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The fact that a large grading company would not check such a basic type of forgery makes it seem like they're in on the scam. This sounds similar to what happen

The fact that a large grading company would not check such a basic type of forgery makes it seem like they're in on the scam. This sounds similar to what happened with video game grading company Wata, who were alleged to have fraudulently inflated the value of games they were grading: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/grading-firm-wata-is-facing-a-lawsuit-for-allegedly-manipulating-the-retro-game-market/ https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/grading-firm-wata-i...

ryanmcbride 2y ago
I mean grading is a scam all its own so them teaming up with other scammers wouldn't surprise me at all.
- nimish 2y ago
  Yeah imagine paying top dollar for a Pokemon card that has zero market liquidity.
- treypitt 2y ago
  PSA is a scam company?
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    From stories of same exact card being graded for different ratings at different times. Would indicate that they are less perfect in their service than they might market. Difference in grade can change the value. So as whole the process is quite questionable at times. Not to even talk about some things slipping through or being questionable in documenting.
    - mrsilencedogood 2y ago
      Difference in grade basically DETERMINES the value. Even small steps down from perfect greatly diminish a card's value. Basically IGN review scale levels of drop-off.
      - TylerE 2y ago
        The issue is people have done careful tests where the send the EXACT SAME card multiples times and get different grades. ETA: And I don't mean a "reasonable people making subjective judgements" type variation ... I'm talking about like a 6 vs an 8.5 or 9 (out of 10).
        mrsilencedogood 2y ago
        TBC, I agree with you. I was pointing out how important even small variations in grading can be.
  - mesh 2y ago
    Something can be subjective, without being a scam. Are you suggesting they are deliberately misleading people, or are you saying grading is not consistent and is subjective based on circumstance around when the item is graded.
    - zakki 2y ago
      I guess the scam is more like current cryptocurrency.
    - devmor 2y ago
      I'm not a collector, but my understanding was that the point of grading a card was to have a verified, objective rating of the card's condition. If grading is subjective, then I don't see the value of the process and would consider it a scam, personally.
      - 1659447091 2y ago
        > my understanding was that the point of grading a card was to have a verified, objective rating of the card's condition. > If grading is subjective, then I don't see the value of the process This made me curious to check the PSA grading standards, turns out it's both.[0] Personally, as a very young kid I collected baseball cards, unfortunately for me, this was the very late 80's & early 90's. While I have some cards that are my favorites, would be pointless to grade cards that are practically worthless. [0] https://www.psacard.com/gradingstandards https://www.psacard.com/gradingstandards >> While it's true that a large part of grading is objective (locating print defects, staining, surface wrinkles, measuring centering, etc.), the other component of grading is somewhat subjective. The best way to define the subjective element is to do so by posing a question: What will the market accept for this particular issue? >> Again, the vast majority of grading is applied with a basic, objective standard but no one can ignore the small (yet sometimes significant) subjective element. ... The key point to remember is that the graders reserve the right, based on the strength or weakness of the eye appeal, to make a judgment call on the grade of a particular card.
    - danpalmer 2y ago
      The service being sold is the objectivity of the grading process, otherwise anyone could just decide they have a high grade item. This sort of thing happens all the time in grading – a later reveal shows that earlier gradings were obviously incorrect in the mind of any collector. That means that they have such a poor objective process as to be no better than subjective analysis. Graders ultimately sell reputation. Like currency, grading only works if you believe in it. Don't believe the grader? Then their word isn't worth anything. This means as more and more of these issues happen, graders will struggle to retain that trust, and when it disappears it disappears rapidly.
  - snickerbockers 2y ago
