Probstein video about trimmed cards

gunboat82 · #1 01-12-2024, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman

I find myself somewhere in the middle on this issue. Are there scumbags who earn their living by slicing up cards and flipping them for huge proftis by getting them past the grading companies? Yes, absolutely. Are some, perhaps many, of those called out by BODA actually the people responsible? Surely, yes some are. Are all of those called out by BODA responsible for this behavior? Highly doubtful, IMO.

I'm grateful that this stuff was discovered. No question about that. I just pump the brakes when the mob wants heads to roll over accusations that are far from proven. And even then, I remain unconvinced that it's a crime.

The only people who think this trimming cards is criminal behavior are a small subset of collectors. You could explain card trimming to 100 random strangers on the street and ask them what they think about it, and the responses you'll hear from them will all be something along the lines of, "clever", "smart", "genius", or "where do I learn how to do that?" You might find 1 person out of 100 that would say, "lock them up!" It's just the reality of the situation. People just don't care. Certainly not enough people for it to ever change anyhow. It is what it is.

I like the fact that the curtain has been unveiled. I know which cards I don't want in my collection, and I have educated myself enough to know how to avoid them. I know the risks every time I crack open a slab, and that I may never be able to get that card back into the same holder. I try to navigate this hobby with knowledge and experience. Others seem to want to navigate it with grenades.

I think your estimates are way off. The percentage of people who would think undisclosed card-trimming for resale is criminal would be much higher... if it's framed accurately, of course.

Q: Do you think people who take baseball cards and make them look nicer are committing a crime?
A: Uh, no.

Q: What if those people advertise those cards for sale as untrimmed, without disclosing to prospective buyers that they're actually trimmed?
A: OK, that's not great.

Q: And what if they don't disclose the trimming because then the cards would appeal to a much smaller number of buyers, significantly bringing down the market value?
A: Yeah, that sounds like fraud. The buyers have a right to know.

On that last question, I'd guess the percentage of people calling it an ingenius scheme and asking for a tutorial would be no higher than 40-50%. Society's not 99% scumbag quite yet. Inching closer, sure, but not quite there.

Snowman · #2 01-12-2024, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunboat82

I think your estimates are way off. The percentage of people who would think undisclosed card-trimming for resale is criminal would be much higher... if it's framed accurately, of course.

Q: Do you think people who take baseball cards and make them look nicer are committing a crime?
A: Uh, no.

Q: What if those people advertise those cards for sale as untrimmed, without disclosing to prospective buyers that they're actually trimmed?
A: OK, that's not great.

Q: And what if they don't disclose the trimming because then the cards would appeal to a much smaller number of buyers, significantly bringing down the market value?
A: Yeah, that sounds like fraud. The buyers have a right to know.

On that last question, I'd guess the percentage of people calling it an ingenius scheme and asking for a tutorial would be no higher than 40-50%. Society's not 99% scumbag quite yet. Inching closer, sure, but not quite there.

You're making a lot of assumptions though and giving someone a narrative to agree to. If card trimming isn't a crime to begin with and if it in fact does not devalue a card whatsoever, then you've misled your audience and just gotten them to agree to your strawman.

It is perhaps worth noting that not all trimmed cards are the same. Some are definitely worth less after they've been trimmed. Others are definitely not.

gunboat82 · #3 01-12-2024, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman

You're making a lot of assumptions though and giving someone a narrative to agree to. If card trimming isn't a crime to begin with and if it in fact does not devalue a card whatsoever, then you've misled your audience and just gotten them to agree to your strawman.

It is perhaps worth noting that not all trimmed cards are the same. Some are definitely worth less after they've been trimmed. Others are definitely not.

Can you give concrete examples of cards that are worth more trimmed than left alone? If we make the issue less abstract, then maybe we can find some common ground.

I'm operating from the assumption that people who know that a card is trimmed and fail to disclose it are doing so because they see financial value in keeping others in the dark. If trimming the card didn't negatively affect its market, then there would be no logical reason to keep it a secret.

If you're suggesting that some trimming "does not devalue a card whatsoever" because people who are none the wiser pay top dollar, then I think we're simply at opposite ends of the ethical spectrum. The relevant question for me isn't whether the money is there given the state of the hobby as it stands, where ignorance is bliss, but rather whether the same money would still be there if the cards were sold as "Authentic Altered," rather than stuck in slabs with numeric grades.

bnorth · #4 01-12-2024, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunboat82

Can you give concrete examples of cards that are worth more trimmed than left alone? If we make the issue less abstract, then maybe we can find some common ground.

