The answer is if disclosing what was done (cleaning, spooning a wrinkle) would lower the sales value or grade it would be assigned by a grader, it is unethical not to disclose.

If you have for the same price two identical Mint-looking cards, and you say the first is untouched and the second had a couple of wrinkles spooned out, 100 out of 100 times the buyer will pick first card. All 100 give the first a higher value, or the second a lesser value. And 100 includes the spooners themselves. This shows that, ethically, and likely even legally. you have to disclose even that the card was spooned.

Obviously, this disclosure isn't always done and won't always be found out, but that's beside the point as far as judging the ethics and need for disclosure goes.

I would think cleaning in some cases is not only acceptable, but necessary.

Recently I acquired an old baseball trophy bat made of of silver. Being very old (19th century), it was tarnished. The general consensus was NOT to treat it as the tarnish was integral to its look and cleaning it would "sterilize" the bat to the point where it would not look natural.

I then consulted with a person who earned her living as a forensic conservator of antique silver. She told me that if I did not treat it, the corrosion would continue and the three dimensional figures on the bat would begin to deteriorate. So I treated it. It now looks beautiful, is no longer deteriorating and still has a bit of a patina indicating that it is very old.

if I ever sell it, I would disclose what I did (though to any purchaser with any knowledge of antique silver, he/she would know the bat was treated). But this is an instance where the treatment being forensically necessary I think enhances the bat's value.

corey
 

think it's time for a picture?! I'd love to see it...…...

My conservator provided me pics. If I can find them I'll post.

ZERO, is acceptable if you do not disclose it. This was done to deceive FOR $$$$$ Hence, Fraudulent business practices.

of course .Enjoy your shiny trophy! but this is PLAIN and simple fraud. Nothing remarkable about it.

Exactly, the Government can F*** us all they want. Brent mastro can not.

Are you saying by treating the bat in accordance with recommended conservation standards for antique silver I have committed fraud?

You haven't committed fraud, and you even said if you would sell the piece you would disclose the work done. That's all you have to do to stay on the right side of the law.

The operative word always is disclosure.

Though if you offer for sale the shiny bad, it would be obvious that it was cleaned. And I admit that I don't know the hobby conservation rules/norms for silver

That's what I thought and why I was taken by that comment.

Apparently the hobby conservation rules/norms for silver are a specialty within itself. When I first consulted with my long-time conservator, whom I have the highest regard for, his initial reaction was that because the tarnished look is part of the appeal maybe I should leave it as it is. He did add though that his expertise does not extend to treating antique silver, and it was he who referred me to the person who treated it. That person was quite adamant that it should be treated and that if it was not, it would continue to deteriorate.

Wasn’t the first card PSA graded the hand-cut/trimmed Gretsky Wagner? Why is anyone surprised, they set the bar right out of the gate

This is where I get lost. What needs to be disclosed? Any alterations? Some people clearly have different definitions of what alterations are. Do you have to abide by hobby norms? Hobby norms would be to advertise the condition assigned by a TPG as the condition of the card. Hobby norms have never been to disclose condition details beyond the TPG grade.

Yes, Brent Huigens and Gary Moser are pretty much scum of the earth but for PSA to deflect with this sorry excuse of an announcement is just pathetic and inexcusable.

PSA - Professional Sports AUTHENTICATOR. PSA's main job is to authenticate the item before any grading takes place.

Straight from their website - PSA states that "a SERIES of PSA graders review your card for authenticity. If genuine, PSA looks for evidence of doctoring such as re-coloring and trimming".

A SERIES - meaning MORE than two graders are supposed to inspect the card to confirm that it is authentic and that it has not been doctored.

One of two things can be explained. 1 - either the SERIES of graders that are looking at these cards are ALL inept and can't be counted on to spot a doctored card or 2 - a SERIES of graders ARE NOT inspecting each card as stated by PSA. If you go by the sheer numbers of submissions that PSA touts, I'm pretty sure that a SERIES of graders aren't looking at each card.

I am pretty sure that this has been happening with PSA since it's inception but hopefully not to the scale that we are seeing now.

How does PSA choose to handle this? Do they choose to blame the card doctors for engaging in deception while also proving that their certified card graders suck at spotting altered cards and have so for may years now?

Or do they make a couple of card graders out to be the sacrificial lambs and state that they were acting in cahoots with Brent, Gary and whoever else to get doctored cards in holders?

Honest question, what if there is no evidence of doctoring?

