2007:



2009:





History:

First off, let me say that I am assuming - reasonably safely, I believe - that these scans show the exact same card. Anyway, I bought this Red Cross in May '07 as a PSA 2, only to bust it out, as I was wont to do back in my Slab Liberation Army days. At that time, the card had an almost coast-to-coast vertical wrinkle over the left side of the front surface. I eventually sold the card to a hobby buddy who submitted it to SGC, which also gave the card a 2. My buddy later sold the SGC 30/2 on eBay. Since then, the card has apparently found its way into a PSA 5 holder and is again on the auction block. I could offer only speculation as to the card's journey since it left my buddy's hands, but such a dramatic improvement in grade on a card that was such an obvious 30/2 is worth noting.

http://imageevent.com/yawie99

steve i guess ur implying the wrinkle isn't there anymore?

was the wrinkle light enough to use starch on? i don't think PSA would miss a "coast to coast verticle wrinkle"...i'm not gonna even get into who initially bought the card on ebay.

Here is a link to the auction from where it was purchased.

If in fact the card was altered as Steve claims, than this would be an issue for the person that did the alteration and had it graded.

seth i'm not much of a t guy so i didn't realize it was in your upcoming auction. very honorable thing you're doing and u/19thcent.org is always top notch in my book.

quan

This looks like the same card. I was looking at the two scans closely, and there is a small spot just above the bottom right corner.

If someone removed the crease/ altered the card (as Steve claims) PSA could identify who submitted the card.

Seth- I very much respect the way you handled this. It is a shame that you may now have to take a hit on it (I'm assuming it's yours but I realize that may not be true).

Barry,

I purchased the card at auction. At this point, I think the card should be submitted for grading with an explanation of the situation and request that it be placed in an authentic holder. If the card was in fact altered as Steve claims, this would be the appropriate holder.

Seth

Interesting dilemma: should that card be in an AUTH holder? I guess so, but I'm not sure.

It's reaching the point where you can't trust anything anymore. A sad development. Maybe Bruce was right.

i thought that if a card had a crease that ran through the reverse, the highest grade it could get was a PSA 5, if the rest of the card was in excellent shape....i have had perfect cards (seemingly) come back a 5, then you see the crease you missed....







so , dont assume the crease was removed is what im saying...

edited for spelling

Wow. Nice catch Yaw. I do believe I will keep an eye on this thread to see how it all plays out. It's one thing to have theoretical debates about crease removal, but different to see it happen in reality and lead to a 3-grade bump, no less. If that is what happened here, it will be both interesting and instructive to see where all the chips fall.

I'm giving broad latitude to a strong possibility that that's NOT what happened - could be a whole lot of other things - but will watch events unfold here just in case.

Joann

what happened to the line on the front left border midway up? It shows on the SGC holdered one but not the PSA one.

E. Lewin

I am reviewing the card right now under a lamp and there is no crease anywhere on the card.

There is a small chip of paper loss on the right border a little ways up from the right corner and possibly the reason for the original SGC 30 grade.



Steve, do you have a close-up scan of the front of the card to show that the card originally had a crease ? I cannot see the crease in your scan of the SGC 30 above. This would be important to see.



Erick, The line that appears in Steve's scan that you identified appears to run off the side of the card. You really have to put your eyes close to the monitor to see. It looks like it might be something on the card, or the holder (maybe a hair from the SGC black insert, but it's hard to tell.

Yeah i see that now. It looks like a "hair" from the SGC insert, i would guess. Good eyes.

E. Lewin

Steve, Thank you for alerting me of the situation with the card. It would be great if you have a large scan of the card that shows the crease. This would be very helpful to see and conclusive in this scinario.

1. That certainly looks like the same card.

2. That's a nice card, anyone should be happy with it, anywe wouldn't be happy with it.

3. Seems to me that a bit of soaking occurred, followed by a mild dose of spooning.

4. Instead of just this card being graded 'Authentic', what if that was all any of the slabbing companies did... not that they'd get those all correct either.

5. If you guys step back from this, isn't this card a reason to give less credence to graded cards? I still don't have a small T200. And I've about decided that if I buy one on eBay from a seller unknown to me, I probably should get one that has been graded. Only because of the likelihood of photoreproductions and coffee-stained backs. But then I'd bust him out... So I can see there's a place for grading (there, I've matured a bit, you guys have brought me one step along). But can't you see that grading has no business whatsoever up on the high pedestal some seem to have for it? And the adjacent pedestal for that set registry nonsense??

I have never tried to take a crease or wrinkle out of a card and never had anyone try to do it for me. That being said if a light wrinkle were somehow removed and could never be seen again, why wouldn't the grade bump up be alright? I know this is a sticky area but is it any different than a pencil mark that is erased? So far I have never seen anyone say they have seen a light wrinkle come back after it was taken out. I think one person has said they saw a crease come back, when this was debated before. Good catch Steve and nice handling of the affair, Seth.....,

I bought a high grade 1952 Red Man card, then three years later when I sold it, it had several small creases on the back that were not there when I purchased the card.

The person that bought the card from me noticed the creases, and I returned his money. Luckily, PSA bought back the card and all was made right.

