Question about high end graded cards being trimmed

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Posted By: Joann

I know it's been debated here at some length that many PSA 8+ cards are trimmed, with most of the discussion revolving around the T206's. But I have a question about how that could be.

Assume for the sake of argument that if a card grades 8+, it has been trimmed on all four sides. I know that may not be true in each and every case, but it's probably true for a lot of the higher end cards if they got that way by trimming.

Is it really possible for graders to miss evidence of trimming on all four sides of so many cards? They routinely kick back lower end cards for evidence of trimming - maybe because the card draws attention because sharpness of corners in inconsistent with overall condition of the rest of the card.

But trimming does/may leave some sign besides being crooked, short, etc. How can the graders miss so many trimmed edges? How many 8+ T206's are out there (sorry - I haven't looked at pop reports)? Multiply that by four edges each, and then take whatever percentage you think are trimmed and that's the total number of trimmed edges missed. Seems like it would be pretty high to me.

Are there maybe that many people with extremely sophisticated trimming methods that can get them by the graders? Seems like that equipment, those techniques, etc would be pretty scarce and that most trimming would be done with more coarse equipment/methods.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Joann

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Posted By: Bobby Binder

There are quality trimming machines that I am sure thses people are using they are very expensive but the pay off is big. I am sure they are not using a ruler and a exacto knife. About 10 years ago I worked in a print shop and the cutter they used was about 40 years old. These machines are very durable and sure they would leave the same edge roll that they talked about in the SGC article.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Here we go again!

Its the low-mid grade and especially the ungraded cards that are trimmed. The high grade cards are immune--given the 5 minutes that multiple graders at PSA spend studying each card I know nothing gets by them.

Actually microtrimming of cards and reshaping them is an "epidemic" according to one grading company and the card cheaters are getting better all the time. We can only pray that PSA and SGC stay one step ahead of them.
Maybe mandatory life imprisonment for card alteration would help.

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Posted By: leon

I had a gentleman call me a few months ago, that I know but only a little bit. He said "Hey Leon, This is xxxx, I am a card doctor". We had a good discussion about trimming. He said he really only takes out small creases and wrinkles but the folks that do trimming do it to the tops and bottoms or one or the other. The sides are much longer and if you want a sharp corner why would you want more landscape to have to work on? Made sense to me. I know way back in the day innocent collectors trimmed cards to fit in pages and such....but I think we are talking more on the deceptive side here. I don't know a lot about it but figured this might help a little...best regards

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jim- when we have our meeting Thursday I will tell you a harrowing story of the altered PSA 8's I know about that have been holdered. And if our guest speaker is there, he will be able to corroborate it. I will not go into detail on a public forum, but it may cause you some sleepless nights.

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Posted By: Dave

I too sometimes question the different grading companies when it comes to trimmed cards. It's not too hard to measure a T206 card and then look at it under magnification to tell it's been trimmed by someone who isn't sophisticated. Unfortunately there is a lot of money to be made by selling Tobacco cards that have been trimmed or altered. It's my experience that there are an awful lot of trimmed T206 cards being sold on the market today. Some knowingly....others unknowingly. Back in the mid 90's my brother and I bought about 47 T206 cards from what we thought was a reputable auction company ( I will not name the name of the company here, but they are no longer in business). Now that we have submittd them all to PSA for grading I can report that 17 of the cards were returned ungraded due to evidence of trimming. 5 cards were hall of famers, 5 were southern leaguers, and the rest were commons. So I am now suspect of T206 cards that grade 7 or higher. I have to think that graders give "T" cards like the T206's more scrutiny due to the fact that the cutting machines of the time were inprecise...meaning that some miscutting at the factory resulted.
to answer one of Joann's questions; yes there are very sophisticated and precise cutting and trimming machines on the market. there not too pricey for the average crook to purchase, so that means almost anyone with a little money and time and patience can start doing it. There is a flea marketer at the Ceasar's creek flea market near where I live that trims "T"cards right in his stall in front of other people. The machine he uses is laser guided !! I don't know what he does with them after he trims them, but he could put them on Ebay. I believe Ebay has become the dumping ground for everyones crap, and for the crooked guys trimmed cards. I purchased a card on Ebay last week, got it in the mail and discovered that it was obviously trimmed. I told the seller about it, and he let me keep the card and gave me my money back. I usually destroy trimmed cards so that they never end up in circulation again, but this card was not a common player so I will end up framing it with other trimmed and altered cards I have.
just my 2 cents worth folks

