lots of modern PSA & BGS 10 cards. And how much it could hurt the modern PSA registry fad.
I'd love to know everyone's thoughts on how this scandal relates to vintage. Would shaving 1/64th an inch off a few sides of a vintage card increase the price dramatically? Do you think that TPGs would be more or less likely to spot vintage trimming?
Also, the above threads found all of their evidence with graded cards using Worthpoint and eBay sales. Because vintage isn't numbered and the higher grade cards are near impossible to distinguish one from another, do you think we can find and prove which dealers in the vintage market are participating in this kind of fraud and deceit? (I am assuming it is happening in vintage as well if it's rampant in modern)