Drew99

I’ll be happy to post the PSA slab pictures when I receive them in the mail. This is a common practice in the industry. CGC is the exception. Becket and SGC do this as well. One of the customer service people told me to keep the labels because they are considering offering the service at a later time, perhaps even later this year…

People used to trim magic cards from that set because they had square corners. We didn’t sleeve cards when we were kids. So we couldn’t shuffle them. if you don’t understand the concept of getting a graded card/authenticated card back in the mail that isn’t encapsulated… I can’t help you man. These aren’t pikachus these are worth thousands of dollars even in a damaged state. If you don’t know anything about Magic that’s cool. They apparently don’t either

There’s actually no dispute on facts. We (cgc and I) are in total agreement on the designation of the cards. let me make it real simple. Look at the pictures below. These are cards they are saying are “authenticated”. I say they are not. this is not a matter of opinion for me alone this is something that others who are having cards graded need to be aware of. This is a picture of over 6000 in 3 MTG cards, huge amount of money. Would you buy this off of eBay? Would you consider this an authenticated card? Do you consider yourself protected? What value is this authentication providing? I could have waited longer and spent more money at PSA, they do slab under AA… authentic altered. SGC does as well as becket. This is a common practice. just look at the pictures and make up your own mind. Would you feel good buying that? Don’t get fooled

There’s nothing here for them to do. The purpose of the post is for people to understand that they don’t authenticate cards at CGC for altered cards. I understand their policy now. Hopefully people who read this who need this service can make sense of it. this is a very particular issue. It is not a grading issue. Those people did a fine job. I received the appropriate designation. What they fail to understand and what I have received in feedback from other posts is a sort of “we authenticated the cards” and I’m sorry but I have to draw a line. I make no dispute that what they have done in terms of grading is correct. I make an argument that what they are doing is very problematic. 1. People do not pay for a graders opinion. This is false. We pay for a 3rd party opinion. 2. if they choose not to encapsulate the card that is also their absolute right but they can not claim to have provided the service. 3. I cannot sell this card. It is not provable that this service has been performed. The point of a grading service, the very purpose of their existence is to provide opinions that are “3rd” party. That is to say that a buyer of a card can observe that a service has been rendered and a receipt can be shown that it matches. I don’t have that… they are pretending that they have verified my card just because a grader has said so… that is meaningless if I have no way to PROVE to another person, a buyer, that this is a true statement. This is not okay. They can choose not to encapsulate the coin, they can choose any rules they wish. But they cannot say that they provide a service when they have not. They should issue a refund because they have not authenticated the card… telling me the card is real is not what 3rd party authentication is

The issue is not the policy… I feel like I’m talking to air here. you can have whatever policy you want. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have a deceptive policy. you are in the 3rd party grading business and I have already enumerated what your online policy states. if I call your line right now I will speak with someone and they will say… oh yes sir, we authenticate cards…but you don’t actually do that. forget about my specific issue. My situation doesn’t matter. Your graders did a good job. They did exactly what they are supposed to do. the point of a 3rd party service is that it is secure. If you do t have clear policies… misinformed staff… or cannot perform the essential service of what a card grading agency does… as in you have a standing policy not to encapsulate anything that is not gradable… well that should be very clearly stated and there should t be allot of generic language and guess work. You’re a grading agency… be specific. you’re right I don’t have to like it… I do have a right to actually know what it is and have the ability to be informed BEFORE making a purchase. That is actually something you owe people.

These cards are altered to make them look like more expensive cards. We will not grade cards that are altered to make them appear to be a completely different type/issue, even if it is just from the front. I would like a point of clarity here because this is a philisophical question. Are you saying that any card that anyone who might confuse a card with another card is altered? to be clear altered in my opinion is any card that is changed but I’m going to use your definition. If someone colors in a border and tries to submit a card under the incorrect set… which is the precise example your company uses this is a problem because we are in the are of fakes/fraudulent market. The problem I’m having here is that not all altered cards are meant to be fraudulent cards and when someone submits a card under it’s accurate set name, especially something like this set which is gold bordered and has COLLECTORS EDITION on the back you are by definition misapplying the rule. you said yourself even if one side… well, you don’t grade one side of a card… you grade the whole thing. You are parsing because you just don’t want to do it. You have to look at the card as a whole. by the way. You don’t have to do anything I want. I don’t expect that. I am simply reflecting to others my experience and I’m at complaining that your rules are not clear, not practical, and that I called in advance to try to understand them and was not given accurate information. the lotus is currently at PSA and has received the AA authentic altered status and I will be happy to share a picture of that on the forum when it arrives. This is a service that some companies do provide and it is important for people to understand what is available when people are choosing what grading company to go with. cheers