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Posted By: Joann

OK. Sounds like it is possible. I guess I was maybe being naive? I was thinking that maybe there weren't as many of the 8+'s trimmed as people believe, going only on the fact that it would mean a whole lot of trimmed edges missed by graders that seem to be able to catch them at lower levels. It seemed kind of statistically unlikely to me that so may could be missed, therefore more were actually unaltered 8's. I guess I didn't realize that kind of equipment was so easily had.

Joann

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Barry,

Send me an e-mail please--I don't want to be too distracted during the meeting.

Jim

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Posted By: barrysloate

I will send you an email, but isn't that what the meeting is supposed to be about.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Barry,

What I meant to say was give me a few days to digest it.

Jim

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Posted By: jackgoodman

Barry, just wondering why you won't go public with your information?

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Posted By: Tim Newcomb

"The high grade cards are immune"


Uh--OK.........

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I thought I had always heard that the T206's could be "soaked and pressed" as well to make them slightly BIGGER than normal (but also a touch flatter).

Then, once they are bigger... they can be "trimmed" down to normal size again... but with sharp corners.

Isn't this the common card doctoring method?

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Yes, I've been told that soaking and stretching allows for trimming without affecting overall card size.

Frank

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Yes, Hal. That is absolutely true. And not really all that thinner if the card isn't severely pressed and blotted dry.


No Jim, what Hal asks about is absolutely impossible, can't be done to PSA 8s or better, only the raggedy low grade cards.

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

Is there a way to tell by looking at a slabbed card's label when it was slabbed? Assuming there is, and in recognition of the various expressed opinions that a certain percentage of slabbed cards if resubmited today would come back with either a lower grade or evidence of alteration, do you think that a card slabbed today would have a greater market value than if the slabbing was done say six years ago? While I don't profess to be an expert on slabbing cards, it seems to me that grading standards have gotten stricter over the years, while the awareness of and ability to detect the various methods of alteration has arguably improved. That would make a strong argument that a card's value would be enhanced if it could be shown that the slabbing was done recently. The flip side of the issue would be if the techniques of alteration have now become so advanced that it would actually improve a card's chances of being unaltered if it could be shown it was slabbed at an earlier less technologically-advanced time.

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Posted By: JimB

Dave said,
"Now that we have submittd them all to PSA for grading I can report that 17 of the cards were returned ungraded due to evidence of trimming. 5 cards were hall of famers, 5 were southern leaguers, and the rest were commons. So I am now suspect of T206 cards that grade 7 or higher."

If they returned them as trimmed then wouldn't that raise your confidence in their ability to detect trimmed cards. The guilty party was the auction company.

Corey,
I hope that their ability to detect alterations continues to improve, but I think they were pretty darn good 10 years ago. I remember when the whole grading thing started and I was shocked at the number of cards I submitted that came back with "Evidence of trimming". It was an eye-opener for me. But the bottom line is that they were catching a lot of them back in the early to mid-90's as well. Of course mistakes happen and altered cards get through, but I think it is irresponsible to spread the impression that all or most high-grade cards are altered (not that this is what you were doing, but it is the vein of this thread.). I just do not think it is the case.
JimB

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jack- to answer your question there is a confidentiality agreement that I am sworn to, so even at the meeting no specifics will be discussed, just general issues.

Jim B.- nobody is suggesting most cards in holders are bad; that would of course be impossible. What I will say is that there are probably enough, even if it is as small as 1-2%, to cause concern, especially when they involve high ticket items. And it is possible the number is higher than that.

