New article about sports cards, with help from a Blowout member

[auburn35]

Really good article from The Athletic, with some assistance from Blowout member Deadshot.

How a scandal unfolded and shaped the battle for card collecting’s soul

https://theathletic.com/1829002/2020/05/22/how-a-scandal-unraveled-and-shaped-the-battle-for-card-collectings-soul/?article_source=search&search_query=pwcc

[hxcmilkshake]

The 1st 2 paragraphs were great!

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[auburn35]

The 1st 2 paragraphs were great!

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Sorry, you can sign up for a free trial account to read the rest.

[DajuanWagner]

Sorry, you can sign up for a free trial account to read the rest.



Did Kyle buy the card? That's all we really want to know...…….

[Deadshot]

Did Kyle buy the card? That's all we really want to know...…….

Good question :cool:


There were a number of different people Katie reached out to. Our hobby has a very steep learning curve and I was impressed with how thorough her research was. I hope this also "humanizes" things a bit as opposed to just airing our dirty laundry.

[MIRRABB]

Great article. Even linked to the Eagle Eye Joe thread :)!

[kingmogul]

Deadshot should be working in the intelligence community his patch finding ability is unreal. If we had deadshot instead of the cia working on osama we would of had him years earlier lol

[GeechQuest]

You guys and your damn paywalls....

[salthill]

Great article. Solid research and quotes from those involved.

[kingofsnake]

Solid article - a good synopsis of the sad state of the hobby for hobby beginners.

[rifleman69]

Not bad, kind of went down a different road...should have remained more on the Curry card in general.

[Kobe101]

That is cool congrats Kyle!

Can anyone provide their thoughts on the membership? Is it worth it?

Thanks!
Pat

[KhalDrogo]

That is cool congrats Kyle!

Can anyone provide their thoughts on the membership? Is it worth it?

Thanks!
Pat
It was worth it when we had sports.

[Kobe101]

It was worth it when we had sports.

True! Okay I will probably check it out.

Thanks bud!

[heatdawg]

Can anyone recap who actually is able to read it?

[Rob 23]

Thanks Geech, was just about to ask if anyone could copy this. Well done Kyle :)!

[RogerGodahell]

Thanks. I didn't really feel like signing up for something and then having to remember to cancel it before it started charging me a subscription. I know it's probably easy but I forget sometimes.

[RogerGodahell]

Damn. that was a long article. I'll be honest I didn't read the entire thing I skimmed through it.

Where do we stand right now with a court case against PWCC? I know there's been many threads about it and I don't keep up with all the latest trimmed cards. There's just too many. Will Brent be going to trial soon, and if so when?

Card alteration whether it's trimming or patch swapping is disgusting. Those that do it are one of the lowest life form's to me. Slimeball's. But I guess that should be expected wherever there is money to be made.

These people who are caught need to be prosecuted and not just a slap on the wrist. They need to be prosecuted to the same degree as people who are caught counterfeiting money.

[superdan49]

Here's the major takeaway from this article:

Multiple people with knowledge of this investigation believe that PSA is the true target of the federal probe.

[BC81]

Great article, well researched. The fact it is on the athletic is great for exposure.

Article gives a nice long shout out of several paragraphs to BODA


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[lietuvalabas]

Pretty interesting stuff. i see Bill Mastro lives the next town over from me, and lives pretty well. Just wondering if he'd care to consign my c.j. miles collection. RPAs on RPAs on RPAs...

[IndyKMB]

Article gives a nice long shout out of several paragraphs to BODA


And it's well-deserved. The time and effort these guys like Deadshot put in to exposing the frauds and warning us about trimmed/altered cards...hell, they should be the subject of an ESPN 60 doc.

[Sportscard Fan]

Great, great, great read. Thank you to Katie Strong, The Athletic, GeechQuest and Kyle for informing us about the current state of behind-the-scenes goings on in the hobby.

It's sad to see the darker side, but good to know that the feds are continuing to dig and, hopefully, prosecute the bad guys. Keep up the good work. :)!

[Jopeal]

Excellent article and quite thorough.

You guys are the lifeblood of the card world! Sending my genuine thanks for the education being provided.

[clipperboy24]

Very cool read and good work Kyle and others who help keep the hobby a little cleaner. It’s always been a hobby with shady parts but now the money involved is exposing some of that.

