PSA Response from President Steve Sloan

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by 70ToppsFanatic

That’s a pretty incendiary statement to make given the information we have so far.

Just how widespread is what we have going on right now?


Last I checked there are around 375 or so cards that have been “outed” on BO, plus a list of additional suspects that currently could take the total over 1000 if all of them were to be similarly outed. Note that we have no information that any of the outed cards has been reviewed by the TPG and the finding of the review confirms the findings of the message board sleuths.

While I don’t doubt that there is some validity in what has been raised I think generalizations such as this are premature, not yet backed up by publicly available “hard” evidence and are therefore irresponsible as they can cause further unease/damage that may ultimately not be justified.

Dave with all due respect, If you don't think there are 10's of thousands cards from this one clown alone your really not using your noodle. This IS and Has been rampant and widespread for 15 years or better. That's a lot of cards my handsome friend. A BOAT LOAD. This one Brent Mastro has been doing this as part of his business plan. You must not have been paying attention.

[70ToppsFanatic]

Originally Posted by Fuddjcal

Dave with all due respect, If you don't think there are 10's of thousands cards from this one clown alone your really not using your noodle. This IS and Has been rampant and widespread for 15 years or better. That's a lot of cards my handsome friend. A BOAT LOAD. This one Brent Mastro has been doing this as part of his business plan. You must not have been paying attention.

What I think isnt the point. The point is that the only thing that really matters is what can be proved, since that is the primary basis upon which people can be compelled to take action to try and improve the situation. It is also the only basis upon which bad actors can have serious adverse consequences put upon them that will, hopefully, serve as an example that discourages similar behavior by anyone else in the future.

As for Brent, it was more than 3 years ago that I got the last piece of the puzzle I needed to determine that PWCC was not being run on the up and up. Both direct from him and indirectly from others who foolishly chose to “brag” about what their roles were with respect to PWCC and people foolish enough to put it all down in writing.

I do not doubt that there are tainted slabbed cards out there for a moment, but I don’t think trying to incite a riot is going to improve the situation any faster nor improve the outcomes of trying address it.

This is going to take some time and resources and given no evidence of misconduct or malfeasance on the part of PSA so far we would not be doing ourselves any favors by becoming adversarial or militant right now based on the little we know to be actual fact. They have more than just the collector constituency to answer to and need to work through understanding what additional info they need, what possible actions can be taken and how to deal with conflicting obligations they may have to various stakeholder groups that they are accountable to. They should be given a chance to do this without the distraction of an angry mob taking away from their efforts.

[egbeachley]

Originally Posted by 70ToppsFanatic

What I think isnt the point. The point is that the only thing that really matters is what can be proved, since that is the primary basis upon which people can be compelled to take action to try and improve the situation. It is also the only basis upon which bad actors can have serious adverse consequences put upon them that will, hopefully, serve as an example that discourages similar behavior by anyone else in the future.

This is where you are wrong. It’s more than just what can be proved because the BODA are focused on just those cards easily found with front/back scans from a few websites. They admit that for wvery card they document with scans they pass on a few that have alterations but can’t get a good scan. These passed cards are also on the same Moser submissions. And there are undoubtedly some on the Moser submissions that were purchased from shows and have no early scans available. Your “proof” of 400 cards will probably end up at 5,000 cards and can eventually be linked to 50,000 others. Remember, they just started documenting by looking at 1 seller and haven’t even looked at Auction Houses for the original purchase.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by 70ToppsFanatic

What I think isnt the point. The point is that the only thing that really matters is what can be proved, since that is the primary basis upon which people can be compelled to take action to try and improve the situation. It is also the only basis upon which bad actors can have serious adverse consequences put upon them that will, hopefully, serve as an example that discourages similar behavior by anyone else in the future.

As for Brent, it was more than 3 years ago that I got the last piece of the puzzle I needed to determine that PWCC was not being run on the up and up. Both direct from him and indirectly from others who foolishly chose to “brag” about what their roles were with respect to PWCC and people foolish enough to put it all down in writing.

I do not doubt that there are tainted slabbed cards out there for a moment, but I don’t think trying to incite a riot is going to improve the situation any faster nor improve the outcomes of trying address it.

This is going to take some time and resources and given no evidence of misconduct or malfeasance on the part of PSA so far we would not be doing ourselves any favors by becoming adversarial or militant right now based on the little we know to be actual fact. They have more than just the collector constituency to answer to and need to work through understanding what additional info they need, what possible actions can be taken and how to deal with conflicting obligations they may have to various stakeholder groups that they are accountable to. They should be given a chance to do this without the distraction of an angry mob taking away from their efforts.