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

JimB,

Thanks for the response. I totally agree with you that it is not the case that all or most of the high grade cards are altered. What makes me uncomfortable is my belief that a certain percentage are, and it could be more than a de minimus amount. That coupled with the fact that in my view a number of cards slabbed in the early days of slabbing seem to have inflated grades (I can't tell you have many 9's I have seen with fuzzy corners) would make me uncomfortable spending some staggering sum on some condition rarity when the price I am paying is so contingent on BOTH the numercial grade and the opined absence of alteration being correct. By expressing these views I am not saying it doesn't pay to buy high grade cards, or that collectors of such should not be proud of their collections. But I am saying that there is certain leap of faith associated with collecting slabbed cards.

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Posted By: Dave

I agree with Jim's assessment that the it's the auction house and sellers that are really to blame when it comes to sales that involve altered or trimmed cards.

here's my problem with the grading companies.....consistency ! I wonder if I were to submit all my trimmed cards previously mentioned to another grading company if thety would all be rejected as being trimmed. I think PSA has a consistency problem , but that's just my opinion based upon the cards I have received back from them. I have PSA 4's,5's,and 6's that are darn hard to tell apart grade wise. I look at these cards under magnification, and white light, and still can't find the difference between my Mike Mitchell PSA 3 and my Mitchell PSA 6. I haven't used any of the other grading companies, but has anyone had sinilar experiences ? Card essentially looking the saem are graded differently. I'm not sure what to really make of the whole concept of breaking open one companies slab to get a card re-graded by another company. If the card gets a better grade does that mean that the second company has graders that are less experienced ?

Barry, your post about the altered 8's scares the sh*t out of me and several other collectors I've talked to since yesterday. If these cards are knowingly altered and slabbed I think it would do the collecting world a service by exposing some details. knowingly selling altered cards does the hobby a great diservice, and chases away future collectors. My brother and I started collecting pre-war baseball memorabilia when we were in our teens....I can say that if we knew then what we know now about the T card world we may not have jumped in so readily. It was my love of baseball history, and the sport itself that attracted me to collecting the older cards not the prospects of "investing" or making big money off of selling baseball cards.

just my 2 cents worth again

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Posted By: barrysloate

To Dave and others who have responded to my post:

If you worked in a field where you had access to certain sensitive information, for example an attorney who had been given confidential information by a client, would you betray that confidence by posting it on a public chatboard?

If anyone who owns expensive slabbed cards feels there may be some issues, I suggest letting another grading service review them so that you can get a second professional opinion. In my example, a group of cards graded by one service as NR MT/MT were examined by another and demonstrated to be significantly altered. That is as far as I am at liberty to discuss this matter, and perhaps it was wrong of me to even begin this discussion.

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Posted By: Dan Koteles

is that nearly 30-40% of cards in holders are trimmed. Many 1's and 2's with the the severe corner rouding to me are all trimmed,paper just does not dissapear that much...cut in angles and
formed to the cut or corner cut and reshaped to look like that side of the paper was lost ,not a chance. 3's and 4's not as bad. I see the rest of the grade all over the place in sizes....lucky enough for me that i have been around the pre war hobby long enough
to know good sizing. This is just my opinion.

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Posted By: jackgoodman

Hi Barry,
I appreciate your responding and accept your statement about confidentiality (as much as I'd love to hear the details). But as long as you've posted as much as you're going to discuss at the lunch, I'm ok with it. I just didn't think it was fair that those that couldn't attend the lunch would miss out on hearing some vital information. You don't know me but I've known of you for years and respect your knowledge and integrity in the hobby.

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Posted By: barrysloate

It's actually a dinner, but nothing above and beyond what I posted will be mentioned at the dinner. Confidentiality means just that, it doesn't mean only ten guys get to hear the whole story. But we will be discussing among other things measures that can be taken to keep altered cards out of the marketplace, although how much we accomplish in that area is not clear.

But let me share this with everybody: there are many people who are expert in the art of paper restoration, and most of them work for museums and private collectors and disclose all their work. But like in any field, there are bad seeds. I know that there are paper restorers out there who make a living expertly altering cards, and some percentage go undetected and make it into holders. I can't tell you what percentage, because I do not know. But as time goes by there are going to be some very sad stories and some very violated collectors who will be victims. I think in the end the grading services are our only line of defense, and while I am sure they are doing the best they can, I think they need to do better, and it may boil down to better technology.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Jack,

Its actually a dinner(not a lunch) and it is this Thursday in midtown NYC if you would like to come.