I'm operating from the assumption that people who know that a card is trimmed and fail to disclose it are doing so because they see financial value in keeping others in the dark. If trimming the card didn't negatively affect its market, then there would be no logical reason to keep it a secret.

If you're suggesting that some trimming "does not devalue a card whatsoever" because people who are none the wiser pay top dollar, then I think we're simply at opposite ends of the ethical spectrum. The relevant question for me isn't whether the money is there given the state of the hobby as it stands, where ignorance is bliss, but rather whether the same money would still be there if the cards were sold as "Authentic Altered," rather than stuck in slabs with numeric grades.

There is that T206 Wagner that started it all.

gunboat82 · #5 01-12-2024, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bnorth

There is that T206 Wagner that started it all.

Yeah. I wonder if 99 out of 100 people on the street would say Mastro was railroaded. If so, God help us.

Peter_Spaeth · #6 01-12-2024, 10:30 AM

To put some legal context on this, selling an item in interstate commerce knowing a material fact has been misrepresented or omitted certainly can be mail fraud and/or wire fraud. Travis' point, essentially, is that we have reached the point where the fact that a slabbed card is trimmed is no longer material. Incredibly, and sadly, he may be right. The flip is the commodity and the slab sanitizes.

gunboat82 · #7 01-12-2024, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

To put some legal context on this, selling an item in interstate commerce knowing a material fact has been misrepresented or omitted certainly can be mail fraud and/or wire fraud. Travis' point, essentially, is that we have reached the point where the fact that a slabbed card is trimmed is no longer material. Incredibly, and sadly, he may be right. The flip is the commodity and the slab sanitizes.

This is fair, but I think of the slabbed card as "laundered money" in this context.

If an auction house has no reason to suspect that the consignor is laundering trimmed cards through a third-party grader, then I wouldn't hold the auction house accountable.

If an auction house is doing business with a known trimmer, we're getting into an ethical gray area, but there's too much uncertainty to hold the auction house accountable for individual listings.

If an auction house is knowingly taking trimmed cards that were slabbed as unaltered, then they're essentially just fencing fraudulent goods.

I don't think the slabs make trimming an immaterial fact; I think they just make it much harder to detect. I still think it's worthwhile to identify altered cards when possible and to pass that information along to consumers. We're probably just talking past each other, but Travis' "hobby clowns" reference gave me the impression that he sees Probstein and others as the real victims now that they've successfully flooded the market with secretly altered cards, and that left a bad taste in my mouth.

Snowman · #8 01-12-2024, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

To put some legal context on this, selling an item in interstate commerce knowing a material fact has been misrepresented or omitted certainly can be mail fraud and/or wire fraud. Travis' point, essentially, is that we have reached the point where the fact that a slabbed card is trimmed is no longer material. Incredibly, and sadly, he may be right. The flip is the commodity and the slab sanitizes.

Yes, precisely. The market doesn't care whether or not a card is trimmed. The market only cares whether or not a card is labeled as trimmed by a TPG.

And to take that a step further, a raw card's value is determined by its ability to pass through grading, or more specifically, by whether or not it bears evidence of having been trimmed, not by whether or not it actually has been.

Billy Bob can sell you a raw card at a steep discount because he believes it has been trimmed. After all, the person he bought it from told him so. Billy Bob keeps good notes and he cares about his integrity. He goes to church on Sundays AND Wednesdays. But if you resell that card, you have no obligation whatsoever to pass that information along after having it graded by a TPG. Billy Bob's opinion is irrelevant. The market doesn't care what he thinks.

Also, if you think the card is less valuable because you sold it below comps after you attached a note to it that read "the guy I bought this from told me it was trimmed", despite the PSA 9 label suggesting otherwise, you'd be wrong. All you did was sell the buyer a full value PSA 9 card at a discount, effectively handing him free money by shooting yourself in the foot. You might reason that your integrity is on the line. Others might argue that it's just your ignorance on display and that you're virtue signaling and paying off someone else so you can feel better about yourself. Again, the market doesn't care. The market is a cold beast.

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