ive mostly seen this coming out of japan think basically every seller there covers the cert… id advise anyone not to buy any card that has a covered cert tbh that is just as sketchy as ppl using public certs to make fake ones
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The most suspect listing I’ve seen on Mercari not only covered the cert, but also covered the grade itself:
Even if this isn’t a scam who would pay $50k for a mystery grade kang? Mind boggling lol
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New Mystery Box here - see the card and get a random grade!
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What would be the issue? After all, we “buy the card, not the grade,” right?! 
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Will cover cert of expensive slab if I am just showing off with no intention of selling, or if selling on a best offer basis which will take some time. Have seen cert being deactivated because someone else made fake slabs using the same cert number.
For less expensive slab, will just show the cert number.
Also think cert number can reveal some “inconvenient” info. For example, same slabs being offered at different prices to different people, same slabs being flipped around immediately from buyee, middleman playing both sides.
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Also works to ward off “old cert”, “new cert” discrimination.
Makes sense, covering certs appeals to core cultural values:
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The need to feel anonymous online - why people prefer Twitter over Facebook, and anonymous shipping in online marketplaces
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Hypervigilance against scams - oreore anti-scam campaigns, fear of romance scams in online dating
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Fitting in - if you saw most listings cover their cert number without knowing why, you might do the same
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Why would you report the cert just to cause problems for the true owner?
Unfortunately PSA has a completely asinine solution for fake graded cards. They just punish the actual owner by deactivating the cert. I’ve had it happen multiple times. The most ridiculous was a psa 10 dark charizard, Non Holo… We are talking about practice! The process took months just for an employee who has a fraction of experience to tell me it’s real.
Basically the point of my mini rant is before PSA’s braindead cert deactivation, there wasn’t a legitimate reason to cover the cert. Now it makes sense for higher end cards, and apparently non holo dark charizards! 
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I was thinking about this while making enchiladas. Covering certs is a natural reaction to PSA deactivating hijacked certs.
What do other companies do when a cert has been faked? I’ve never seen CGC or BGS certs get covered, but that may be because they’re not popular in Japan.
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1 time, i bought a “1st edition shining charizard” for 249, right after they added the ebay authenticity guarantee that covered 250+, The card looked almost real and it fooled me. Regardless, I was pissed to find out it was a fake and the guy selling it wouldn’t return the item saying oh no i must have replaced the item etc. Thats why he didnt accept the return. So he forced it on me and i got stuck with it. Aka he bypassed the authenticity guarantee and then when i tried to get it PSA’d AND RESALE IT… i got effed up with a red note saying do not sell this item, this item is not authentic, etc etc. “questionable authenticity” aka fake card drama
I used do do this several years ago, but am now doing the exact opposite and showing all the cert numbers which I’m not planning to sell after changing my mind - if someone fakes my slab and cause the cert to be deactivated I’ll just contact PSA and get the case solved, but if my slabs went missing I can immediately dig their photos out from my posts and spread them to ask if someone had spotted the exact certs in marketplaces.
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Same story here. It takes forever to get a new certs and the cards can’t be sold during the time.
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Meganumerophobia
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Most of the time I cover the cert. I do not want other people know what other cards I have graded. Or how much I paid it if purchased from famous platform.
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100% in the High stakes PSA registry game. Many whale registry players literally track all your subs if they see your certs on social media or selling platforms.
Hide your high end certs. 100%
people ask me why i am so secretive? , one reason is too many snoopy people, scammers , and hate when money is involved.
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You aren’t wrong. I don’t blame anyone who wants to keep their collection anonymous. I remember even saying that for myself if I had to do it all over again:
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I used to have the opinion that covering the cert was pretty useless but over the past year, I’ve just seen more benefit of keeping the card cert hidden or just not showing the cards at all.
Recently I just removed all my autos from my Instagram due to the certs not being covered and so they have less of a chance of being forged or sketches copied.
Most likely I’ll probably remove even the non autos off my page since i just don’t see a benefit of keeping them up.
Anonymity seems to be the safest route when collecting.
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I once had a 1st edition psa 10 neo destiny shining charizard. I posted a photo of it in a FB group and also IG.
Someone made a very good replica of it using the same PSA Cert ID.
And then i fully understood why people hide the PSA ID number.
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Possibly it is just as others mention so that there is no “fraudulent” use of that card, but it does seem annoying and unnecessary to me. In the end, you have to be transparent with the buyer