Leon- that would make sense except in an instance like this, where the same card has a history of being in a different holder with a lower grade. Then the idea of trying to get away with spooning out a crease won't work.

One of the dark sides of grading is it has created money out of thin air: take a raw card and slab it and it is worth much more; take a card with a light crease in a 2 holder, crack it out, remove the crease, and get it in a 5 holder. Money is made without anybody producing anything or doing anything.

Sure sounds like a microcosm of the economy to me.

I don't disagree....but even with this pedigree of wrinkle and no wrinkle, I am not sure the grade (without the noted chip) wouldn't be warranted...EVEN though we know it was in a 2 holder before. Mostly I am making these statements for a debate ..... I can't remember buying ANY of my collection cards based on a number on a flip (maybe 1-2 out of a thousand)....it's not my gig. Just like a card yesterday that I sold for a fair amount more than the # on the slab these are issues for a maturing hobby to discuss. regards

Seth,

After I posted last night, I began wondering about protocol in these situations (e.g. if I should have first contacted you) but am totally impressed with your public response here even if I'm doubting my own. In any event, I no longer have a scan of the card in its PSA 2 holder or in its raw state. At least I don't think so. My hard drive crashed last summer, so I might have a scan on a backup CD somewhere, but that's a real shot in the dark. Even if I did, though, the wrinkle was very light and I'm not sure that it showed up in a scan. I can assure you, though, that it was there and was long enough to warrant the grade.

And, yes, I am raising the specter of the wrinkle having been removed sometime between the time the card left my friend's hands and the time it arrived in Seth's. Without the wrinkle, the 5 is probably a tad generous but not unreasonable - there is the little fleck in the upper right as well as the smudge in the lower right, but it's a pretty decent card. With the wrinkle, there's no way the card is anything higher than a 2. In fact, I was a bit relieved that my buddy received a 30 on it, since I was a bit worried about the possibility of a 20.

Lastly, I wish I could take the credit here (especially since I used to be a small-time reporter) but my buddy's actually the one who alerted me to the card and its new-and-improved state. I probably would've noticed it once I scoured Seth's auction - and it looks like a nice one from last night's cursory glance - but I do hope my friend chimes in here because he's the one that provided me with the SGC scans and could probably shed a bit more light on the card and its rather curious journey than I can.

Steve



http://imageevent.com/yawie99

Steve, It was a long shot that you would have a scan showing the crease, but I had to ask. I removed the card from the auction.

Leon, I think that the removal of a crease would be considered an alteration, in my opinion. Ironing a shirt to take out a wrinkle is fine, but not a card.

Steve,

Was the "coast to coast" crease horizontal and did it run near the center of the card? I'm sure everyone can see where it started on the left hand edge of the card (just above the elbow).

This is the same card in the SGC and PSA holders.

Seth, you're a class act.

Fred,

The black spot along the left edge of the card looks like a hair from the SGC insert. Take another look, but you have to move your eyes real close to the monitor to see. The "hair" looks to be from the black SGC insert.

Seth

Actually it was a vertical crease - sorry if I messed up earlier. It was over the left third of the card and ran almost from border to border. I can't remember if it went all the way from top to bottom, but it was pretty darn close if it didn't. I don't recall the little mark at elbow level, and as Seth said, it might be some kind of particle that infiltrated the holder.

http://imageevent.com/yawie99

Am I the only one who does not see the 'coast to coast' crease in the 'before' scan?

No. It was a light wrinkle - obvious in person, but very difficult to pick up in a scan.

http://imageevent.com/yawie99

I can't see the entire crease either, I can see a mark on both borders though. Why are the pigments different? At least they appear that way to me.

Douglas, The pigments are different because that is evidence of a tiny amount of paper loss. I didn't see this originally, but after putting the card up under a lamp for a closer review I saw this. Seth

There are no creases on this card.

I am completely new to card collecting, so please bear with me on my questioning.

How does paper loss occur, soaking? Also, wouldn't this be noticed when graded the second time? Thanks.

Douglas,


I don't know how the very small amount of paper loss happened. Could have been a thumb nail from someone handling the card, a plastic album sheet, or a desk scrape, or many other possibilities. I have never soaked a card so i do not know what it would do to the paper of a card. The same paper loss appears in the scan of the SGC and PSA graded holders.


Seth

I submitted the Red Cross card to SGC in mid 2007 knowing that it would not grade higher than a "30". The wrinkle/crease in person was quite obvious after looking at it under the light (ran T/B through the card).



Fast forward about five months. In December of 2007, I listed the card on eBay where it sold for $550 (can be seen on VCP). From there, the rest is history.

I`m not surprised .. this why i stopped chasing cards 15 years ago and did the switch to mostly memorabilia. I remember having a Tinker Cracker Jack that i tried to consign to auction. It was rejected from being bleached. Then, i bought a bunch of spooned out cards. I couldn`t get a refund from the seller. Anyhow, this thread is a nice read.

albert

Turner,

Can you post this on the PSA board?

I sometimes want to post on that board just to get banned from it... I know that's childish, but...

What is it about CU that elicits that kind of "Go ahead and ban me!" mentality?

http://imageevent.com/yawie99