PWCC Altered Cards Callout Thread - 1952 Topps Mantle etc

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

If I look at the hobby as a whole, I see an entire collective of people that WANT third party grading to work. Right or wrong, they love the liquidity it gives their cards, the measurability it gives their cards, the vindication it gives them, the categorization, the competition, the complete lack of justification they have to give. This group has been operating with a healthy amount of denial for the past decade, at least.

In the vintage/prewar environment, EVERYONE knew that trimmed/altered cards were getting past graders. You'd be a fool to think otherwise. But people thought it was on a much smaller scale than this has all shown. It was easy for people to say to themselves, "yeah, but it doesn't effect me," even if it did effect them. Seasoned collectors would openly admit that they "probably have an altered card or two in their collection." But if they couldn't find it, what were they going to do? It was considered the price of admission. You couldn't have all the benefits of grading without having a certain amount of screw ups. On the off-chance that you were able to catch one, you submitted it to PSA and their guarantee covered it. Everyone played under these rules and only a small handful of people knew how pervasive it really was.

Those people could tell you "hey, it's a lot worse than this. You have no idea how many trimmed cards are out there. There are large-scale dealers putting tons of bad material out into the hobby." But without proof, and without proof those people couldn't just name names, it stayed in that ethereal place in the back of everyone's mind. It wasn't concrete. You couldn't shove it anyone face. This was part of the denial that everyone was operating under.

They weren't in denial simply because they hadn't been shown the facts. They were in denial because the hobby was so much better and so much more enjoyable when third party grading worked. So what has changed? We've seen hundreds, if not thousands of cards get outed plain as day. We've seen lists of many, many thousands of other cards that are, at best, highly suspect. The FBI has gotten involved. It's been written about in many major mainstream news outlets. Whoever was going to find out about it probably has. Are TPGing submissions down? Are TPGed prices down? Barely a blip.

Can we fault the lack of evidence? Hell no! BODA has absolutely crushed it. I'm continuously in awe of their investigative skills and for the most part they've done all of this without a sliver of judgment. They show up, drop damning evidence, and leave it for the shock and admonition to rightfully follow. And they're not close to be done. And I'm not just talking about PSA/PWCC. So what, then, is the problem?

The problem is that people compartmentalize. In the history of people, people have never given up something they love because someone told them "some of that is completely toxic." There WILL be a list. That list will consist of what has been outed here and the linked submissions. Anything that doesn't show up on that list will be 100% denial food. I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying that's what's going to happen.

So what changes that? What is the tipping point? Obviously, on a long enough timeline, anything can happen. But if we're talking about the near future? There is no tipping point. A smoking gun? Even in that instance, we'll see what we see from every other corporation caught in a scandal -- heads roll, new leadership is implemented, and a reason for denial is put back in place. Business 101. That's all that people want -- an excuse for them to be in denial. That's how much most of the hobby loves third-party grading. Third-party grading will never go away and in order for PSA/SGC/BGS to be torn down you need replacements.

This is an extremely difficult, if not borderline impossible, market to get into. You need to be able to lose millions your first 5 years, at least. There's all sorts of "off" grading companies out there right now. Who here is buying them or putting any stock in their opinion? No one. We immediately assume they're a joke. How are you going to tackle PSA and their registry when SGC can barely hang on? They survive because they have a niche that they've carved out over many years. But they're at their ceiling. They can't have a registry. They're sorely inept. We're still waiting on their grand magnificence that they announced would be "coming soon" at the 2018 National. Beckett? I think we all know Beckett has their own grading frauds to work through right now.

I'm not saying all of this because it's what I want. I'm saying it because it's the hard truth and we need to keep it in mind while tackling the fraud that's going on right now. If you're operating under the premise that this is going to lead to PSA going out of business or even PSA losing their hold on the #1 spot, you're only going to be further disappointed and angered and life's too short to have all of that injected into your life over something like this.

I believe we should focus less on a tipping point and more on forcing their hand to improve the grading process and transparency. They're not going to say boo as long as their legal battles with PWCC are ongoing so let's not waste our breath on that. But once the FBI concludes and the dust settles, we should be able to put forward a concrete plan of action.

I know I've noticed in a few posts a hint of frustration from BODA. I can't even fathom what they're feeling after putting in countless hours toward this and not seeing major results yet. But I know for a fact that the people I've notified have gotten refunded so you guys are saving collectors thousands and thousands of dollars and getting bad cards out of their collection. It may not seem like much but that's a huge service that definitely don't get thanked for enough due to desired anonymity on the victims' part. So let me be the one to thank you. You guys ARE making a difference, even if you don't see it materially. Every victim I've spoken to has been nothing but grateful. That's all of YOUR good work. I'm simply the messenger and I make sure they know that.

Well, congrats to anyone that made it this far. Apologies for the bloviating. A bit like lighting a cigarette with a SCUD missile. I know a lot of this is going to met with dissent. I hope that most of you can see that this is not what I'm endorsing or condoning, just what I'm afraid we're staring down the barrel of. I would love to hear about other theories though. I certainly don't think I have a monopoly on the truth.

Arthur

Naturally I just skimmed all of this

Its just easy to see you're indifferent, and think if lots of people get scammed along the way and lose tens of millions of dollars, so be it...perhaps things will get better one day...or maybe not. You're saying it's OK for PWCC, grading companies, and card doctors everywhere to enrich themselves during the process, even if they're contributing to the fraud, as slabs at least provide a false sense of security.

PSA/BGS/SGC have all demonstrated that their services are unable to reliably catch alterations, and, as you admit, the problem is getting steadily worse and worse rather than better. But you remain unconcerned. If a million relatively high-end slabs have cards found to be altered in the next months, you would argue it wouldn't make a difference.

So with this laissez-faire attitude, why bother posting in these threads? Clearly since you're posting here, you of course realize you're the kind of person the many people perpetuating fraud like to have in the hobby.