ALERT: $72,000 Honus Wagner is a fraud! Heritage Auctions SGC 7.5 was PSA ALTERED!

[This is]

I've been reading the trimming scandal stuff for awhile now and I decided to look at some low pop prewar cards because there is not as many to go through.

I found a E90-2 American Caramel Honus Wagner which used be be a PSA Authentic Altered. It was sold for $5,333 in Spring 2014 at Robert Edwards Auctions. It was then chemically washed as you can see in the photos below. Heritage Auctions sold it as a SGC 7.5 (SGC 86) in August 2018 for $72,000!! Those chemicals really cleaned it up and made matching print marks on the back difficult. Although they were bleached you can still see them! I am certain this is a match. I will continue to help the cause when I can!

I know the BODA and Pip are the board's experts on bleaching but look at the damage to the black lettering on the back of the Wagner. The ink is much much lighter than on the PSA Authentic Altered which I believe is a by-product of the whitener chemicals.

VALUE GAIN of $66,667

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[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by This is

I've been reading the trimming scandal stuff for awhile now and I decided to look at some low pop prewar cards because there is not as many to go through.

I found a E90-2 American Caramel Honus Wagner which used be be a PSA Authentic Altered. It was sold for $5,333 in Spring 2014 at Robert Edwards Auctions. It was then chemically washed as you can see in the photos below. Heritage Auctions sold it as a SGC 7.5 (SGC 86) in August 2018 for $72,000!! Those chemicals really cleaned it up and made matching print marks on the back difficult. Although they were bleached you can still see them! I am certain this is a match. I will continue to help the cause when I can!

I know the BODA and Pip are the board's experts on bleaching but look at the damage black lettering on the back of the Wagner. It is much much lighter than on the PSA Authentic Altered which I believe is a by-product of the whitener chemicals.

VALUE GAIN of $66,667

LINK 1
LINK 2
LINK 3

oh my!

[JWBlue]

Pre-washing looks better.

[3124508 on COMC]

What’s the call on the original alteration, trimmed?

[This is]

Originally Posted by 3124508 on COMC

What’s the call on the original alteration, trimmed?

I couldnt figure that out for sure.. I thought the board might have a few insights. I assumed trimmed though because the corners look incredibly sharp compared to every other example I looked at.

[3124508 on COMC]

Originally Posted by This is

I couldnt figure that out for sure.. I thought the board might have a few insights. I assumed trimmed though because the corners look incredibly sharp compared to every other example I looked at.

Yeah, doesn’t seem to be in too bad of shape size-wise.

[base set]

The higher grade one just looks like a new reprint. Idiots.

[mouschi]

It's a shame they messed with this as it looks like they took out some coloring from his face - I consider this to be Wagner's 2nd best card, and 1st best looking card.

[MoreToppsPlease]

Curious to see what will be left of this card in several years.

[pip]

Originally Posted by 3124508 on COMC

What’s the call on the original alteration, trimmed?

Yes. There's quite a bit of size variation on this issue. Someone may have chopped the right and left sides on an oversized card and that's what PSA was seeing. Too bad the card was bleached like that. The fibral integrity of the card is ruined and it's going to adversely affect the condition over time with a pH that is radically altered from excessive chemical exposure. What was done to it is the opposite of conservation.

Edited to add: PSA may also have automatically rejected the card due to how sharp the corners were. They have a tendency to do that on cards of this type. Unless, of course, the "right" person submits it. It would be difficult to know for sure if it was trimmed without seeing it in person and looking at the cross section of each edge.

[superdan49]

Interesting. The PSA Authentic is not listed on VCP. Usually VCP records everything sold from REA.