This has been explained so many times. Let's try a different approach. Have you ever bought or sold a home? Have you completed the disclosure? It is so detailed because it would be easy to forget something material to the decision to buy the house. There it is. Anything that would reasonably affect a person's decision to purchase NEEDS TO BE DISCLOSED. If it's in a PSA 10 holder but you know it's trimmed then you have to disclose it.

If there is a problem with the roof of a house, it'll cost tens of thousands to replace. If there is a wax stain removed from a card, it will cost you nothing.

I'm a reasonable person, I don't require a wax stain removed to be disclosed. Some people do.

If I sold a card graded by a TPG, I would find it unreasonable if a buyer came back to me after learning that a wax stain was removed from the card.

You are completely correct. There are different standards for different materials. Some pieces will deteriorate unless they receive periodic treatment. A museum treats cloth, metals, and wood artifacts differently than old baseball cards. Let's not lose perspective on this either. Conservators aim to limit deterioration of a piece. Just about every "treatment" a baseball card can receive isn't about the piece's longevity, it's about defrauding potential buyers.

Gee, would be simpler just to disclose it then, wouldn't it? I also wouldn't care about a wax stain removed by mundane physical means (the old panty hose trick) But the standard is not what you as seller deem reasonable. Also you're creating a strawman here as wax stain removal is nowhere near the issue at hand.

The people who want to play devil's advocate and "what if" games confuse me. We don't need to IMAGINE scenarios and pose hypotheticals. We have plenty of ACTUAL cases to deal with here. Not to cast aspersions but I do wonder at the motives of the people trying to come up with scenarios that skirt the line of fraudulent behavior. To what end are these people engaging in this exercise?

That's the issue, how can the seller know what is deemed reasonable to the buyer? There are a lot of unreasonable buyers.

For years the standard was that the assigned TPG grade was satisfactory disclosure. Is that now changing?

Well said, and utterly amazing it’s so difficult for so many people here to grasp. Starting to seem like a waste of time trying to explain the same thing over and over again. You’d think (being a vintage card forum) that this would be right in peoples’ wheelhouse.

A question to all who don’t think the alterations in question are fraud... Do you pay the same money for a high-number graded card as you do for one that’s graded “AUTH”?

If there's truly no evidence then obviously they won't find it, but in some of these cases we're talking about examples where we can make out the recoloring work just from a scan of slabbed card. In other cases, even if the doctors can do a trim that replicates a factory cut the card should have been sent back with a "Min. Sz." card saver.

I agree, some of them in hindsight look obvious. It's fascinating, many of the cards were rejected at least once (per the posted Moser submissions). Clearly the graders were rejecting some of the cards when they noticed alterations - unless they purposefully rejected some to keep up some sort of appearance.

The "Min. Sz." is tough, because some of the cards might still be within appropriate measurements (especially if pressed then trimmed). There is more money in faking cards than spotting fakes. I think seeing more and more of these is going to be inevitable without some additional action.

Here are some before and after pics. The bat dates to 1887 and was presented by the Boston Globe to Sam Wise of the Boston Base Ball Club for being its top batter.

Except for the first picture where the after-treatment pic is on the left, on the other three the after-treatment pics are on the right.

It is perfectly legal to trim, recolor and "conserve" a trading card. The illegality is when known financially material alterations are not disclosed.

Most people sell a graded card by what the holder says is the grade, and that, of course, is perfectly fine and normal. However, if you happen to know that a numerically graded card is actually altered, you legally have to disclose that. It would be considered fraud if it is proven you knew and didn't disclose. So it is fine and normal to defer to the TPG's opinion at sale, but the TPG opinion isn't a cover if you know that opinion is wrong. I'm, of course, not talking about a generous grade (A VgEx for a Vg card) but when the seller knows for a fact that, despite what the label says, a card has been altered, the label's identification is obviously incorrect (a T206 Heinie Wagner accidentally labelled a Honus Wagner) or the autograph is a forgery. A PSA typo does not allow the seller to sell a Heinie Wagner as a Honus Wagner, or a $5 bill as $500 bill.

A number of us have explained until we're blue in the... fingers?

Apparently willful obtuseness is a sign of intelligence and debating skill now-a-days.

What do you define as financially material? Who can define that? The buyer? A reasonable buyer? Hobby norms?

Hobby norms generally accept erasing a dealer's pencil mark "$5" from the back of a postcard, right? Many collectors are fine with removing wax stains, but others aren't. Most people here are fine with soaking cards.

I've never seen any of these things disclosed on the BST here, have you?

