Card doctoring...

[packs]

Provenance will never matter when it comes to something like baseball cards. They were collected by children and rarely does a 100 plus year old card stay in one collection for the life of the card. So what provenance could there possibly be on a high grade T206? A notarized statement from an 8 year old in 1909? It'll never work.

My advice to anyone would be to avoid high grade pre-war cards entirely. I'd pay the same amount of money for a PSA 9 T206 that I would an Auth because I highly doubt there's any difference between them. But to each their own.

My advice to a new collector on a budget would be to stick to low/mid grade pre-war cards with nice eye appeal. My personal sweet spot is in the VG-VG/EX range. Chances are if you do this you will be able to find nice presentable cards at relative bargain prices and the likelihood of alterations is also presumably decreased.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Sorry, but I disagree with the advice to stick to mid grade cards. That's like putting a Band-Aid on cancer - it only covers up the problem. As the case with the Lou Brock card in this thread, it was a mid-grade card and off center at that, but it was still recolored.

My advice would be to educate yourself - learn what to look for. If you like mid-grade cards, fine then buy them. I'm not saying don't buy mid-grade cards. What I am saying is don't limit yourself to mid-grade cards just because you're afraid of buying something that's been altered.

Education, Knowledge - again, learn what to look for.

[Marchillo]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Sorry, but I disagree with the advice to stick to mid grade cards. That's like putting a Band-Aid on cancer - it only covers up the problem. As the case with the Lou Brock card in this thread, it was a mid-grade card and off center at that, but it was still recolored.

My advice would be to educate yourself - learn what to look for. If you like mid-grade cards, fine then buy them. I'm not saying don't buy mid-grade cards. What I am saying is don't limit yourself to mid-grade cards just because you're afraid of buying something that's been altered.

Education, Knowledge - again, learn what to look for.

I'm in agreement with almost everything here. I tend to stick around the VGEX range due to my budget but will go off course for nicer cards. Part of me submitting cards is to uncover these issues and educate myself. Buying cards online is obviously tricky. I've gotten some great deals and been burnt. Part of the learning process.

Again thanks everyone for the feedback.