Even the so called good guys...ugly hobby?

[jmk59]

OK. Sorry for another long post, but I just finally put my finger on exactly what bothers me so much about this and about the t206museum thing.

For t206m, I am exactly - exactly! - the person that could have been harmed by something like that if I had been financially able to get in that game. I've collected since 1998 or 1999 or so. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about cards, but am in that intermediate stage of expertise that would have led me right to those cards.

Like I know enough to know that the black overprint would be extremely rare, but am still too green to know the history of the red overprints, the fact that the blacks all started appearing in 2000 (when I was still so new this would not have been on my radar). I'm not the immersed expert that had fuller context.

And similarly with this Kevin thing. I'm unnerved because if someone like Kevin wanted to get an altered card into my collection, he probably could - and maybe an expensive one too. I've progressed enough to think I know what's good and bad, but up against really sophisticated alterations that fool graders - not a chance.

I am really uncomfortable reading that someone would make even a casual threat like that. Because right now, I feel like the biggest thing that protects me from advanced frauds like black overprints and expert alterations is my belief that people in this hobby just don't do that sort of thing.

I don't like realizing that they do, or might.

J