How very true. And they are definitely related to the Yeahbuts family.

People are casting wide nets and using terms like "fraud" and "illegality" a little too loosely. I don't see too many people here disclose every wax stain removed or pencil mark erased.

People in glass houses I guess...

For a slabbed card anyhow, I would define materiality as any alteration that -- if known to the grader -- would have resulted in the card not receiving a numerical grade. Best I can do off the top of my head. I'll think about it some more.

I would say that numerical grade. If you press a card and trim it so what used to be a 2 is now a 6, that is a material fact IMO and needs to be disclosed.

I think we are saying the same thing, because if the improvement was known it would have been rejected altogether the second time around. But I'm fine with that formulation.

Fair enough. Now that I think about it more, I agree that we're saying the same thing.

love the bat!!!
 

either way although with the patina the aesthetics marry the suggestion of it's age (I collect 19th century fine sterling safes and cases) BUT if an item is degrading - remediation/conservation is common sense and accepted everywhere. THAT HANDLE IS OFF THE CHARTS!
As for baseball cards - the people that do these manipulations are just carrion looking for and often times finding easy prey. The registry and it's mine is bigger allows the scammers (and tpgs) to exploit a human flaw most of us have.
As for the doctors - unlike what their mothers had been telling them all their adult lives while living in her basement - THEY ALL FOUND JOBS.....

Corey- the restoration on the bat looks beautiful. But I imagine there are some purists who would say it's best to leave the silver as is. How long would it have taken for the bat to materially decompose? Are we talking decades?

Corey, that bat is absolutely spectacular! It must be one of the most intricately detailed and elegantly designed examples extant.

I was undecided what to do until I spoke with the silver conservator; at that point it was a no-brainer because I would not be comfortable owing something so special that I knew was deteriorating. While the entire bat is beautiful, the part I like the most is the image of the player, which I think beautifully captures a 19th century baseball player. While the look obviously is a lot different than before treatment, the conservator did tell me that the patina to a skilled eye does evidence that it is an old object.

With the amount of re-coloring that has taken place on many of these cards, it just proves that PSA's graders are either truly inept in performing PSA's main objective of being in business or they are conspiring along with the card doctors and Brent.


One thing I do wonder is will Brent have security with him if he shows up at this years National Convention? I would say it would be in his best interest to do so as I am sure there are plenty of people out there that would love to do him bodily harm. He seems to have that kind of face that makes you want to punch it and that was before everything went down with PWCC...lol

PSA would probably be wise to have extra security as well as I can see this being a very entertaining show this year.

Thank you Brent.

I used the term illegality and fraud correctly.

Trimming and recoloring are clearly financially material. Whether or not a wax stain removal is financially material, and if so how much, I'll leave others to debate. There is a spectrum, and I don't think any collector thinks all alterations are equal in seriousness and financial consequences. Maybe one collector thinks removing a wax stain reduces the "natural state" value by a nickel, and no one is going to be prosecuted for fraud, or labeled a fraudster, over a nickel. I think your argument, not mine, is casting too wide a net.

From what I was told, a skilled observer could detect microscopic deterioration already present. My red line when it comes to memorabilia is whether the treatment is needed to prevent deterioration. And too there is the subjective element which differs with the collector. To me, just knowing something is deteriorating and that treatment is the norm within the industry for such an object usually leads me to do the treatment.

That bat is f'n ridiculously cool.

That's a sensible approach. Beautiful bat.

I don't see a lot of folks disclosing wax stain removal or pencil marks erased either. But that doesn't mean it's ok just because most people aren't disclosing this stuff. If they know about the alteration, and don't disclose it, it is fraud. I would bet a lot of the guys selling on the BST honestly don't know of any alterations to their cards, so there is no fraud there. The debate should remain with situations where there is a card doctor knowingly submitting altered cards to a TPG with intent to deceive buyers. These little one offs about what if this or what if that or why is it illegal to trim a card are just distracting the conversation. At this point, it should really be clear (if you read the threads) why it is fraud and illegal to not disclose alterations if you know about them.

We keep saying that the word must get out beyond these forums, for any real positive change to happen. Otherwise all of our complaints and pleas for change remain futile. What better venue than The National, to spread word of the deep-seeded corruption?

I will join the cause if anyone else wants to picket or protest right in front of the PSA or PWCC Booth. I personally suggest PSA, as it would be further reaching, and will have a greater impact on cleaning up the hobby. Perhaps just an hour at each Booth... Nothing too time-consuming, as I know we'd all rather be walking the Show (and enjoying it).