I think I will save further comments on this other than to say that card alteration/restoration which includes trimming is the major issue the hobby faces today. If you would like to contribute to a solution, please join Barry, myself and others for dinner this Thursday in NYC.

If you are interested you can e-mail me at jdc122@aol.com for details.

Jim

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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

Some of the things skilled paper restorers can do are truly remarkable. I would think that the latest technological gizmos a grading company may have will not mean much unless they have the people with the experience and expertise to know what to look for. And what Barry says is absolutely correct--though the great majority of paper restorers are upfront honest individuals who disclose their work and are hired by people with no intention to defraud, there are a few bad seeds who have the ability to do tremendous harm. I see the day coming with card collecting that we are already at with, say, autograph collecting. There, for many (most?) collectors an LOA from an autograph authentication company in the absence of any other corroborating documentation/evidence simply is not enough to eliminate all doubts as to the signature's authenticity. With cards it may become commonplace for collectors to insist on getting information about a card's provenance in order to feel comfortable the card has not been altered.

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Posted By: leon

If I am not mistaking many very rare/expensive coins have pedigrees. Maybe higher end cards will go that route? I also agree that trimming/micro-reshaping, or whatever you want to call it, is prevelent on grades 1-5, but won't be as epidemic as on higher grade cards. Everyone needs to read what whacky Dan K said too. He is absolutely correct.....Cards most likely don't disintegrate over time, at least not as much as is commonly seen with extremely rounded corners. I believe many lower grade cards had clipped corners at one time and then were rounded off, with rubbing, to make them look like they have normal wear. Just my little 'ole opinion...best regards

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Posted By: Joann

Wow Dan and Leon. That makes sense. I've had a few cards that had corners so round I couldn't imagine how they could have gotten that way with no major creases or other damage. Cipped corners rounded off. Duh.

Joann

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Posted By: Joann

I still don't know about all of the trimming yet. People say it's a matter of QC or whatever at the grading companies. I'm in QC, and a failure rate of 30+ percent is just about impossible. Even something like 10% is hard to imagine. It still seems to me like this is a lot of trimmed edges that are getting by the graders, and I am not convinced that more of the cards are unaltered than we think.

I take with great respect the responses that have said that equipment to do high-quality trimming is not that hard to find. But it still seems like a lot to miss. Maybe if the graders are heavily weighing the card size into the equation - saying that if it is larger than minimum size it is presumptively not trimmed unless there is a horrible wave or miscut. Then I could maybe see it. But if they are looking at each edge for evidence of trimming even if the card is larger than minimum size, it's hard to imagine there are so many trimmed edges and they are simply being missed.

Just my opinion. It doesn't make statistical sense that so many of these cards are both trimmed and missed. But I'll also tell you that I have the major heebie-jeebies lately about any T206 that looks like it has small borders, especially T/B, slabbed or not.

Joann

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Posted By: jackgoodman

Jim,
I would truly love to come, not just for the conversation, but to meet many of you. Unfortunately, I'm in Southern California (formerly Englewood, NJ) and wish you guys would do something similar out here. Hopefully, someone will take notes and report back to us. Thanks for the invite tho.
Jack

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Posted By: barrysloate

I would be happy to report on the meeting Friday morning on the board. I'll start a new thread and we can get opinions from those who couldn't attend.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Agreed(with Barry's point(s)).

The way I see it is we will report on what was discussed and then next steps. It is too early for conclusions. Hopefully this will be the first of several meetings. We will seek advice along the way.

For those of you who think that I am going to drive this to the conclusion I want, you are mistaken. Everyone has an equal say who comes to our meetings and my hope is that over time we will be able to reach a consensus on key issues facing the hobby.

Barry has apparently volunteered to do this on Net54 on Friday morning which I think is very generous of him.

Jim