Outed cards, now including a 130K gain on an Aaron rookie

[Goudey77]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I am not sure lack of technology is really the issue. I've seen too many cards that without any technology other than the human eye and a ruler should not have been slabbed.

Wouldn't something as basic as a ruler and a reference (size variances/information) to the card specifications be considered technology?
Imagine if you can incorporate something more advanced than a ruler. Like some modern day imaging scan that could immediately detect flaws.

You keep falling back on the human grading perspective as if Joe Schmo should be held accountable. Humans make mistakes. We all do it every single day. There really should not be an excuse to avoid using technology this day in age.

If you keep going back to complaining about "graders" and the human aspect we will never agree on this subject.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Goudey77

Wouldn't something as basic as a ruler and a reference (size variances/information) to the card specifications be considered technology?
Imagine if you can incorporate something more advanced than a ruler. Like some modern day imaging scan that could immediately detect flaws.

You keep falling back on the human grading perspective as if Joe Schmo should be held accountable. Humans make mistakes. We all do it every single day. There really should not be an excuse to avoid using technology this day in age.

If you keep going back to complaining about "graders" and the human aspect we will never agree on this subject.

It may well turn out to be more than innocent mistakes, based on what I have seen.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It may well turn out to be more than innocent mistakes, based on what I have seen.

Agree Bigly

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It may well turn out to be more than innocent mistakes, based on what I have seen.

Uh Huh... really makes you think twice, when you see the amount of Gem Mint 10s that are given to "Card-Buyer" in particular.

A waaaaaaay higher percentage of 10s than any "normal" submitter would ever get in a lifetime of submissions.

We'll see...

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by perezfan

Uh Huh... really makes you think twice, when you see the amount of Gem Mint 10s that are given to "Card-Buyer" in particular.

A waaaaaaay higher percentage of 10s than any "normal" submitter would ever get in a lifetime of submissions.

We'll see...

yeah but he's a big shot trimmer, scammer, fraudster, fat loser dealer & big customer of PSA. Of course he'll have all the 10's

This is borderline HILARIOUS!

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Goudey77

Wouldn't something as basic as a ruler and a reference (size variances/information) to the card specifications be considered technology?
Imagine if you can incorporate something more advanced than a ruler. Like some modern day imaging scan that could immediately detect flaws.

You keep falling back on the human grading perspective as if Joe Schmo should be held accountable. Humans make mistakes. We all do it every single day. There really should not be an excuse to avoid using technology this day in age.

If you keep going back to complaining about "graders" and the human aspect we will never agree on this subject.

That reference does not exist.

Currently grading is done by humans, and will be for a very long time.
Consider that Google - the product of millions of dollars if not billions, and the labor of thousands of very talented programmers - will return a large number of images that are not the card you're searching for. Even for a very common card.

And you think a machine could easily figure out what a card is, if it's fake, and what the grade is? When there are many things that don't scan well enough for someone who knows the material to be sure..

Some of that can be done, like centering and measurement. The rest will take a long time.

[Bigdaddy]

Originally Posted by steve B

And you think a machine could easily figure out what a card is, if it's fake, and what the grade is? When there are many things that don't scan well enough for someone who knows the material to be sure..

Some of that can be done, like centering and measurement. The rest will take a long time.

Ummm.....facial recognition is a current technology that can tell who you are from a picture. It is used on a daily basis by many organizations. Put on glasses, grow a mustache, get a suntan..doesn't matter, facial recognition will see through the distractions to identify a person. And that is not cutting edge technology, it is the technology of today, in use around the world. An artificial intelligence system based on machine learning could do this job much better and much more repeatably than a human ever could. Have you seen the recent commercial where computers pick out snow leopards from images taken by trail cameras? And the comparison of how long it would take a human to go through the same amount of photos? Current image processing technology is way beyond what a human can do with their eyes. Especially for things like noticing flaws in flat two-dimensional objects, detecting freshly trimmed edges or undersized cards and doctoring.

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

Ummm.....facial recognition is a current technology that can tell who you are from a picture. It is used on a daily basis by many organizations. Put on glasses, grow a mustache, get a suntan..doesn't matter, facial recognition will see through the distractions to identify a person. And that is not cutting edge technology, it is the technology of today, in use around the world. An artificial intelligence system based on machine learning could do this job much better and much more repeatably than a human ever could. Have you seen the recent commercial where computers pick out snow leopards from images taken by trail cameras? And the comparison of how long it would take a human to go through the same amount of photos? Current image processing technology is way beyond what a human can do with their eyes. Especially for things like noticing flaws in flat two-dimensional objects, detecting freshly trimmed edges or undersized cards and doctoring.

