Interesting email from REA

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Posted By: Brendan

I'm sure many of you received this email from REA. The issue of card doctoring is nothing new, but I'd like to know what everyone's thoughts are on what REA said? Reprinted below:

'In recent weeks we have received a number of consignments of graded cards that has motivated us to adopt a formal policy regarding altered professionally graded cards that we have not previously seen a need to articulate. The altering of cards is so widespread, and “card doctors” so brazen, that REA has actually been receiving cards submitted for auction to us that are the very same cards that have been sold by REA previously – in some cases just months earlier – and which, since purchase, have been significantly altered, reholdered, and now grade higher according to the grading label. In some cases a given card has changed hands and the new consignor was not even aware it was a seriously altered card. It is our policy that when we are aware of such a problem, and we ARE looking, we will be happy to auction the card in question - but insist on providing all information describing the alterations which have occurred to the card of which we are certain. So far, the potential consignors of such cards have elected to have these cards returned rather than have a proper description provided by REA. Last week we returned a $10,000 card. The consignor couldn’t believe it was the same card that we had just sold (in a lower grade and looking quite different) in a previous auction. Only after being provided with images of the card as it appeared when we previously sold it was the consignor finally convinced.

We’re not guessing here. We are talking about cards that we know for a fact are problems. The fact that we have to address situations such as this at all suggests a greater underlying problem than is generally recognized. And while it is bad enough that the altering of cards is an epidemic, it is particularly disturbing that some of the most sophisticated “work” on cards (including the previously mentioned $10,000 card) has actually been executed by employees of auction houses that also deal in cards. We have to ask ourselves “What is going on here?” Turning a blind eye to this issue, in our opinion, has far greater and more significant negative potential consequences than our calling attention to it and promoting discussion. We all know that there is a subjectivity to grading and that sometimes there is an honest difference of opinion regarding a grade, or sometimes even an honest mistake. We’re not talking about honest mistakes here. Active and sophisticated collectors, dealers, and auction houses know that this is a problem. They just don’t talk about it, except among themselves. In the end, the collector loses. We want to be clear that we think the major grading services do a valiant job and we can’t imagine what the landscape of the marketplace would look like without them. That doesn’t mean there are no problems. At the end of the day, we have this advice: “Buy the card, not the holder.”'