Altered high grade E93s in Mile High?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Exactly, Barry! That's the same statement Dick Towell makes about his service - that the TPGs (or anybody else for that matter) can't detect it. So why is DT taking so much crap!?!

Because he is enabling fraud. And i do not for a minute believe they could not detect it if they tried hard enough. Ask Steve B. and read his post from yesterday. Ask people who really know paper. Dick Towle does not have magic potions that defy the laws of nature. He and his clients are taking advantage of a flawed grading system and limited detection capabilities. David you are engaged in magical thinking.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Because he is enabling fraud. And i do not for a minute believe they could not detect it if they tried hard enough. Ask Steve B. and read his post from yesterday. Ask people who really know paper. Dick Towle does not have magic potions that defy the laws of nature. He and his clients are taking advantage of a flawed grading system and limited detection capabilities. David you are engaged in magical thinking.

If DT says that it can't be detected by a TPG, I take him at his word. Do you know of any cards a TPG has rejected as a result of DT's process? The cards seem to make it past PSA and SGC. If his process was being detected by TPGs, don't you think the word would get around and those that send him cards in hopes of better grades would stop doing so?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

If DT says that it can't be detected by a TPG, I take him at his word. Do you know of any cards a TPG has rejected as a result of DT's process? The cards seem to make it past PSA and SGC. If his process was being detected by TPGs, don't you think the word would get around and those that send him cards in hopes of better grades would stop doing so?

Are you serious? This is not an all or nothing endeavor. Suppose half the cards, or a quarter, make it through. Do you have any idea how much money is involved? David in your zeal to be contrarian you are not making good arguments here.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

If DT says that it can't be detected by a TPG, I take him at his word. Do you know of any cards a TPG has rejected as a result of DT's process? The cards seem to make it past PSA and SGC. If his process was being detected by TPGs, don't you think the word would get around and those that send him cards in hopes of better grades would stop doing so?

So you're saying then that if such work is undetectable, it is okay to do so without disclosure, even though a prospective buyer would regard such information to be material to his/her decision whether or not to purchase the card?

If the answer is yes, then I repeat what I said yesterday; the logical extension of this argument is that it is okay to create cards. I don't agree with you that that is something different. Both instances -- new creation and alteration of an existing card without disclosure -- involve withholding material information that a prospective buyer would reasonably want to know in deciding whether to purchase the item and how much to pay.

And, as to Peter's point that such an argument is analogous to saying what's wrong with robbing a bank if the crime is never detected, I agree.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

So you're saying then that if such work is undetectable, it is okay to do so without disclosure, even though a prospective buyer would regard such information to be material to his/her decision whether or not to purchase the card?

Your question is based on the assumption that the buyer would want to know as if might influence his/her purchasing decision. If it were me, and I was buying a card that had had a stain removed and there was absolutely no trace, I couldn't care less and it wouldn't make a difference in my buying decision one way or another.

Let me turn the question around on you. So, let's say you're buying a card that had a stain removed, but there was absolutely no detectable trace. What difference does it make in your purchasing decision if you (or anyone else) can't tell?

[barrysloate]

David- I'll ask you a question:

Suppose you bought a baseball card in an 8 holder and paid $5000 for it. Then sometime afterwards you discovered it once resided in a 4 holder because of a light crease and a tiny stain. The card was worked on, and the work was so good that it was undectable and thus graded an 8. And you also discovered that when it sold in a 4 holder, it went for $500. Would you still feel that since the work was undetectable, you would be entirely comfortable with the transaction?

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

David- I'll ask you a question:

Suppose you bought a baseball card in an 8 holder and paid $5000 for it. Then sometime afterwards you discovered it once resided in a 4 holder because of a light crease and a tiny stain. The card was worked on, and the work was so good that it was undectable and thus graded an 8. And you also discovered that when it sold in a 4 holder, it went for $500. Would you still feel that since the work was undetectable, you would be entirely comfortable with the transaction?

Barry, the way your question is worded, yes, I would feel very uncomfortable with the transaction.

Now, take out the words 'light crease' with the rest of the question being the same, and I have absolutely no problem with it.

[darwinbulldog]

I can understand being opposed to soaking a card to remove a stain, and I can see being in favor of soaking a card to remove a stain, provided (and this is perhaps just a hypothetical) that it does not modify the composition of the cardboard itself. I've enjoyed the various thought experiments posted in this thread but have neither seen nor thought of a good reason to privilege the use of one substance over another if its effect on the card is the same.

I don't know if the effect on the card is the same in practice, but if it is then what logical reason could there be to care if the soaking chemical is formaldehyde, cough syrup, water, gasoline, liquid nitrogen, or monkey semen? Either soaking is inherently okay or it is not. In theory, you are just removing molecules that were not previously there, and if that's the case then it's ethically equivalent to brushing off the molecules of a bread crumb that fell on the card; it's just harder to do.

My understanding, however, is that if the card has a stain, the staining itself is the result of an earlier chemical reaction with the cardboard, and so, whether you're removing it with distilled water in your living room or paying a restoration expert to use some other chemical to accomplish the same thing in a laboratory, either way you are necessarily altering the chemical structure of the stained card to return it to its clean state. That said, there are people on the board here with far more education in chemistry than I have, and I'll defer to them if any of my assumptions here are incorrect.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Let me turn the question around on you. So, let's say you're buying a card that had a stain removed, but there was absolutely no detectable trace. What difference does it make in your purchasing decision if you (or anyone else) can't tell?

IF there was no physical change in the card compared to when first issued, I would not care. But if (i) the chemical makeup of the card had been changed, detectable or not, OR (ii) color had been added to disguise the stain using period dyes (and let's say therefore not detectable), I sure would care.

You are going down a slippery slope here. Once we start condoning undetectable stain removal that changes the physical/chemical properties of the card, what's wrong then with repainting the entire card with a period dye, the result being to make the card forensically indistinguishable to a card that had the same dye applied when the card was first issued?