Dr. Towle is in

anyone else see this in the online SCD? Talk about trying hard to put a positive spin on card doctoring.

SCD article

Jay

It is a fact of our hobby, and there is more than one Doctor fixing cards.
One coin dealer once said to me that the number of silver coins which have not been cleaned are so few that their percentage will calculate out to 0%.
Baseball cards are heading that way.
I realize that this status will disappoint the Jim Crandall type of collector, understandably so.
I will continue to collect primarilly raw vg.
My occasional vg/ex or ex are as good as it needs to get.

My question is if it is not wrong to select a $200 card and employ this type of improvement in order to achieve a grade equivalent to a $1000. card; why do we work for a living?

My Thorpe has an ink stamp on the back. If that were removed my card would grade a 30 and on a good day, maybe 40. That would mean about $5k increase in value if it got a 40.

Jay

I really do not have a problem with card doctoring, because it is a service provided for those who want it. However, I draw the line when the reason for wanting this service is to defraud a buyer into thinking that he is buying something more pristine than it is.

This fledgling hobby of ours is far from the first to have to address this issue. Antiques, Art, and other collectibles have a history of fakes and fakers. This history has been occasionally romanticized by Hollywood.

However, I find little enthralling in vermin employing the skills of a Doctor in order to fool the fools who are entrusted to grade our cards. Actually, I only have a few cards which I have not cracked out yet, and they will be freed once I construct their destination. But for now, they need protection from me. You see? they are in pretty high grade - I wonder how they got that way.

And Ben, thank you for Moderating, and not Censoring. I recognize that I do not always employ good judgement.

Hmmm....if I'm following the implications of your last few posts Gil, I gotta ask: do we really want to go there?

Edited to add: you are of course free to post as you wish, but how many times have we seen unsubstantiated claims on that "other" board turn into a big mess rather quickly.