[BC81]

Pretty interesting stuff. i see Bill Mastro lives the next town over from me, and lives pretty well. Just wondering if he'd care to consign my c.j. miles collection. RPAs on RPAs on RPAs...



Absolutely

Our hobby should come with a buyer beware warning.

This article serves as that warning label.


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[jfan2024]

Thanks to deadshot and members of the community for assisting in identifying the scammers out there, this hobby desperately needs you now more than ever

[lietuvalabas]

Absolutely

Our hobby should come with a buyer beware warning.

This article serves as that warning label.


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cant tell if you thought i was serious or not. my entire cj collection, though pretty massive, is $500 on a good day lol.

[artiearens]

Great article and thank you to all of the members on here who are calling out the criminals involved. To me, the most worrisome thing is the $1 million PWCC has paid out already. That has to be a drop in the bucket to the total dollar amount of actual cards that have been trimmed. That $1 million really just has to be people who not only are aware of the scandal, but also have vintage/serial numbered card that had concrete evidence to prove they were trimmed. For every one 2000 Tom Brady Ionix with the serial number on the front, how many 1990's trimmed Jordan insert were submitted to PWCC that they know will never be able to be proven?

I talked to Betsy last year at the PWCC booth at The National and it seems she wanted to place all of the blame on the trimmers. But, no one at PWCC thought to question that the same person(s) were finding and submitting to them dozens and dozens and dozens of newly graded 1986 Fleer Jordans in super high grade? If you haven't already checked the Sports Card Investors thread, I found a batch of 50 Jordan rookies that were graded in a row back in June 2015 with almost all of them being 9s and 9.5s and almost all cards having 9.5's on edges and corners. The following month a huge chunk of them ended up with PWCC. And where did some of the others end up being sold? Robert Blocks personal account. I'm sure if someone really spent time going through the serial number lookup on the BGS website, there would be many more eye opening batches of cards we just don't know about yet.

[cking]

I thought the article was well done.

If you are a scumbag....you should be called out on it and be held accountable.

I think the covid situaion but things on hold for awhile...we shall see.

[packerfan4200]

Good question :cool:


There were a number of different people Katie reached out to. Our hobby has a very steep learning curve and I was impressed with how thorough her research was. I hope this also "humanizes" things a bit as opposed to just airing our dirty laundry.

I subscribe to the athletic and most of the writers for the teams I follow (or don’t) are very good. Overall, it’s easily worth $50 a year or whatever and I would highly recommend a subscription to anyone who loves sports.

[Lothar]

Thank you BODA and thank you kyle! More pressure on the shady part of this hobby I love, please.

[hairyangryfella]

Thank you Kyle and 3124508 on COMC in particular for all the work you do. And thanks Geech for posting the article. I can't stand the trimmers and fraudsters and am quite pissed at Mastro's BS response. I also don't think I really knew well of the Curry situation and that seller is full of **** too.

Scumbags never consider others, they just want to line their own pockets, whatever the true cost. That's why it's so important to have people trying to keep them accountable.

I've lost so much desire for the hobby because of all the scumbaggery and it's a shame because it's something I loved for over half my life. I think with the current state of things it's damaged beyond repair but also hope that things like the case against the big three might jolt things back to a state of normality.

So anyway, keep up the good work.

[cking]

Thank you BODA and thank you kyle! More pressure on the shady part of this hobby I love, please.

I agree....the second you take your foot off the pedal its just going to get worse.

I am not sure how much worse it can get, but you never know.

I am sure these TPGs could find a new low to stoop to.

[Scottish Punk]

Here's the major takeaway from this article:

That is where they can pull the most money I presume. It is the what I am most interested in as well. The only way PSA is every going to admit anything or get people to change in mass is if the FBI declared their wrong doing. I am pessimistic though, a quiet behind the scenes settlement with some token improvements is what I expect. I hope I am wrong.

[MoreToppsPlease]

Absolutely

Our hobby should come with a buyer beware warning.

This article serves as that warning label.

Yes, but that warning label also serves as a dinner bell for scum.

Think of how the following sentence invites, and keeps, scumbags in the hobby:
"And for the most part it’s a billion-dollar unregulated business, with the exception of law enforcement investigations that happen, unfortunately, not as frequently as a lot of the collectors would like.”

[auburn35]

This weeks Wax Museum Podcast, Deadshot also discusses this article.

https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-v4u6q-ddf09d