Posted By:
Al C.risafulliJim:
I need to be clear about something: I DO NOT agree that more altered cards are getting into holders. That has not been my experience. I believe that more altered cards are getting into SOME holders. And mitigating the risk comes down to the level of trust you have in your grader of choice.
Everything else you said makes sense to me. However, if I were to purchase a card at auction, and discover it to be altered, I would take it back to SGC and they will review the card and give me an opinion. If they agree that the card is altered, they'll buy back the card.
I'm sure PSA's customers are just as confident in PSA's willingness to stand behind their product.
But I need to be clear about something else: I do not feel that removing a pencil mark from a card and getting it into a holder, taking glue off the back of a T206, or removing dirt or a wax stain from a card constitutes an "alteration." When I see someone removing glue from a card and then criticizing the grading company for giving the card a 2, I think they're missing part of the point.
I also think there's a key difference between an auction house selling a card and a dealer doing the same. A dealer owns inventory and represents it a certain way in order to obtain the maximum dollars that they can put in their pocket. An auction house takes a commission for facilitating a transaction between a buyer and a seller. The auction house (at least in theory) does not actually own the merchandise. To ask the house to assume the financial risk associated with the grading company not doing its job, in my opinion, is unreasonable, since the auction house is responsible for paying the seller immediately after the close of the auction. It's the grading company's problem, IMO.
Edited for clarity, because my fingers move faster than my dim-witted brain.
Edited once again, because I'm no less dim-witted now than I was the first time I edited.
-Al