To be taken seriously, I would imagine we would need 20 people or more... I think if it's less than 10, it won't have the desired impact. We might be dismissed as a few random wackos. And absolutely no "bodily harm" or physical threats of any kind. We'll need to be taken seriously, or PSA/PWCC will once again portray themselves as "Victims".

I know a few others will be distributing the Moser/Orlando/Huigens Cards. Let's draw some much-needed attention to this scandal... Reporters are always present at the National. If anything is to change, this is perhaps the best chance to make some news, and get the word out to a wider audience (beyond the forums).

On another positive note... When you simply Google Search the name "Brent Huigens", the #2 link that comes up is an article on the current scandal. Now that's progress!

https://www.google.com/search?source...10.wvcxjPFX6vs

Meanwhile, the beat goes on.

Baseball 1955-1962 Highlights
Closing Today: 6-9pm PST
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When one speaks of all-time Baseball greats, Mantle's name is on the tip of your tongue. Although he experienced great success in his first five seasons as a Yankee it was really his 1956 season which secured him as an all-time great and a potential threat to break baseball's greatest hitting record. Even Bill Dickey predicted Mantle would break every record except Lou Gehrig's streak. During this season Mantle won the triple crown by hitting 52 Home Runs with 130 RBI and a batting average of .353. Due to this historic season and the fact that the 1956 Topps issue is among Mantle's most beautiful card, this is an exceedingly important investment card which is highly prized in PSA 9.

These elite offerings only surface but once or twice a year as the vast majority of them are locked up in private investment portfolios. The offered specimen is the most recent addition to the PSA 9 family and boasts undeniable MINT presentation throughout. The surfaces glisten with beauty, showing tremendous gloss, bright color and flawless clarity. All four corners are dagger sharp and the centering is 45/55 (so close to perfect). This card redefines what's possible for the issue and sets the tone for what an ultra high-grade 1956 Topps Mantle can truly offer. We love this card and recommend it for the finest portfolio.

Closes Today @ 6:48pm PST
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Easily one of the most important post-war rookie cards in existence and highly sought after in PSA 8. The offered Koufax is special, boasting undeniable NM-MT qualities throughout. Free of typical excess print with mesmerizing color and clarity. Beautifully framed with sharp corners and strong card stock.

The card possesses clean borders with blemish free edges around. For the last five years of his career Sandy Koufax set a tone of excellence which most feel will never be matched. A very difficult grade to improve upon and one of the best investment pieces in the market. Comes highly recommended by PWCC.

Closes Today @ 6:21pm PST
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Stunning! This card absolutely glows boasting some of the finest qualities we've seen on the issue. As the market matures, certain cards are elevating towards immortality among investors and we view this '56 Mantle production among those on the rise. Features the 'The Mick's' world class portrait alongside an action shot outfield leap all set against his renowned Triple Crown 1956 performance. Just his 3rd Topps issue, and while certainly not the most expensive, we view this as his most attractive card from all of the 1950s (and that includes the '52 Topps).

The offered example is perhaps the best '8.5' we've ever brokered of the card. Dead centered with many attributes of a MINT card. The surfaces and edges are simply flawless for the issue. An exceedingly faint touch to the extreme lower right corner is the only 'flaw' we see. Despite this corner touch, we feel this card is a dead lock for the SGC 9 assessment. Easily ranks in the top 5% of all examples we've seen.

Closes Today @ 6:48pm PST

And the beat will continue to go on until we stop feeding them our huge sums of money.

I'm tempted to conduct a poll, asking if people here would volunteer some time at the National to protest peacefully. I expect that very few people would actually commit, but I do sense lots of buiding rage towards PSA and PWCC... Even if we had a meager 10% success rate, that could be 25 out of 250 respondents. But I don't want to upset the apple cart or associate Leon and his site with something he has no desire to support.

So if anyone wants to just privately email or PM me, feel free.... thanks!

How about a poll on how many people will stop buying from consigning to PWCC.

I've already posted, that's my answer to the poll.
http://net54baseball.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=231

Not bought a card in a few weeks now, and have hardly looked. Not gonna pay for PSA grading that we planned a trip around this fall.

I truly hope I've not lost the collecting bug, but truth is I'm not interested in trying to figure out what PSA cards are doctored and what are not.

I did buy myself a couple of new wedges (54 and 58 degree) a week ago, and got my wife a new 5 iron and electric walking cart.