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Originally Posted by mrreality68
Kevin you have some really valid points. Thanks for sharing them.
I do not believe (but I could easily be wrong) that restorations will be common in Card collecting. Even with the higher dollar cards. For one the way grading companies grade and then classify it (ie instead of raising the "grade" it gets either and Authentic, Altered, or Restored grade on it. Just as you see on the one in SGC. That results in less bidders at the higher prices like you have seen in several recent but past auctions. In addition card collecting has a "purity" to it and an appreciation for the life of that card. So anything that takes away from that devalues it somewhat
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Part of the problem from my perspective is that so many of the decisions made by the TPGs about what constitutes an "alteration" to begin with is borderline arbitrary. A card that has tape on it hasn't been altered? Really? But if you remove the tape, then it has? Lol. But only sometimes? Uhh, OK. And if the surface of a card gets dented by something, then that lowers the grade because a card with an indent is a damaged card. Unless of course the surface damage we're talking about was caused by a screw down holder smashing down the corners. That's not "damage", that's an "alteration", tantamount to trimming or recoloring a card.
And speaking of timing, apparently even that's OK to do with some cards but not others. Some of this stuff is just ridiculous. The screw down holder damage equating to an alteration is the probably the one that irks me the most. The TPGs should treat that like they do with creases. Just have a rule that says a card can't grade higher than a 5 if it has screw down damage or something like that, but don't stamp it with some scarlet letter and no explanation at all for why the card received it. The fact that PSA does not differentiate between "trimmed", "recolored", and "screwed down too tight" on their slabs is a real shame. Because I guarantee the market would value those all differently if they knew the reason behind the grades.