Trimming Frauds Revealed | How Does It Impact Vintage???

[Collect Equity]

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)

[Peter_Spaeth]

There are some guys on Blowout who are just relentless about figuring stuff out. The discovery of the ebay seller advertising at Berkeley for an engineering student to modify a paper cutter is priceless. It's all probably far more pervasive than we believe and yeah, the TPG's are pretty limited but what do you expect for your $10?

[Bigdaddy]

As long as we keep up this crazy practice of exponential price differences between 8-9-10 grades, then this type of practice will be incentivized and rewarded by certain parts of the hobby. And the fact that the TPGs act as enablers - "resubmit and maybe get a bump in grade (and in the corresponding resale price)" only encourages the scammers.

The industry is ripe for a TPG that will use computer technology to give consistent and reproducible grades. Submit the same card 10 times and get the same grade every time. And it does not depend on the person who handles the card.

Computer vision systems could detect trimmed cards and other alterations and be completely automated. With facial recognition, image processing, machine learning, and other software technologies being used in so many other fields, it seems almost archaic to have cards graded the way they are now.

Reduce the incentives and reduce the alterations.

[itslarry]

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

As long as we keep up this crazy practice of exponential price differences between 8-9-10 grades, then this type of practice will be incentivized and rewarded by certain parts of the hobby. And the fact that the TPGs act as enablers - "resubmit and maybe get a bump in grade (and in the corresponding resale price)" only encourages the scammers.

The industry is ripe for a TPG that will use computer technology to give consistent and reproducible grades. Submit the same card 10 times and get the same grade every time. And it does not depend on the person who handles the card.

Computer vision systems could detect trimmed cards and other alterations and be completely automated. With facial recognition, image processing, machine learning, and other software technologies being used in so many other fields, it seems almost archaic to have cards graded the way they are now.

Reduce the incentives and reduce the alterations.

That would kill the tpg industry. They make $$$ of crackouts and resubs for higher grades.

[SetBuilder]

Cue the "this is why I collect beaters instead because you get more cards for the money and you usually don't have to worry about fraud" comment in 3.....2.....1.....

[egbeachley]

Wow. Over 3,000 posts and the evidence keeps coming.

I wonder if ebay has their old servers with auction scans from 1998.

[chalupacollects]

"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?"


The 1/64th inch trim is to be able to beat the TPG's over/under tolerance for measuring the size of the card. If a modern card measures 3 1/2" X 2 1/2" than according to the TPG's the tolerance for the card not being the exact measurement of the size is 1/32"

So if your card is off by less than 1/32" it is ok with them and considered an acceptable manufacture's tolerance...

If not it gets either a miscut or N6 designation (minimum size requirement)

And yes a trim that is real good that would get past the TPG's would theoretically make the card more valuable...

[iowadoc77]

this is why I collect beaters instead because you get more cards for the money and you usually don't have to worry about fraud.

[bigfish]

Originally Posted by iowadoc77

this is why I collect beaters instead because you get more cards for the money and you usually don't have to worry about fraud.

+1

[rats60]

Originally Posted by chalupacollects

"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?"


The 1/64th inch trim is to be able to beat the TPG's over/under tolerance for measuring the size of the card. If a modern card measures 3 1/2" X 2 1/2" than according to the TPG's the tolerance for the card not being the exact measurement of the size is 1/32"

So if your card is off by less than 1/32" it is ok with them and considered an acceptable manufacture's tolerance...

If not it gets either a miscut or N6 designation (minimum size requirement)

And yes a trim that is real good that would get past the TPG's would theoretically make the card more valuable...

Can you tell if a card has been trimmed recently versus a card that was cut short from the factory? At least PSA thinks they can. They reject cards for min size (factory cut small) and trimmed. For the 1st they don't charge you a grading fee, but for altered they do charge you. I am not sure on the others if the differentiate between the two or just call everything small trimmed.

[doug.goodman]

The people who buy holders instead of cards, and I include all purchasers of hugely overpriced high number opinions by the people who get paid for their opinions, deserve everything they get.

That market is a different market than the one most of us are in (although ours is affected) and they will ignore the truth and continue selling among themselves.

The Gretzky Wagner is my proof.

Doug "Fuck 'em" Goodman

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by SetBuilder

Cue the "this is why I collect beaters instead because you get more cards for the money and you usually don't have to worry about fraud" comment in 3.....2.....1.....

Cue the “I have lots of money in high grade slabbed cards so I better proactively denigrate those who might question the underlying assumptions about the industry” comments.

[irv]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Cue the “I have lots of money in high grade slabbed cards so I better proactively denigrate those who might question the underlying assumptions about the industry” comments.

How many times did we see that in the T206 thread alone.