    IDK about PSA specifically, but I've collected comics, video games, toys, etc and the one commonality between all of them is that there are these big "grading" companies that charge money to seal your stuff in a plastic box with a label at the top that indicates its "grade" and there is always a scam of some sort. Sometimes they're not actually investigating the goods with any real scrutiny, sometimes they have a conflict-of-interest involving a well-stocked seller, sometimes they're directly manipulating the market. There's always something with these guys. Also a lot of their income comes from convincing people who aren't educated on the market to grade extremely common items that will never be worth any significant amount of money no matter what "grade" they get; not actually a scam in that case but it shows you what their real priorities are. I've also seen them set up booths at sci-fi conventions where you can pay to have them "authenticate" things you got signed by celebrities. In this case the authentication is entirely separate from the signature so there's nobody who can actually testify that they witnessed William Shatner signing your crap, only that they know your crap and William Shatner were in the same convention center at the same time.
  - serviceberry 2y ago
    I don't think it's an overt scam, but let's put it this way: as with auction houses, there is a disconnect between the service the company is providing and what the buyers think they're getting. And the companies have no special interest in correcting that. For grading companies and for auction houses, the goal is to move the highest possible volume of goods at the highest possible valuation. They're not going out of their way to root out non-obvious fraud. They operate with the assumption that 99% of the traffic they're handling is legitimate, and of the 1% that's forged, only a small fraction of the buyers will ever find out. On the rare occasion it blows up, they can apologize and settle for an amount much less than what it would take to investigate every specimen with great zeal.
unreal37 2y ago
It sounds like they suspect someone who helped design the original Pokemon trading card game - Takumi Akabane. A prominent investor claims to have gotten the cards directly from him and doesn't care if they're fake as a result. Maybe the original designer wants to make a few more dollars.
- HanayamaTriplet 2y ago
  Akabane or the buyer could be the original source of the fakes, but the grading company CGC was responsible for "verifying" that they were authentic before they were sold at auction: https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/13347/ https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/13347/
uses 2y ago
Easier to assume the person grading this just didn't do a great job.
arcticfox 2y ago
That theory doesn't make too much sense; if they were both in on the scam and aware of the printer metadata, surely they would have asked for a different version before signing their name to it. IMO it's more likely that "grading" is just a joke.
- theWreckluse 2y ago
  It's easily possible that this was overlooked because when being in on the scam one will be less diligent about such things.
- michaelt 2y ago
  Yeah, we had a global financial meltdown in 2008 because it turned out the people who graded securities didn't look too closely at what they were grading; turns out customers wanting their bonds rated wouldn't choose rating agencies that applied an inconvenient level of scrutiny. It'd be naive to expect the pokemon card industry to be better regulated.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    Technically, it was the lenders that weren’t verifying borrowers’ income and work histories. Theoretically, there is much less chance of “liar loans” due to digital real time records via services like The Work Number and ADP.
    - Xelynega 2y ago
      I don't think you're talking about the same thing. Part of the 2008 financial crisis was that lenders were giving loans out to anybody, and then even though information was available showing the low likelihood of paying back those mortgages the rating agencies rated the bundles of mortgages as high quality low risk. So the problem starts with loans going to anyone, but the crisis was caused by ratings agencies wanting to keep clients rather than do their jobs.
    - Retric 2y ago
      Inability to verify borrowers income had zero relevance to “liar loans.” Banks had plenty of options, they purposefully decided not to use them.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
low_tech_love 2y ago
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.“ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
- rasz 2y ago
  In the case of Wata the dude scamming now (Jim Halperin and Heritage Auctions) scammed in the eighties in exact same way and got fined peanut sum by FTC for it https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-08-10-vw-88-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-08-10-vw-88-sto... "Heritage Capital Corp. and Numismatic Certification Institute. Also named in the action were Steve Ivy and James Halperin, prominent numismatic figures. A consent order was signed agreeing to establish a $1.2-million fund for collectors who purchase the NCI-graded coins from Coin Galleries Inc. of Miami."
  - krajzeg 2y ago
    Just leaving this here: many of the Pokemon cards in question are being sold through Heritage, hyped by CGC (the grading company). https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/13534/ https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/13534/ History both repeats and rhymes, in this case.

