Alteration vs. Conservation Defined

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by calvindog

What if it's the jawbone's job to smite the Philistines? Does that make Brent guilty?

I'll wait.

Well, Brent presumably has a jawbone, so there you go.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Well, Brent presumably has a jawbone, so there you go.

Yes but I am proudly bolding this part of my response. Therefore the jawbone has a job it must do.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Well, you force me to a musical interlude, Peter Paul and Mary written by Rev. Gary Davis.

You read about Samson, you read about his birth
He was the strongest man that ever lived on Earth.
One day old Samson was walking alone
He looked down on the ground and he saw an old jaw-bone.
He lifted up that jaw-bone and he swung it over his head,
and when he got to moving ten thousand was dead.

If I had my way,
If I had my way in this wicked world,
If I had my way I would tear this building down.

[bounce]

"Evidence of alteration can be determined in two different ways; either in technical review by a reputable Third-Party Authenticator, or when digital content asserts beyond a reasonable doubt that an alteration took place (i.e. before and after photos of trimming, recoloring, etc)."

Couple things here.

First, where does "restoration" fit within these tenets? Is it conservation, alteration, or something else all together?

A recent example, which was discussed/debated here pretty thoroughly. Made it into a TPG case (more on that below).


Second, regarding alteration, so long as it's "disclosed" and "transparent", then it can be sold. Again using the Wagner as the example, I believe that card fits squarely in the "altered" tenet - recoloring, addition of paper, etc.

There was and is HUGE disagreement on the "minimum" level of disclosure that should be required, or what exactly constitutes "transparent". I know the Wagner was not a PWCC auction, but from a hobby standpoint I was certainly arguing that the description there was nowhere near a reasonable standard of "minimum" or "transparent". However, there were plenty of others that felt it was sufficient. Does that mean you also need a tenet to define what exactly is "transparent"?

Third, "technical review by a reputable Third-Party Authenticator...", and "beyond a reasonable doubt..." are basically the easy way out of saying that if it got into the TPG case it's fine, even if the TPG missed something.

There are plenty of recent threads around Lebron blacks, Harper Heritage autos, Trouts, etc. that clearly demonstrate work was done to the cards. Those cards have been altered, plain and simple, and it doesn't matter that the TPG put a number grade on them - they missed it. Using "technical review by a reputable Third-Party Authenticator..." is essentially just saying "NOT IT" when it comes to any enforcement against altered cards.

In conjunction with that, putting together a tenet that includes courtroom language shortly thereafter effectively invalidates the foundation of the tenet, if you ask me.

I do think I infer from the tenets a desire to "deal with facts", which I agree with. However, I believe these tenets is just leaving the door open to say "prove it beyond a reasonable doubt...", and just punts that decision to each market participant to make their own judgment. That's fine, but that's honestly where we kind of already are and have been. So why do I need tenets to tell me that?

Finally - the PWCC tenets are all well and good, but until the TPGs get together and establish consistent and/or similar/identical assessments of what constitutes alteration, restoration and conservation - including how those things are noted on the flips - it's all just another in a long line of opinions that the TPGs and auction houses hide behind when they make decisions that aren't necessarily in the best interest of the hobby or "transparency".

Rant over...get back to your legal mumbo jumbo.

[vintagetoppsguy]

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence

There are 3 parties involved here - the doctor/consigner (I'll assume they're one in the same), PSA and PWCC. PWCC is the only party that's being called out here. I keep asking the same question, but I only hear crickets. Is it ethical to do business with a company that KNOWINGLY grades doctored cards?

[AustinMike]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence

Great song by S & G, but I really like the way Disturbed does it.

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

There are 3 parties involved here - the doctor/consigner (I'll assume they're one in the same), PSA and PWCC. PWCC is the only party that's being called out here. I keep asking the same question, but I only hear crickets. Is it ethical to do business with a company that KNOWINGLY grades doctored cards?

I always thought PSA graded "doctored" cards because they had some incompetent graders. What evidence do you have that it is the policy of PSA to "KNOWINGLY" assign a number grade to "doctored" cards? (It's okay to grade "doctored" cards as long as you "grade" them as altered.)

PWCC is being singled out because they put forth the idiotic definition of "conservation."

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Other than possibly the PSA 8 Wagner, what doctored cards has PSA KNOWINGLY graded with a number grade? You use plural so I assume you have multiple examples.

Originally Posted by AustinMike

What evidence do you have that it is the policy of PSA to "KNOWINGLY" assign a number grade to "doctored" cards?

Where's y'alls evidence that PWCC has knowledge of a doctored card prior to the auction?

[oldjudge]

I’ve never said anything about PWCC. That is a separate conversation.

[Rooftop]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Where's y'alls evidence that PWCC has knowledge of a doctored card prior to the auction?

Why would PWCC continue to accept consignor's cards that are known trimmers?

[AustinMike]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Where's y'alls evidence that PWCC has knowledge of a doctored card prior to the auction?

Hmm, nice deflection! So, you have no evidence to back up your claim.

I've never claimed PWCC has knowledge of a doctored card prior to the auction. As I said earlier, I think their definition of "conservation" is atrocious. And I'll add, I think that by putting forth the definition of "conservation" that they did, they're not doing PWCC or the collecting community any favors.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Where's y'alls evidence that PWCC has knowledge of a doctored card prior to the auction?