Gee...my facial recognition on my iphone doesn't recognize me if im not wearing my glasses???

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

Ummm.....facial recognition is a current technology that can tell who you are from a picture. It is used on a daily basis by many organizations. Put on glasses, grow a mustache, get a suntan..doesn't matter, facial recognition will see through the distractions to identify a person. And that is not cutting edge technology, it is the technology of today, in use around the world. An artificial intelligence system based on machine learning could do this job much better and much more repeatably than a human ever could. Have you seen the recent commercial where computers pick out snow leopards from images taken by trail cameras? And the comparison of how long it would take a human to go through the same amount of photos? Current image processing technology is way beyond what a human can do with their eyes. Especially for things like noticing flaws in flat two-dimensional objects, detecting freshly trimmed edges or undersized cards and doctoring.

It can only identify someone in its database. Currently, the only photo databases for cards are scattered among several different websites, and as far as I know, none are detailed enough to allow a determination between real and fake.

Identifying what the card supposedly is should be easy under some conditions. Card in a database, card in good enough condition. Card that doesn't have a lot of variance in its manufacture.

Here's an couple example of ones that would be a bit harder 48 Leaf (Yes Ted, I know they're really 49.. ) Here's a screenshot of my spreadsheet I did showing most - or as many as I could find - of the different varieties.



Just the Jensen has four distinctly different ones, different hat shape, different background, probably some other difference I haven't spotted, or haven't got an image of yet (Many come with shaded hats, but I haven't seen a shaded hat Jensen.

That database will need all of those to even have a chance of being right about the real/fake question. And it would probably be wrong about a shaded hat version if it came across one, because none of the "real" ones has shading there.

Most of the junkwax era stuff especially Fleer have cropping varieties for nearly every card. Both front and back. They are almost entirely uncataloged, so while you may be able to tell that card is a particular card, if it's not cropped the same as the one in the database... your system should reject it as fake.

88 Score... Has three different die cuts. The first left small tufts of fibers on each corner. When they aren't severe, they can look like wear. The second moved the tufts out about a quarter inch from the corner. The third, they finally got the die cutting right. Oh, and they screened the different printings differently.... None of that is in any catalog.

The Magie T206 comes in at least 8 distinctly different varieties. (All T206s will, some are just much harder to tell.) Not cataloged, there's maybe a handful of people who have even cared to check.


And,

Cards are not 2 dimensional. One of the ways to tell if certain cards are trimmed is that the edge doesn't have a rounded side and a ridged side.
And slight paper loss can be very hard to pick up in a scan, and sometimes even when the card is in hand. (see the crackerjack variation thread, is it paperloss, or printed without a number, or some other sort of misprint? Turns out it's a bit of paperloss that over a long time has become smooth enough to pass. Or maybe a misprint... Once it's determined to not be a new variation, the exact reason really isn't looked at all that closely.

For most cards, we don't even have a good reference for how thick they should be. And thickness is difficult to measure from a scan.

In comparison, the "snow leopard or a rock" question is easy. Especially if you have a good set of photos of the rocks you're looking at.

The "is that a terrorist or a tourist" is a bit tougher, and as Pete pointed out, a non-government portable commercial product that only has to identify ONE face isn't entirely reliable.

[ullmandds]

nice synopsis Steve...and sadly many of the reasons you've highlighted will prove to be some of the reasons automated, computer grading will not likely ever occur.

Originally Posted by steve B

It can only identify someone in its database. Currently, the only photo databases for cards are scattered among several different websites, and as far as I know, none are detailed enough to allow a determination between real and fake.

Identifying what the card supposedly is should be easy under some conditions. Card in a database, card in good enough condition. Card that doesn't have a lot of variance in its manufacture.

Here's an couple example of ones that would be a bit harder 48 Leaf (Yes Ted, I know they're really 49.. ) Here's a screenshot of my spreadsheet I did showing most - or as many as I could find - of the different varieties.



Just the Jensen has four distinctly different ones, different hat shape, different background, probably some other difference I haven't spotted, or haven't got an image of yet (Many come with shaded hats, but I haven't seen a shaded hat Jensen.