Dave, with respect, in my opinion your measured, cautious, prudent, careful, thoughtful, etc. approach has never worked in the past. Even when the problem was on a small scale like WIWAG. Many of us have no reason to believe anything is going to change here without a very forceful show of outrage by the ultimate constituency, we the collectors (and honest dealers). Nobody wants to or is trying to incite a riot. People are demanding accountability and change, and the foxes guarding the henhouse are not likely to deliver it. Their incentive appears to be to guard against pressure on the accounting reserve, not to do what is in collectors' best interests. There is very good reason the mob is angry in this case, all our collections likely are infested with altered cards, and all we've heard is if you can figure it out for yourselves call your seller. No riot -- change.

PS it doesn't take a genius to extrapolate from what's been found on BO in a short period of time with a very limited focus to 25 years of grading.

[egbeachley]

and I should add that you can’t take the altered population and divide by 30 million Cards graded. That includes resubmits, cards valued under $100, YuGiOh, badly damaged, ungradeable, etc. The true population for comparison is probably closer to 2-5 million.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by egbeachley

and I should add that you can’t take the altered population and divide by 30 million Cards graded. That includes resubmits, cards valued under $100, YuGiOh, badly damaged, ungradeable, etc. The true population for comparison is probably closer to 2-5 million.

Eric it doesn't even matter, it's still an astonishingly high number in all likelihood.

[egbeachley]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Eric it doesn't even matter, it's still an astonishingly high number in all likelihood.

It is. But both ends adjusted to the proper levels gets a more accurate guage of the error rates. I see 0.1 and 0.2 percentages when it may really be 2% or more. That makes it significant rather than minuscule.

[tschock]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Eric it doesn't even matter, it's still an astonishingly high number in all likelihood.

It sort of matters, to the extent it makes it seem much worse. The 'potential attempted pool' of submissions would be much smaller, which means that a higher percentage of altered cards are getting through (based on the potential pool). You can take all the $10-$100 (or pick a number) valued cards out of the potential pool, since they are not likely candidates. Or they could contain 'test submissions' for alterations. Unless I'm misinterpreting the original point.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by egbeachley

and I should add that you can’t take the altered population and divide by 30 million Cards graded. That includes resubmits, cards valued under $100, YuGiOh, badly damaged, ungradeable, etc. The true population for comparison is probably closer to 2-5 million.

You don't think YuGiOh cards are being altered? I bet some magic cards are. Turning a beta into an alpha would be really easy.

[swarmee]

PSA's claim that they catch a certain percentage will also include the number of cards that are not actually altered or minsize that they declare. These are usually less important because if they aren't actually altered, they get slabbed the next time submitted.
Alpha errors versus beta errors. False positives vs. False negatives.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by steve B

You don't think YuGiOh cards are being altered? I bet some magic cards are. Turning a beta into an alpha would be really easy.

Pokemon are definitely being counterfeited. Magic Alpha/Beta/antiquities/Arabian nights/legends are more likely retouched like 1971 Topps black borders rather than being die cut down from Beta corners to Alpha corners.
That would be a huge rabbit hole that hasn't been explored yet.

[oldjudge]

Corey is spot on with his comments. How could any rational person have not questioned the number of Mint and Gem Mint vintage cards? Suspended disbelief gets you into trouble. The current scandals involve cards and autographs. I’d be willing to bet that there is a similar scandal just around the corner on game used uniforms. It’s amazing to me that these “great” uniforms keep popping up, and then they almost always relate to a significant moment in that player’s career. How is that determined—photo matching. I think it would be really interesting if a study was done as to how accurate photo matching is. My guess is that it is no more accurate than card grading, and possibly as inaccurate as autograph grading.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Pokemon are definitely being counterfeited. Magic Alpha/Beta/antiquities/Arabian nights/legends are more likely retouched like 1971 Topps black borders rather than being die cut down from Beta corners to Alpha corners.
That would be a huge rabbit hole that hasn't been explored yet.

I'm trying to remember which ones it was, I'm thinking YuGiOh, but Upper deck got caught counterfeiting cards they were producing. Fake foils turned up in retail repacks from treat? Or some other repacker. When That company was asked where they got the fake cards from they said they'd come from UD, who were printing the real ones.