The person was granted anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The FBI has taken notice and has reached out to at least one in the BODA contingent, according to one of those associated with BODA. There is a group of about a half dozen members of the message board Blowout Forums - known on the site as the Blowout Detective Agency (BODA) - who have flagged questionable gradings and the ensuing auctions of those cards in recent months. Messages left with PSA executives by USA TODAY Sports were not returned. SGC later gave it a 5.0 and it was sold at a PWCC auction last year for $87,877.77.
PWCC VAULT CRACKER
The card on that list that went for most at auction was a 1914 Cracker Jack Joe Jackson, which was originally graded by PSA as a 2 and sold at auction for $22,800 in 2017. Some “trimmers” have been caught, and card graders have rejected the card for trading.Īn improved grade on a card can mean a significant increase in the price of the card.Ī list obtained by USA TODAY Sports included more than 350 suspect cards sold at auction by PWCC that were graded by leading sports memorabilia authentication firms like PSA, Beckett Authentication Services and SGC. If a card grader doesn’t detect a trimming, a “7” could become a “9” or an “8 could become a “10”. With modern technology, it’s possible to re-cut a card to make it appear like it came fresh out of a pack. “Trimming” is a common way of altering cards. To receive a “10” a card has to be “mint," and that requires perfect corners. Today, for example, PSA grades cards on a 1-10 scale. Before grading was introduced, the buyer and seller would have to argue over whether a card was “very good/VG" or “Excellent/EX.”
PWCC has sold hundreds of thousands of cards and the problematic ones are in the hundreds - or less than 1%.”Ĭard grading by an independent company, such as PSA, has become popular in the industry because it theoretically brings consistency to the grading process. “While there are questions of what constitutes an improper alteration, I can say with that PWCC is among those who have sold altered cards. "There has been some evidence that cards sold at PWCC auctions have been altered,” Lichtman said. The people were granted anonymity because details of the investigation have not been disclosed publicly. FBI agents served several others with subpoenas over the weekend at the National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago, two people with knowledge of the investigation told USA TODAY Sports. PWCC, a major auction house in the trading card industry, was subpoenaed last month and was already cooperating with an FBI investigation, Jeffrey Lichtman, an attorney for the auction operator, told USA TODAY Sports. Federal authorities have issued several subpoenas and contacted mostly anonymous members of an online forum as part of an ongoing investigation into altered sports trading cards that have sold for millions of dollars over the past several months.
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