Quote:
Originally Posted by swarmee
You're going to spike the football at the end of the first quarter?
Do you believe that Brent and team should be convicted of fraud and jailed?
And that PWCC should be put out of business?
Do you believe that PSA is capable of detecting alterations to cards?
What about all the altered cards in numbered holders: should they be returned, refunded, and put in Authentic/Altered holders?
Or should they just freely reenter the market, and everyone should forget about the issue?
The FBI hasn't even pressed any charges yet. To say that all is well at this juncture is a little premature.
And yes, I realize I was being baited into answering. I still don't get your white knighting for a company that isn't honest. You trusting in the PSA message board guy and Steve Sloan is pretty humorous to me. If they were honest, they would NOTIFY THEIR CUSTOMERS ABOUT THIS FRAUD, AND WORK TO REMOVE THESE CARDS FROM THEIR HOLDERS.
I was actually one of the biggest PSA fans on this board, since I got back into collecting 5 years ago. Remember, "Never Get Cheated!"
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First of all I wasn't singling you out but you obviously have been quite vocal. I have no problem with someone speaking their mind and standing up for what they believe in. The only thing you have done I think is over the top is contacting Steve Sloan and trying to demand how they should run their business. I would have blocked you too.
I am not going to convict someone without all of the facts. There has been great effort to bring to light problems in the hobby and I don't want to minimize that but to suggest we can figure out all that has taken place from message boards posts is ludicrous. I am someone that will wait for the case to play out and see what happens. If Brent was in bed with Moser and he is found guilty of this then he will face a stiff punishment either legally or business wise or both. Using verbiage from listings to assume he submitted the cards for Moser is jumping the gun in my opinion.
I have said repeatedly that I think there are obviously things being done to cards that third party grading firms can't detect. My opinion is that if they can't detect it and it leaves no residue than people must simply factor this in to their viewpoint of graded cards. I was shocked to learn when I got more into the hobby in 2010 that soaking was acceptable. Once collectors crossed the line to attempt to improve a cards appearance you are now in the grey area where interpretation comes into play. I don't collect vintage cards and I can't speak for those that do but I honestly don't believe this is a total surprise and I also wouldn't be surprised if some simply don't care and want to view the nicest looking card they can. I will let them decide.
I don't know what should happen to the cards. Obviously the Stan Musial is no longer in the pop report. Was it trimmed to get into the 9 holder? I don't know. Was color the only thing done to it to get it into the 10 holder? I don't know. I would say they should handle each card on a case by case basis.
PSA is a publicly traded company and they must be very careful on how they handle this. I don't know the moderator and just was making reference that they have allowed comments I would have thought would be deleted and to my knowledge I haven't seen one person banned in the past few months once this firestorm broke loose. As for Steve once again I don't know him either. I have emailed him twice on issues and he did his best to resolve them and so for that I am grateful but his hands are tied on this until they wrap their head around it. I think that is a perfectly acceptable response and what should be expected from the president of a division of a publicly traded company.
It is no secret I have a vested interest in PSA as does anyone who owns lots of cards they have graded. We are stake holders in that since so naturally I would prefer the market to continue and move forward. That said even if I didn't I truly believe it will.
The card market has gone through scandal after scandal after scandal. From the over production of cards pushed as get rich investments to the baseball strike to the steroid era to the 2 AM shows pumping worthless crap to massive amounts of forged autographs to bad cards being graded and yet people still collect. I just don't see that changing. So many people have so much wrapped up in their collections whether it be financial, time, passion, or part of their identity.
Years ago every time I would go out to a work dinner my cards would come up so the guys could pick on me and make fun of my stupid wrestling cards. I always said you can laugh all you want but you just watch these are going to go up in value and I will be the one laughing. During those conversations I would always say I collect the cheap stuff and while I fully expect it to rise in value significantly the real stuff is the Mantle's and Babe Ruth's and Honus Wagner cards. I vividly remember a discussion with some mutual fund managers and explaining to them the graded card market and saying that cards like this only go up over time. They disagreed as nothing does that. I said your wrong. These items have become status symbols and artifacts of American history and just like the Picasso's and other famous artists the trend is higher and will always be. I used the 3 million mark for the Mantle PSA 10 and now many benchmark it at 10 million. When you have cards that sell for seven figures you have a very mature market and I believe that this won't put a dent in it.
I could be wrong. I just don't think I will be.