The WWG 7 DiMaggio. The card Brent bought himself out of REA as a 4, as he acknowledged.

[BLongley]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Where's y'alls evidence that PWCC has knowledge of a doctored card prior to the auction?

David, as mentioned earlier you may want to take a look at Blowout Forums. The person in charge of Business Development for PWCC is Jesse Craig... who certainly may be innocent, but he worked for one of the biggest trimmers in the hobby who is a convicted felon and just happened to use PWCC to sell many of his doctored cards... perhaps PWCC didn’t know they were doctored but we are talking A LOT of cards sold by him with an old connection of his working at PWCC... see details below... and there are pages and pages of examples if you care to research.

Personally I’m done with PWCC and have spent tens of thousands with them over the years...

Preface: There is a lot in this thread. I'd suggest finding some time to get a bowl of popcorn, read though it all, and then comment if you wish. I ask that you please do not just skim though through this thread and then write an uninformed reply, as this will just add confusion to an already complex thread. Not 100% of the content in this thread is germane to the allegations in the title, however I feel that most will appreciate the historical context, either as a refresher or to learn about this company for the first time.

Without further ado, here is Will Jaimet:

William Thom Jaimet
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100014391516111
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-jaimet-4b851915
Heroes of Sport/Jaimet's Personal Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeroesofSport/media


Note who he is following on Facebook:
1. Kevin Burge


2. Vinny Ho


3. Keith Koenig





Will Jaimet has been involved in the sports cards and memorabilia industry from a very young age, as his father, Scott Jaimet AKA Thom Jaimet, used to run Oregon Trail Auctions in the 90s-00s before it was bought out by Mastro West. From all that I have read online, he seems to have been a well respected member of the hobby before his passing in late 2009. Will's presence in the hobby began sometime in the early to mid-2000s when he started selling mostly graded cards though his company Rose City Sports on eBay using the accounts ROSE-CITY-SPORTS and ROSE-CITY-SPORTS-2. Both those user IDs have long since been changed, but some of his listings can be found in the Worthpoint link below. He mostly sold low pop. high-grade cards (PSA 10, BGS 9.5-10) and even had an article written about his company for selling the first SGC 98 Jordan RC.

ROSE-CITY-SPORTS: https://www.worthpoint.com/inventory...s%22&category=

Jordan SGC 98 article: https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...n-rookie-sold/

In 2009 he had his first child, which he said raised his level of responsibility, so he decided to follow in the footsteps of his father and create an auction house by the name of Heroes of Sport. Their first and only auction took place November 18th-December 1st of that year.

Source: http://www.net54baseball.com/archive...?t-115242.html

In the following years, 2010 through 2012 to be exact, he continued to sell on Ebay and via the Heroes of Sport website, but he never held another Heroes of Sport auction. His reasoning is below:


Source: http://www.sportscardmagazine.net/20...r-will-jaimet/

Instead, as indicated in the except above, he began to prepare (poorly as it would turn out) to launch a repack product by the same name of his auction house, Heroes of Sport. His brand was legitimized by advertising, such as taking out a full page ad on the back cover of Beckett and traveling around the card media circuit for interviews, in addition to the legitimization from the brand he had created running the Heroes of Sport catalog auction.

He believed that he had the knowledge to buy cards enough below market value to deliver a valuable product to his customers:



However the legitimacy of both Jaimet and HoS was short-lived, as in late 2012, Boomo announced via FCB that he would be premiering HoS's first product on boomosbreaks. The lengthy FCB thread is below:

https://www.freedomcardboard.com/for...t-boomosbreaks

To make many long stories short, there was a bunch of petty drama both on FCB and BO that is implicit in choosing to use Boomo as a means of promoting your product. However, there were some clear conclusions to be drawn as the product started to appear through more legitimate and universally-respected hobby distribution channels. First, the ROI was abysmal. While the great hits were great, everything else was fairly worthless. This is discussed in a lengthy BO thread linked below titled "$500 boxes producing $50 in cards? How about $700 box producing a $20 card?":

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showth...ghlight=jaimet

Second, there was a large controversy with the items in later boxes of the product being purchased during the products run. In other words, the product was not completely packed out (or even purchased) before its launch. This, compounded by the fact that Jaimet did not (and still doesn't) make checklists for his product nor even create a basic sell sheet, was seen as highly concerning in the eyes of most. Tonedef got this one correct:

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by AustinMike

What evidence do you have that it is the policy of PSA to "KNOWINGLY" assign a number grade to "doctored" cards? (It's okay to grade "doctored" cards as long as you "grade" them as altered.)

If you take PSA at their word, their founder Mr. Hall was not competent enough to "KNOWINGLY" call the Gretzky Wagner altered. Because he didn't know. Really, I'm sure he didn't...

[Goudey77]

You know in theory all cards that are handled will intercept the oils and residue that comes with human hand contact. Same goes for coins. So all cards have foreign residue and oil or print marks from these transactions. Just saying if you want to get really technical this topic will never end.

[h2oya311]

Originally Posted by AustinMike

Great song by S & G, but I really like the way Disturbed does it.

The best rendition of that song (or any) that I have ever heard...period! His performance on Conan was EPIC!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7RVw3I8eg