[superdan49]

Thanks to OP, I found another altered example, this one sold through PWCC:

Originally Posted by superdan49

PSA Cert #:28469906

1910 E90-2 American Caramel Honus Wagner PSA 2 to PSA 4
Alteration types: Recoloration and Bleaching
Set Registry status: None

Sold on 10/29/2017 by Robert Edward Auctioins to an unknown buyer for $6,600.00
Consigned to PWCC and sold on 4/10/2018 as a PSA 4 for $12,326.00
Final price: $12,326.00
Value gain: $5,726.00


Another member started a thread about one of these cards that was altered and sold through Heritage (see here), so I decided to see if PWCC ever sold any examples. Not surprisingly, I found this recolored and bleached example. The bleaching is quite obvious as you can see on the card back, which was stained and now is unnaturally white. The area of recoloring can be seen in the area boxed in red. This is not the first Honus Wagner card recolored and first sold through PWCC (see post #5456). It is believed that most of these recolored graded prewar cards initially sold through PWCC are the hand of the same criminal card doctor.

PSA 2: https://www.robertedwardauctions.com...-honus-wagner/
PSA 4: https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/items/1637415



Addendum: The winning bidder of the PSA 4 sold through PWCC is masked as t***9 on VCP, which is eBay ID qut9, owned by convicted felon Will Jaimet. Was this sale to Jaimet legitimate, or was this card another example of shill bidding?

[pip]

By the time the lawsuit makes it into the courtroom, the Plaintiff(s) may have more evidence than he/they anticipated.

With the mounting evidence, I wonder if Heritage won't also be named as a co-conspirator under the RICO statute in an amended complaint/action.

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by pip

By the time the lawsuit makes it into the courtroom, the Plaintiff(s) may have more evidence than he/they anticipated.



With the mounting evidence, I wonder if Heritage won't also be named as a co-conspirator under the RICO statute in an amended complaint/action.

Yes, the scope of all this is pretty incredible, as are the number of breadcrumbs to follow that were in plain sight all this time.

Nobody was protecting the regular guy, those that benefitted and should’ve offered protection but didn’t should definitely be named a co-conspirator.

[Pink Pussycat]

Originally Posted by pip

By the time the lawsuit makes it into the courtroom, the Plaintiff(s) may have more evidence than he/they anticipated.

With the mounting evidence, I wonder if Heritage won't also be named as a co-conspirator under the RICO statute in an amended complaint/action.

Agree about Heritage. They have had multiple chances to remove altered cards from Auction, when properly notified. And they have failed to do so in every instance.

The altered "58 - '59 Bobby Hull is still up and going strong, BTW...

https://sports.ha.com/itm/hockey/195...umbnail-071515

[TimBuckTwo]

Trimmed and washed. Sounds interesting.

Do the buyers know or care what is happening?

[3124508 on COMC]

Here's a fun Cobb. Three slabs. Three grades. But only one card.

[patchgenie]

business as usual for PSA

[superdan49]

That Cobb is crazy. I bet the PSA 4 was altered to begin with, and the poor buyer thought he could crack it out to get a better grade. Instead it came back altered, which is likely the only proper grade of those three.

[3124508 on COMC]

Originally Posted by superdan49

That Cobb is crazy. I bet the PSA 4 was altered to begin with, and the poor buyer thought he could crack it out to get a better grade. Instead it came back altered, which is likely the only proper grade of those three.

Correct. I should've noted that the actual card appears to remain in the same state throughout.

[signed79]

Originally Posted by This is

I know the BODA and Pip are the board's experts

If you find something send it to them to checkout and post. Good catch!

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by 3124508 on COMC

Correct. I should've noted that the actual card appears to remain in the same state throughout.

Three submissions of the same card with three different results...that’s just great.

[ThoseBackPages]

God Bless America!

[pip]

Carolina Brights, on occasion, can be a touch small L-R, but they're not like American Beauties. The Cobb looks too small to me, possibly bearing evidence of being trimmed on the right edge. I wonder who submitted the card for grading the third time. Predictability, with PSA, it has always been about who the submitter is.

[CaptSpaulding]

The PSA 4 version appears to have a wrinkle in the upper right quadrant. I know the photo is not the best but whatever that is, it is much less apparent in the Auth and PSA 5 version.

Personally I cannot tell if the card is trimmed or not but it would not shock me.