ryanmcbride 2y ago

I mean grading is a scam all its own so them teaming up with other scammers wouldn't surprise me at all.

nimish 2y ago
Yeah imagine paying top dollar for a Pokemon card that has zero market liquidity.
treypitt 2y ago
PSA is a scam company?
- Ekaros 2y ago
  From stories of same exact card being graded for different ratings at different times. Would indicate that they are less perfect in their service than they might market. Difference in grade can change the value. So as whole the process is quite questionable at times. Not to even talk about some things slipping through or being questionable in documenting.
  - mrsilencedogood 2y ago
    Difference in grade basically DETERMINES the value. Even small steps down from perfect greatly diminish a card's value. Basically IGN review scale levels of drop-off.
    - TylerE 2y ago
      The issue is people have done careful tests where the send the EXACT SAME card multiples times and get different grades. ETA: And I don't mean a "reasonable people making subjective judgements" type variation ... I'm talking about like a 6 vs an 8.5 or 9 (out of 10).
      - mrsilencedogood 2y ago
        TBC, I agree with you. I was pointing out how important even small variations in grading can be.
- mesh 2y ago
  Something can be subjective, without being a scam. Are you suggesting they are deliberately misleading people, or are you saying grading is not consistent and is subjective based on circumstance around when the item is graded.
  - zakki 2y ago
    I guess the scam is more like current cryptocurrency.
  - devmor 2y ago
    I'm not a collector, but my understanding was that the point of grading a card was to have a verified, objective rating of the card's condition. If grading is subjective, then I don't see the value of the process and would consider it a scam, personally.
    - 1659447091 2y ago
      > my understanding was that the point of grading a card was to have a verified, objective rating of the card's condition. > If grading is subjective, then I don't see the value of the process This made me curious to check the PSA grading standards, turns out it's both.[0] Personally, as a very young kid I collected baseball cards, unfortunately for me, this was the very late 80's & early 90's. While I have some cards that are my favorites, would be pointless to grade cards that are practically worthless. [0] https://www.psacard.com/gradingstandards https://www.psacard.com/gradingstandards >> While it's true that a large part of grading is objective (locating print defects, staining, surface wrinkles, measuring centering, etc.), the other component of grading is somewhat subjective. The best way to define the subjective element is to do so by posing a question: What will the market accept for this particular issue? >> Again, the vast majority of grading is applied with a basic, objective standard but no one can ignore the small (yet sometimes significant) subjective element. ... The key point to remember is that the graders reserve the right, based on the strength or weakness of the eye appeal, to make a judgment call on the grade of a particular card.
  - danpalmer 2y ago
    The service being sold is the objectivity of the grading process, otherwise anyone could just decide they have a high grade item. This sort of thing happens all the time in grading – a later reveal shows that earlier gradings were obviously incorrect in the mind of any collector. That means that they have such a poor objective process as to be no better than subjective analysis. Graders ultimately sell reputation. Like currency, grading only works if you believe in it. Don't believe the grader? Then their word isn't worth anything. This means as more and more of these issues happen, graders will struggle to retain that trust, and when it disappears it disappears rapidly.
- snickerbockers 2y ago
  IDK about PSA specifically, but I've collected comics, video games, toys, etc and the one commonality between all of them is that there are these big "grading" companies that charge money to seal your stuff in a plastic box with a label at the top that indicates its "grade" and there is always a scam of some sort. Sometimes they're not actually investigating the goods with any real scrutiny, sometimes they have a conflict-of-interest involving a well-stocked seller, sometimes they're directly manipulating the market. There's always something with these guys. Also a lot of their income comes from convincing people who aren't educated on the market to grade extremely common items that will never be worth any significant amount of money no matter what "grade" they get; not actually a scam in that case but it shows you what their real priorities are. I've also seen them set up booths at sci-fi conventions where you can pay to have them "authenticate" things you got signed by celebrities. In this case the authentication is entirely separate from the signature so there's nobody who can actually testify that they witnessed William Shatner signing your crap, only that they know your crap and William Shatner were in the same convention center at the same time.
- serviceberry 2y ago
  I don't think it's an overt scam, but let's put it this way: as with auction houses, there is a disconnect between the service the company is providing and what the buyers think they're getting. And the companies have no special interest in correcting that. For grading companies and for auction houses, the goal is to move the highest possible volume of goods at the highest possible valuation. They're not going out of their way to root out non-obvious fraud. They operate with the assumption that 99% of the traffic they're handling is legitimate, and of the 1% that's forged, only a small fraction of the buyers will ever find out. On the rare occasion it blows up, they can apologize and settle for an amount much less than what it would take to investigate every specimen with great zeal.

unreal37 2y ago

It sounds like they suspect someone who helped design the original Pokemon trading card game - Takumi Akabane. A prominent investor claims to have gotten the cards directly from him and doesn't care if they're fake as a result. Maybe the original designer wants to make a few more dollars.

HanayamaTriplet 2y ago
Akabane or the buyer could be the original source of the fakes, but the grading company CGC was responsible for "verifying" that they were authentic before they were sold at auction: https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/13347/ https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/13347/

uses 2y ago

Easier to assume the person grading this just didn't do a great job.

arcticfox 2y ago

That theory doesn't make too much sense; if they were both in on the scam and aware of the printer metadata, surely they would have asked for a different version before signing their name to it. IMO it's more likely that "grading" is just a joke.

theWreckluse 2y ago
It's easily possible that this was overlooked because when being in on the scam one will be less diligent about such things.
michaelt 2y ago
Yeah, we had a global financial meltdown in 2008 because it turned out the people who graded securities didn't look too closely at what they were grading; turns out customers wanting their bonds rated wouldn't choose rating agencies that applied an inconvenient level of scrutiny. It'd be naive to expect the pokemon card industry to be better regulated.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Technically, it was the lenders that weren’t verifying borrowers’ income and work histories. Theoretically, there is much less chance of “liar loans” due to digital real time records via services like The Work Number and ADP.
  - Xelynega 2y ago
    I don't think you're talking about the same thing. Part of the 2008 financial crisis was that lenders were giving loans out to anybody, and then even though information was available showing the low likelihood of paying back those mortgages the rating agencies rated the bundles of mortgages as high quality low risk. So the problem starts with loans going to anyone, but the crisis was caused by ratings agencies wanting to keep clients rather than do their jobs.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Inability to verify borrowers income had zero relevance to “liar loans.” Banks had plenty of options, they purposefully decided not to use them.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

low_tech_love 2y ago

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.“ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

rasz 2y ago
In the case of Wata the dude scamming now (Jim Halperin and Heritage Auctions) scammed in the eighties in exact same way and got fined peanut sum by FTC for it https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-08-10-vw-88-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-08-10-vw-88-sto... "Heritage Capital Corp. and Numismatic Certification Institute. Also named in the action were Steve Ivy and James Halperin, prominent numismatic figures. A consent order was signed agreeing to establish a $1.2-million fund for collectors who purchase the NCI-graded coins from Coin Galleries Inc. of Miami."
- krajzeg 2y ago
  Just leaving this here: many of the Pokemon cards in question are being sold through Heritage, hyped by CGC (the grading company). https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/13534/ https://www.cgccards.com/news/article/13534/ History both repeats and rhymes, in this case.