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Posted By: Dan Mathewson

Let me give you a little bit of history on this card. I am a relative of Christy, and I only buy his memorabilia (One HOF Buying Habit is enough! ) I follow the Christy-M auctions as closely as I can, and I communicate with many, many other buddies and fans that I have met on eBay and other venues. This PRO-Graded card has been trimmed and is basically worthelsss. It was originally auctioned off by eBay user "brsz-2" on August 17, 2001 under Item # 1177188057 (I have saved scans from EVERY auction where this card has appeared...look at the scan, then look at the scan of this card, the same smudges and imperfections on the surface of the card are there...it's the same card). In that auction, "brsz-2" actually admitted the card was certified as trimmed by PSA, yet saying "it was still an immacualte card nonetheless". Quite honorably, "brsz-2" was being honest about the card's condition, and there is NOTHING wrong with selling a TRIMMED CARD if you tell people it is a TRIMMED CARD. (In fact, contact brsz-2 and ask him). Sometime after that auction, eBay user "places" came into ownership of it and had it encased by PRO. Interestingly, "places" has been selling many trimmed, worthless cards on eBay in PRO holders. (Go look at her feedback, she has been defrauding people left and right, you'll see that in her negative feedback items she has been getting). I am not slandering anyone by saying this on the Net -- it is in her feedback, and many people have been talking about her activity on eBay selling trimmed cards by having them encased in PRO-holders. The first PRO encasement of that card was numbered PRO 30450222. When "places" was called on her auction by several of the bidders who retracted, she pulled the auction, then had it encased by PRO (again), under PRO number 30457034 (the new holder number you see here, a later number -- interestingly, that first PRO-holder was so poorly done, that PRO had incorrectly labelled the card as an E-91 Set B). Then she had someone else try to sell it off on eBay, or just sold it to someone else for a few bucks (probably the $8 it cost her to have PRO encase it, or whatever they charge). But the word was out by then and the same thing happened. Now, it has apparently been passed off to someone else to see if they can have any luck unloading it. It has no permanent collector value, and I think it is a shame that eBay allows this kind of activity to continue, but perhaps it is because the number of auctions is so numerous, maybe they just can't control this kind of fraud anymore. Even though, I would expect they would disallow someone from continuing after several complaints of fraud against them filed by eBay buyers. A rule of thumb lately seems to be: don't buy anything in a PRO holder. Some eBay user called "psa-card" or "psa-cards", or something like that, has been doing this same thing for quite some time, too. The trick was to take the trimmed card in a PRO holder and put it up for auction, hoping to get hundreds of dollars (or more) for it. Then, along with that card, offer up a common/very cheap card in a PSA holder to make the auction "look sanguine" by having PSA's name in there somewhere. Clever...and, unfortunately, a lot of people got duped by it. Again, look at the seller's feedback and see for yourself. I use THREE graders only: MINT in FL, PSA in CA and SGC in NJ. They are the only three who seem to be quality, consistent and fair, sometimes tough on grading...nonetheless consistent. I've heard and seen enough about the other ones to stay away. Hopefully, the last winner of this Mathewson card bought it because it was pretty, and not because it was authentic, unaltered or worth something. I wouldn't give ten bucks for it. Anyway, happy hunting to all my eBay buddies out there. It's always been a pleasure trading with all of you. (By the way, I wanted to brag a little -- I have a Christy Mathewson bat that I'm finally having encased in a mahogany box with bullet-proof glass, and I may be putting it up on display in Safeco Field soon as a tribute to Christy...this is so much fun... -dan