Worst part is that the grading companies can’t seem to detect the “restoration”.
The fact that the “after” has the barcode censored speaks volumes
20 Likes
Pretty much an admission that even the person publicly posting it on IG knows it’s a scam and intends to fraudulently pass the card off as unaltered in order to get a higher sale price.
10 Likes
I suppose the one censored is owned by the culprit while the non censored was most likely purchased from someone else. I suppose the “criminal” 
doesn’t want to be banned by PSA.
I really think PSA should take those cases seriously, at the end it touches at PSA reputation at his core…Maybe they should hire a bunch of chemical scientist 
(before replacing then with AI 
)
2 Likes
Is this specific service only for actual cleaning of dirt and stuff or do they smooth out scratches in holofoil by adding a substance? I get the negative reaction in regards to adding stuff to the card, but only removing dirt shouldn’t be an issue. I’ve done it countless times myself.
Wouldn’t you clean your car before selling it? Or would you feel betrayed if you bought a clean car that was previously dirty at some point in its life?
These “services” are filling in the scratches with a substance. It’s like putting bondo on your car and not telling the new owner of the damages.
10 Likes
Aight got it. That’s not so cool, then.
1 Like
I can imagine that the holo pattern is going to become massively important in the future for identifying cards, especially high profile ones. A database of these holo ‘fingerprints’ has to be built as a first level filter to check for resubmission. Second check would be to look for chemical altering. I wonder if CGC has the technology to check for this
1 Like
I’d be interested to see someone submitting one of these “cleaned” cards to CGC. The digital scanning techniques they use should pick up on any kind of chemical tampering better than eyeballing it.
If they can detect it, and deem it to be an actual issue, it’d be a good alarm bell for PSA & BGS to invest in some spectrometer tech.
… I’m torn on the whole deal really. If there’s no detectable chemical alteration to the card surface, but it improves the eye-appeal of the card, then is it really that big of a deal?
I collect fossils, which can be 10’s, if not 100’s of millions of years old, and it’s more than accepted to consolidate fossils (coat, glue, etc) for preservation purposes. Careful cleaning and prep is commonplace for actual scientific importance, as well as for aesthetics. “Restored” fossils that have man-made additions or have been Frankensteined are a whole different story though.
I am sure that if the cards were appropriately marked as “restored” or “altered” (and priced as such), then there would be genuine market interest.
3 Likes
I just don’t think comparisons to other collectibles are necessarily accurate. Removal of a few scratches can make a card 10x or even 20x in value. These are mass produced items where the smallest difference in condition matters a huge amount - and also the “new” and “mint” state is known.
Contrast this to fine art or fossils. You can’t take a painting or a trilobite, wipe some solution on it and make it 10x in price. Every item is essentially a 1 of 1 so condition is a far less important variable on value. There is also not really a “new” state that is trying to be replicated, the goal of restoration is prevent damage or imperfections from being the primary focus of the piece.
Restoration for fine art (and fossils too, I imagine) is a highly skilled process with a set of principles are typically adhered to. A modern professional art conservator applies techniques that are reversible and also discernible (ex. will glow under UV light) - which is why the censorship of the barcode is so telling to the intention here
I’m still undecided on all this. Primarily because I still don’t know how the card is actually being modified. But I don’t think it’s as simple as saying that because people can get a degree in restoration of ancient artifacts that we should automatically be accepting of charizordballer69 making his 6s 9s by wiping the holo with wd40
10 Likes
I completely agree that WD-40 tactics by Johnny McStonks will probably never be defensible, regardless of any rubber-stamps that might be given in future. If it can be done in a way that shows care & respect for the cards, then there might be a place for this “cleaning”.
The reason I mentioned fossils, is because that there are a few parallels with our hobby here. As unique as a specimen may be, you absolutely do pay a premium for condition, provenance and “hype” behind certain fossils.
For instance, here are a couple of my dinosaur teeth - the black one is from a Tyrannosaurus Rex, while the brown one is from a meat-eater roughly of the same size (Carcharodontosaurid). The brown one is sought after, due to its almost perfect preservation, and lack of any repairs; while the Rex tooth is partial and has a single glued repair…yet the Rex is worth x5 more due to charizord type stonks.
You do also get the scam artists btw, as in most hobbies, using things from paint to sawdust to resin as ways to pad out a fossil and make it look more complete or better condition. They’re very commonplace and it needs a keen eye sometimes to spot them.
I think this is true for nearly all collectibles, I think where the comparison falls apart is that a light scratch on a Pokemon card could mean -90% value or more, whereas most other hobbies are not as condition-sensitive. It comes from the mass production of Pokemon cards given most cards are not rare or unique so we impose an abnormally strict standard of condition.
Restoration matters a lot less when it only impacts a marginal percentage of the value. It’s not the same in Pokemon
For instance that Crystal Charizord went from a 7 to a 9 “with this one weird trick”, which is a 3x price difference in English. $4000 or 66% of the value of that card is in the conditional difference, [which is also being intentionally obscured by the hidden cert].
This low-effort, high-value “restoration” isn’t comparable to other collectibles so the norm in fossils doesn’t fully translate to Pokemon cards. But maybe one day it will be a norm in this hobby - in which case we are seriously overvaluing surface condition today
1 Like
Are there examples of historical or vintage paintings being sold before/after having old layers of varnish removed? I’d be curious to know which people would prefer.
This only feels slimy to me because
- I don’t know how it is done.
- There is the potential to make massive amounts of money before the market adapts
- There are people who have paid boatloads of money for authentic, unaltered, uncleaned copies that now have these other cards potentially impacting the prices of those.
Overall, idk.
2 Likes
He brings up CGC in this video.
I felt like he spent more time trying to make sure he was in the right and was more upset that he wasn’t put on a pedestal for calling out the cards slipping through CGC.
I do agree with his sentiment, however.
4 Likes
I have no clue about vintage paintings but as far as I know restoration get mainly done to preserve the painting as it deterioates over time. Because they’re truely 1/1 I assume that it isn’t that big of a talking point as with trading cards which exist en mass. Sadly I couldn’t find any sales before and after (within a reasonable time span).
In the car world an original high end classic with patina in good condition is valued more by collectors than a restored car. For example in 2019 a beautiful barn find Lamborghini Miura P400s sold for roughly 200k more than Miura which were partly restored.
2 Likes
And this is exactly why card altering disturbs me.
People don’t sell vehicles that are partly restored under the guise of being completely original, hosted by a reputable auction house. It is known and advertised that the vehicle has been toyed with and parts have been changed. But getting one past a mostly reputable company (PSA in this case) to be hosted on hopefully a reputable sales venue (eBay, PWCC, Heritage, etc.) with their backing that a card is indeed an original 9 vs. a competing original 7 (or any other card for that matter) is scummy as hell. And Scott makes a great point in his video a couple months back on this: there’s a reason the guy posted above is altering holo Skyridge Charizards and not a holo energy card from Hidden Fates, and I highly doubt it’s because he just wants a slightly cleaner version for his shelf.
3 Likes
