123 x PSA 10 Mox Pearl, workshop and more!!

[AllHallowsEVE]

i was looking around and didnt see anyone talk about this. Sorry, if this is not the right place to post this, please move to wherever it belongs. i saw this auction today and this is the craziest PSA 10 items on ebay that i have ever seen in my life. here's the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 53923&rd=1

[l0qii]

I saw this item too and was considering bidding on it but I'm not in a position right now to take that sort of risk. If anyone wants to split it with me, I'd happily pitch in my share.

[hammr7]

We'll have to see how this lot ends up.  The problem I have (assuming the auction doesn't go crazy in the next few hours) is as follows:

With a name like "Alpha Investments" I expect that this seller has a clue about the current value of PSA 10 cards.  

I also assume that the seller has some idea about the normal price for these cards if they weren't PSA graded.

And the seller apparantly has some experience with being a seller on eBay.

So why would all these cards be grouped together at a potential loss of thousands of dollars for the seller when being sold in a single lot?

[squt]

He's willing to do a cash trade in person, which is cool.

Is it true that there has rencently been a large amount of counterfeit P9 flooding the market, like he says in his questions and answer section?

Squt

[hammr7]

squt,

In addition to the real jerks like wildwilliam56 (and his photocopy P9 cards), I have recently been made aware of two additional problems with phoney P9 cards.  

In one case the cards are counterfeits that pass the bend test, but the cardstock is apparantly a little different.  It feels a bit lighter or thinner, and is less translucent than real Magic cardstock.  In effect, it is a slightly better version of the older attempts at counterfeiting.  The colors are apparantly better, but you can still see a difference compared to a real card.  With printing technology improving the way it has, this will be an ongoing problem in the future.

Of greater concern to the professional grading crowd, there have apparantly been glued-on counterfeits (like bad proxy cards) that have been graded and slabbed as if real.  These cards would never pass a bend test, but in a slab many people would never check.  It is still uncertain if the cards were bad and graded as good, or if the slabs were opened and the original graded card replaced.

At this point I haven't heard of any PSA cards being involved.  The instances have been SGC graded cards.  The problem is that most Magic collectors trust the grading services, and are unaware of the potential scams involved with slabbed cards.  If you asked 100 magic collectors about slabbed cards, most would know what you are talking about.  If you asked the same 100 how to tell if a slab has been opened and resealed, most wouldn't have a clue it was even possible.  If you buy a slabbed card, and never open the slab, you may never find the fraud.  Or if the slab has been opened and resealed, you might find out when you try to sell the card, and the defect is pointed out to you.

These types of problems have been around for many years with sports cards.  As a result, most sports card collectors who deal inslabbed cards are aware of them.  Similar scams will eventually happen with PSA cards if they haven't already.  One word of caution:  any seller who doesn't want to show the label of a graded card should be avoided.  While such sellers make up a million excuses, the usual reason is that they stole the picture from someone else, and showing the label provides more opportunity for them to get caught, especially in a community as small as ours (at least for slabbed P9 and similar cards).

[l0qii]

alpha_investments has been around bidding against me on a lot of alphas for a while. It's no surprise to me to see a lot like this exist, but I am curious as to why he's selling it in one lot rather than individually. The final price of $5,202.33 could probably be made back by the Unlimited and Beta cards alone. I'm going to guess either he had a need for immediate cash, or he saw a chance to make a quick buck and isn't interested in the long term.