Even the so called good guys...ugly hobby?

[HRBAKER]

"Great point and so true. It's everywhere. Sadly."

Anywhere money is (and great amounts of it), "it" is too. I fear a much higher % of graded cards are altered than any of us would like to believe. It is sort of like the "steroids" of card collecting.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by HRBAKER

" I fear a much higher % of graded cards are altered than any of us would like to believe. It is sort of like the "steroids" of card collecting.

And yet we keep buying, don't we? Perhaps addiction enhances the capacity for self-deception (e.g., "I'm careful, it won't happen to ME")

[barrysloate]

I also believe that there are a greater number of altered cards in holders than most collectors wish to admit. I think this will come out over time. As others have posted, there is too much easy money to be made here.

[Doug]

The really scary thing is that as the scammers technology and skill get better the problem will only get worse.

[wonkaticket]

Thanks for the response.

“Which, with your current (and past) attacks, is easy to see why.”

I disagree Kevin read the links above never made personal attacks. I questioned your expertise and motives as to why we all should take your posts as gospel.

I also asked many times why your opinion rules over third party graders.

No I don’t think it’s as easy to see why. I would never lie about doing fraudulent acts because someone bummed me out occasionally on a forum. There’s a whole board above in which several of us get ragged on really heavy…don’t believe me type Leon’s name into Google.

Yet I don’t see anyone of us making any such outlandish claims, or little white lies as you say.

“BTW...posting personal emails, regardless of the subject matter, is just uncalled for.”

Disagree once again emails posting that you think Wonka’s a douche or I dont like Wonka. I agree no need to be on this board take it off line and get over it.

Emails in which a self proclaimed expert who has spent years on this board posting creations and bragging about getting cards past 3rd party graders, making outlandish admissions of fraudulent activity.

That 100% belongs on here…I don’t buy blowing off steam and white-lie you and Scott were discussing your disgust with the response about the underprint Scott owns from the folks here. And if this lie or joke was directed at me please point out where in this thread I upset you….funny I never had a single post in the thread….

http://www.network54.com/Forum/15365...ier+Has+Spoken

So I understand you were mad at me or net54 and made incriminating comments and lies to another person in an offline email because you were upset….right?

This ranks up there with I made these for “Showmanship” I never meant to sell them….

Also wishing you had put fake cards in a fellow board members collection is also due to being mad.

Blown away that I'm the only one shocked by this load. Funny we get pitchforks and torches and baracade Chan into a corner..yet Mastro and auction houses get away with bloddy murder and we contiune to turn a blind eye. We even have a laid back approach to comments like the above.

I guess we as a hobby get upset only after someone gets taken or burned..

[jmk59]

Hmmm. Not sure what to make of this. I've been neither a particular doubter nor fan of Kevin and what he has talked about in the past. But this - don't look good.

Random thoughts, struggling for order:

The first thing that comes to mind is that Kevin has held himself out as a defender of the hobby against alterations. This isn't like Joe Schmoe said he was going to sneak altered cards into certain collections. It's not even Joe Schmoe that said he was a great card alterer. Kevin has particularly said that the reason for starting web sites and posting on various boards was to try to protect the hobby. How does that square with the comment about putting fakes in some collections? It's vaguely like (not exactly like, but similar) the t206museum offering COA's. Protecting the hobby against fraud.

Another comparison to t206museum (just since it is on everyone's mind right now - not saying the two cases are directly parallel). t206 put altered cards out on a public website, for all to see and debate and pick apart - a visible attempt to snare whatever generic fish swam by.

Kevin's claims of putting altered cards out there aren't broad and generic to the public. He specifically targets individuals that he feels have crossed him or pissed him off. Singling out specific persons seems shadier - or at least like a different motive.

Could he have done it? Shoot, most of his posts have centered around his ability to alter cards in undetectable ways and fool even the most advanced and professional collectors, graders and dealers. So by his own words, he could have done it - at least as to the alteration part.

I'm also having a hard time with the two explanations? First it was explained as a joke, then as a heated comment. From reading the email string, it seems like neither.

Heated comments tend to be threats, not statements of a past act. Whether as a joke or heated comment, it seems like it would be more along the lines of "Well I could this that or the other thing to these guys, and maybe someday I will!" It doesn't seem really common to me that, as a heated comment, someone would claim to have already done something.

It also doesn't seem to have been a heated discussion in general (assuming that all parts are there). I've seen Scott Elkins in heated discussions. He has a very passionate writing style that makes it impossible to miss when he is mad at something - using capital-letter phrases, and being very descriptive as to what has him pissed off.

I don't see that Scott is at all heated in this chain. More like some side comments about others, but in general the context seems far more focused on the actual underprint card he and Kevin were discussing.

And the one email that contains the comment doesn't seem to follow at all - the topic sort of comes out of the blue. Don't know what that means - just that it does not seem consistent with either a joke or a heated comment.

I don't know what it all means, just that it doesn't look good for someone that has claimed (and backed it up with demonstrations) to be able to make undetectable alterations but has also stated repeatedly that it is to protect the hobby.

The only thing that keeps me from thinking it actually happened is the practical problem of trying to steer one specific card into the collection of one specific person. That's the only loose thread left in my mind.

Not good. Not a good week for the hobby.

J

[jmk59]

OK. Sorry for another long post, but I just finally put my finger on exactly what bothers me so much about this and about the t206museum thing.

For t206m, I am exactly - exactly! - the person that could have been harmed by something like that if I had been financially able to get in that game. I've collected since 1998 or 1999 or so. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about cards, but am in that intermediate stage of expertise that would have led me right to those cards.

Like I know enough to know that the black overprint would be extremely rare, but am still too green to know the history of the red overprints, the fact that the blacks all started appearing in 2000 (when I was still so new this would not have been on my radar). I'm not the immersed expert that had fuller context.

And similarly with this Kevin thing. I'm unnerved because if someone like Kevin wanted to get an altered card into my collection, he probably could - and maybe an expensive one too. I've progressed enough to think I know what's good and bad, but up against really sophisticated alterations that fool graders - not a chance.

I am really uncomfortable reading that someone would make even a casual threat like that. Because right now, I feel like the biggest thing that protects me from advanced frauds like black overprints and expert alterations is my belief that people in this hobby just don't do that sort of thing.

I don't like realizing that they do, or might.

J

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by jmk59

I am really uncomfortable reading that someone would make even a casual threat like that.

Sadly, it wasn't a threat; it was an admission of something already done. And first it's an "inside joke" (btw, how can an inside joke be told from one person to another in the privacy of an email exchange?) and now it's angry venting -- two totally different things.

[calvindog]

Kevin, an admission of fraud in a private email is hardly a "white lie" especially when it reflects behavior that you've publicly claimed you believe to be so wrong.

Additionally, you might be the only person in the history of civilization who felt the need to "lie" to impress a bottom-feeder like Elkins.

While it's a little disturbing to read of your disappointment at not being able to alter one of my cards, at least we all got to see you and Elkins in flagrante delicto, laughing it up as you both took joy in the thought of secretly altering cards and releasing them into our hobby.