Bad news for PSA. Mastro to plead guilty to fraud, trimming "the holy grail" of cards

[the 'stache]

This could be really, really bad news for PSA.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-...icle-1.1210539

Bill Mastro, the one-time king of sports collectibles who was indicted on a count of fraud in July — and accused of trimming the world’s most expensive baseball card — has agreed to plead guilty to fraud.

Mastro, the founder of Mastro Auctions and once the most important figure in sports memorabilia, has signed the plea agreement that changes his not-guilty plea to guilty, according to papers filed in Chicago federal court by the United States Attorney's office for northern Illinois.

In addition to Mastro now being opened up to countless civil lawsuits, PSA's credibility could now be seriously damaged. Why? They gave an 8 grade (near mint-mint) to a card they should have known was altered. We all know that if there is evidence that a card has been altered, PSA will return it ungraded, with documentation stating what their examination of the card found (bleaching, trimming, coloring, other alteration, etc). But they didn't here.

Either the PSA examiner(s) were completely incompetent, and couldn't see that it had been altered (even when the card was compared to other examples from the T-206 line), or they knew it had been trimmed, and gave it an 8 grade anyway, making them complicit. Either way, PSA's reputation will suffer.

[pwaldo]

This won't really hurt PSA. People still use BGS even when they basically admitted to upping the grade on the Strasburg superfractor. Too many collectors have a vested interest in both BGS and PSA that even when bad news comes out they will blindly defend them to protect their investments and collections.

[gps29070]

And we wonder why our hobby has such a low reputation. That's why I don't chase nor are interested in high end cards.