FS: 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson PSA 4.5

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Agree I’ve been saying this for months. PSA has Done ZERO NOTHING CLOSE THAT RISES TO CRIMINAL...IT’s just their opinion, nothing more nothing less.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with this statement as calling something an opinion in and of itself does not absolve the issuer of criminal liability if it can be shown it was issued knowing it was false and people would rely on it to their detriment. Admittedly proving this criminal intent would be difficult, as the issuer can reply that it is no crime to be stupid. So given these challenges I can understand how the FBI might feel its resources are better spent pursuing other matters.

IMO the matter from the civil perspective is materially different. Underlying the PSA guaranty will be a duty for PSA to act in good faith. They wrote the guaranty and inasmuch as it does not contain a phrase such as "in our sole and absolute discretion", a court would likely find the opinion must be reasonably given, which is an objective standard. Hypothetically, if I owned say, a million dollars of PSA 8s and 9s T206s that I bought in good faith believing the cards to be unaltered, and I later learned that Blowout had exposed all those cards to be altered (thereby destroying their market value), I sure as heck would pursue a civil action against PSA if they did not make good on the guaranty. Sure they may say they disagree with Blowout's conclusions and stand by their original assessment. But will a jury believe them after having been instructed to base its verdict on what a reasonable and unbiased person, upon having been presented with the evidence of trimming, would conclude. On top of that I would introduce evidence to establish that PSA's contingent liabilities materially exceed their net worth, which would make a trier of fact more likely to conclude (by the civil standard of preponderance of the evidence) PSA did not act in good faith in not making good on the guaranty.

You will note that in my example I explicitly stated that Blowout's outing of the cards destroyed their market value, thus incentivizing me to take the matter to court. This to me is the key as to whether such a suit will ever take place, given the enormous expense to do so. Right now I suspect there are many people who own altered cards who believe they are altered. But as long as the cards hold their value, these people will see no reason to sue. But should the day come when at least one of these persons (or funds) has reason to believe the cards they are holding are so tainted as to have lost much of their value, then at that point I believe we may see a serious lawsuit. I believe the risk may be particularly high in the case of funds that have invested in such cards. These funds owe a fiduciary duty to their investors, and I can foresee an instance where it might feel it has no choice but to try to invoke the guaranty.

The key consideration to me in this discussion is my simple belief the emperor has no clothes. I believe the overwhelming majority of experienced collectors know there is no way there can be such great numbers of 8s and higher of certain vintage issues in circulation, cards that were produced when cards had no value and no one would have taken the care to preserve them in a way such as to maintain an 8 or higher condition. Consider for example the T206 Wagner, a card if ever one existed that one would surmise a person would have taken more care to preserve due to its perceived scarcity. None (that are untrimmed and were issued in cigarette packs) are believed to exist in better than a generally excellent condition. The few at the top of the totem pole, whose provenance suggest their original owners knew at the time of their importance, none of them would grade higher than a 5, 5.5 tops. To me at least that has to say something as to how cards of that vintage were preserved.