[BobC]

Originally Posted by Leon

It isn't illegal to trim a card.
But if you do it over and over and/or say you didn't do it, or send it in to be graded as if nothing happened, it can be criminal. I think a pattern of deceit can easily be shown in how these cards went from one grade to other grades. And then resold to unsuspecting buyers. The fact the TPG didn't catch it is somewhat beside the point.

I have only submitted cards for grading once, maybe twice, in all my years, and both times was with SGC because they were at the show I attended and PSA wasn't. I don't recollect everything on the submission form, but definitely don't remember any specific question or inquiry asking if I knew or suspected the card(s) were altered or doctored or if I had done such alterations or doctoring myself. I would assume the PSA and BGS submission forms are similarly missing such inquires as well. The point is, the TPGs don't ask. And without such a specific inquiry, exactly what law or rule does a card doctorer break in submitting cards for grading? Isn't one of the purposes that people submit cards to TPGs for to determine not just their grade, but also their validity and authenticity?

The TPGs advertise that they are experts in reviewing and grading cards, and determining the validity and authenticity of those same cards, and charge for that service. And then base their charge on the underlying value of the cards themselves, so they already start out with an intrinsic bias to have cards they review and grade get the highest grades, and therefore values, possible. They make more money that way! And the grading has led to the phenomenon known as the "Registry", specifically in regards to PSA graded cards, and has caused prices for such highly graded PSA examples of cards to fetch some ridiculous prices by high end collectors merely to get a slight bump in their overall registry set grade. And then you have all the dealers who exacerbate the problem by jumping on the bandwagon using the old "all boats rise with the tide" mentality, and figure that if a high end example of a certain card they are selling in a lower grade jumps in price, then all the lower grades of that same card, and specifically the one they were selling, should see increases in asking prices also.

The bottom line is that the TPGs grade these cards and do so by giving their "opinions", not a 100% concrete guarantee that they are right and always accurate. And on top of that, each of the major TPGs tend to have their own grading rules, biases and idiosyncrasies. Add to that the fact that there is also a lot of discord among collectors as to exactly what is and isn't allowable as to alterations and doctoring and suddenly that threshold of "beyond a reasonable doubt" may not be so easy to obtain. And if you throw in comparisons to other hobbies and collecting activities like comic books or the art world where restorations and conservation are allowed, it can muddy the waters even more. In the case of art work that is restored, the piece is still authentic and one of a kind, while a forgery of that same piece is a fake. In the case of cards, there are typically many more than just one single example of a card existing, but even if doctored, altered, conserved, or whatever you want to call it, the card is still authentic and has some value to someone. In those cases the grade is what gives a particular card a higher deemed value due to its condition rarity, not necessarily its actual existence rarity.

In trying to convict a card doctorer of a criminal act you will likely need to be able to bring in, and prove, an overall conspiracy among the card doctorers, TPGs and dealers all working in conjunction and knowledge of what each of them are doing in regards to taking advantage of the collecting public. The fact that there is not a single, agreed upon and followed grading standard and no oversight or peer review of the various TPG entities does not help the argument against them. The dealers can claim they merely took consignments from doctorers and relied upon the grades by the TPGs as to the vaildity and authenticity of the cards they were selling. They were not paid to authenticate the cards and merely act as a vehicle for their sale. The TPGs will say they reviewed the cards submitted and subjected them to their own internal grading standards, and issued their grades (opinions) accordingly, and didn't necessarily detect anything to make them think a particular card was altered/restored. And the card doctorers will merely try to claim they submitted cards for upgrades and that even if they did do some alterations/restoration, they rely upon the TPGs to determine what grade they felt the cards should be at and what, if any, restoration/alteration activities were found and detected that would note the card is not authentic. Kind of like a "don't ask, don't tell, mentality where the parties involved just go about what they normally do and don't ask or tell anyone else what they are doing or what they suspect. None of them want to rock the boat and they all want to continue making money.

Now if there were some type of nationally recognized group, independent of the TPGs, that set down the standards for grading and exactly what was and wasn't allowed, including alterations and restorations, you'd get better results. Such an independent group would basically dictate to the TPGS what they should use as standards and so on, and then license and periodically test the TPGS to make sure they were upholding the standards and so on. Then and only then would you begin to have some conformity in the grading and valuation of cards. Right now, PSA can do what they please, within reason. So can SGC and BGS in calling the shots on their grading.

All these before and after scans of cards the Blowout forum guys are finding are absolutely fantastic, but are they really more than coincidental? I know, I know, there are so many of them that one has to believe it has gone beyond a mere coincidence and I for one am fairly certain it isn't a complete coincidence either. But even after listing all the suspected cards that may potentially have been altered, there is a strong possibility that many of them were not actually altered. So what happens when people start pointing out the ones that weren't altered and using that as evidence that these were not all doctored cards being submitted unknowingly? And even the scans being shown are merely scans. We've all had occasions to question scans and what does and doesn't show up, etc., etc. It can be argued that scans are not always perfect and a completely reliable source for before and after comparisons, unless maybe the before and after scans can be shown to have been taken using the exact same scanner and with the exact same settings.
But how do you prove that? The scans may point out some of the similarities and differences between cards shown, but if the marks and such are on certain cards, who is to say there aren't also similar marks on others of that same card. What if a card doctorer were to bring in other examples of similar, say ungraded cards, with similar markings and such to the ones the BO guys are using to show what they believe to be before and after pictures of the same card. Let's face it, if the card doctorers are that good that they can remove things to improve a particular card, what is to stop them from adding things to another card to make it look like another one they had doctored? Of course it may not be possible with some of the really, really rare cards, but what about say a T-206 Cobb with a red background? I'm betting the doctors could find a different example to work their magic and make another one look like it may have been the one the BO guys are saying was actually resubmitted. And if it was a really rare card where the doctors couldn't easily find another example, they could bring in the argument of the Gretzky-Wagner card that not only did the alteration not devalue the card and damage the owner, but that it had entirely the opposite effect and the value of that card was significantly improved. All this may make it extremely difficult to convict anyone criminally.

And the fact that everything is interrelated among the parties involved does not make the TPGs not catching these alterations and restorations beside the point. That the TPGs each have their own internal grading standards highlights that there is no standard set of guidelines among the TPGs, and therefore the collecting community as well. And because there are no set guidelines and agreement among all the card hobby community, how do you get a group of peers from all walks of life to convict someone of something that the specific community they operate in can't agree upon 100%?

Leon, I seem to remember quite a while back there was a thread once where you recommended using a certain type of art gum eraser I believe to remove light pencil writing on a card to someone. if I'm wrong and it wasn't you, I apologize, but the point is that someone had suggested it and some collectors didn't feel that lightly erasing light pencil marks from the back of a card was really alteration, while others were vehemently against it. And there is the problem, not everyone is in agreement on what is and isn't okay, and therefore what does and what does not effect value. I am not for the card doctoring myself, unless it is disclosed. Luckily I tend to be a low-end collector grade-wise so I'm not as fearful of my collection being infected with a lot of altered cards. Will be interesting to see how these things shake out for the card collecting community, that is for sure. But as for people going to jail, not so sure that will actually happen. Even with the Mastro convictions, those were for shill bidding, not for card doctoring!