That database will need all of those to even have a chance of being right about the real/fake question. And it would probably be wrong about a shaded hat version if it came across one, because none of the "real" ones has shading there.

Most of the junkwax era stuff especially Fleer have cropping varieties for nearly every card. Both front and back. They are almost entirely uncataloged, so while you may be able to tell that card is a particular card, if it's not cropped the same as the one in the database... your system should reject it as fake.

88 Score... Has three different die cuts. The first left small tufts of fibers on each corner. When they aren't severe, they can look like wear. The second moved the tufts out about a quarter inch from the corner. The third, they finally got the die cutting right. Oh, and they screened the different printings differently.... None of that is in any catalog.

The Magie T206 comes in at least 8 distinctly different varieties. (All T206s will, some are just much harder to tell.) Not cataloged, there's maybe a handful of people who have even cared to check.


And,

Cards are not 2 dimensional. One of the ways to tell if certain cards are trimmed is that the edge doesn't have a rounded side and a ridged side.
And slight paper loss can be very hard to pick up in a scan, and sometimes even when the card is in hand. (see the crackerjack variation thread, is it paperloss, or printed without a number, or some other sort of misprint? Turns out it's a bit of paperloss that over a long time has become smooth enough to pass. Or maybe a misprint... Once it's determined to not be a new variation, the exact reason really isn't looked at all that closely.

For most cards, we don't even have a good reference for how thick they should be. And thickness is difficult to measure from a scan.

In comparison, the "snow leopard or a rock" question is easy. Especially if you have a good set of photos of the rocks you're looking at.

The "is that a terrorist or a tourist" is a bit tougher, and as Pete pointed out, a non-government portable commercial product that only has to identify ONE face isn't entirely reliable.

[benjulmag]

I was thinking of something a bit different.

If a century old card is trimmed, wouldn't its trimmed border(s), newly exposed to the atmosphere, exhibit different chemical characteristics than the untrimmed borders, which difference could be detected and measured?

I do not have any expertise in chemistry, so the above is a question, not a statement. If trimmed borders do in fact exhibit chemical differences, I would think that would be a great way to detect alterations. And one would not even need a base mark. Assuming at least one of the borders is untrimmed, all one would need to look for is whether there are any different chemical characteristics between the borders of the same card.

I would think too one could use the same concept to detect cards that had been recolored.

I get it that do this one would need to take the card out of the slab. But so what, if that is the price it takes to know with a much greater degree of certainty if the card is altered?

[ullmandds]

i think for a machine to detect trim...as well as other alterations/enhancements... you'd need a 3d scan.

Originally Posted by benjulmag

I was thinking of something a bit different.

If a century old card is trimmed, wouldn't its trimmed border(s), newly exposed to the atmosphere, exhibit different physical characteristics than the untrimmed borders, which difference could be detected and measured?

I do not have any expertise in chemistry, so the above is a question, not a statement. If trimmed borders do in fact exhibit such physical differences, I would think that would be a great way to detect alterations. And one would not even need a base mark. Assuming at least one of the borders is untrimmed, all one would need to look for is whether there are any different physical characteristics between the borders of the same card.

I would think too one could use the same concept to detect cards that had been recolored.

I get it that do this one would need to take the card out of the slab. But so what, if that is the price it takes to know with a much greater degree of certainty if the card is altered?

[steve B]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

I was thinking of something a bit different.

If a century old card is trimmed, wouldn't its trimmed border(s), newly exposed to the atmosphere, exhibit different chemical characteristics than the untrimmed borders, which difference could be detected and measured?

I do not have any expertise in chemistry, so the above is a question, not a statement. If trimmed borders do in fact exhibit chemical differences, I would think that would be a great way to detect alterations. And one would not even need a base mark. Assuming at least one of the borders is untrimmed, all one would need to look for is whether there are any different chemical characteristics between the borders of the same card.

I would think too one could use the same concept to detect cards that had been recolored.

I get it that do this one would need to take the card out of the slab. But so what, if that is the price it takes to know with a much greater degree of certainty if the card is altered?

As a concept, that should actually be possible. The edge should pick up "stuff" from the atmosphere, and that "stuff" should turn up as different when looked at with something like a spectrograph.

I'm not sure it could be done affordably.

And a few things like one edge sitting against a box for decades while the opposite edge was exposed to the air could lead to a false indication of trimming. Outside of some specialized units, the results take a bit of interpreting.