Umm what cards would those be? if you say alpha I would request that you look at an alpha card and check again. Because you may not understand what an alpha card looks like. These are not close. this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the game if magic itself. These are not changed for that purpose and many cards from this set will be found in this state. the reason is that in the 90’s we did not sleeve our cards. This was the only way you could shuffle the cards into a deck. That is why they are like this. You again miss the point sir. your company DID do what they were supposed to do. You apparently didn’t read closely. They are not gradable. the problem here is several fold. one, I can’t demonstrate that I’ve paid for a service. You did the service… you just won’t encapsulate the authentication. second… why are you sending out copy’s of your supposed secure labels to people? That is a real nightmare and really is not a serious business practice for secure grading lastly, if you don’t want to do this, the. Have people on the phone that can answer these types of questions so that when people call to make sure they are following the rules, they don’t get screwed over. explain the lotus… it isn’t trimmed by the way. It was just damaged… but okay. Everything you don’t like is just altered. you won’t encapsulate several thousand dollar cards that I submit under their real set name so that they can be garaunteed under their real set name because someone might confuse just the front part with another set in a picture of they’re and insufficiently_thoughtful_person is the logic here?

Yes, correct they send you their label. Like what goes inside the encapsulation… but they don’t encapsulate because they have a policy against encapsulating altered cards. So the service is you get a card in a top loader. I was very careful with these and knew they might be a problem so I called in advance. Their definition is very convoluted and says an altered card is something “changed with the intention of being deceptive” which honestly is not true. I actually agree with the graders. An altered card is anything that is changed regardless of the deceptive issue. deceptive cards/fakes area are a whole other area and a real problem. These cards were not like that. They were trimmed in the corners like allot of collectors edition so they could be shuffled in the days when we didn’t use sleeves. One of these I trimmed myself as a kid. It is still gold bordered collectors edition/ugly and not pretending to be from another set. I submitted it clearly as from the collectors edition set and did this because the price has shot up onthese during the pandemic. I did not want them graded… they are altered cards. I wanted them to do exactly what they did… but then set the cards in plastic when they were finished. They will not do that… so their service is worthless

One thing I learned in my issue with CGC when I contacted customer Service before submitting my cards because I had some alters, corner trimmed collectors editions, (CGC does not encapsulate authentication… they give you a label in a top loader believe it or not. That’s their service) Anyways… my story is important because there are details here, very specific ones which CGC should be able to answer right because the specialize in only MTG and Pokémon really. Here’s the problem. They are in a que within a larger collective. I realized this very early on because I am a coin collector primarily and came to this company by way of NGC, which I will also no longer be a part of when my membership expires. The person answering your phone and the number you have if you get aN email from them is part of a collectibles group that does allot of things. Now I’m not expecting to talk to a grader… but I do expect to be able to ask a person at the company about their company’s policies with some specificity such as… what is an altered card? Your website says it is “anything changed to be deceptive” that seems weird… and not accurate but okay… turns out I did get and answer… and it turned out to be inaccurate and I spent hundreds of dollars and months of time to find it out. If you call PSA,you are talking to a business that specializes in grading cards. If you call this place… you are dealing with a baseline customer service person. They do the best they can with the information they have. But there are 10 different companies, the kinds of issues and questions are very specific and they simply don’t even know anything about cards in general. Most of the people I talked to were very nice, extremely. They didn’t know what a magic card was other than it was a game that people play…that’s about it.

This was an issue for almost a year and CGC sold thousands of slabs that are unsecured. I don’t like what this jerk on eBay is doing but this is a problem and anyone who did business with CGC needs to have communication from the company about how to fix this problem and have their cards fixed. This is why CGC cards don’t hold market value. Watch a YouTube video. You can open these without using any tools… with only your hands. you can’t be in the business of encapsulating cards and not have a secure holder. if you have an old card… you should make sure you don’t have this problem after watching a video and educate yourself and then contact the company to get this fixed. These shouldn’t be able to be separated without being destroyed. This is a fact

Part of the problem here is that you are assuming that CGC considered equal to PSA and Becket. It isn’t. many people have gone over to CGC because of issues like the crazy waitlist at The competitors and the relative cheap price… it has been the only game in town for mid level cards and to be graded. however, read a few forums and take a look at a PSA 9 and a CGC 8.5/9 and make up your own mind… add into the mix that they came to market with a product that you could open by hand and was not secure for more than before it was addressed. would you by a thousands of dollar high end lotus or modem under a CGC label. Be serious. They are in the 100 dollar card market give or take.

I recently called in advance of submitting several trimmed MtG collectors edition cards to inquire regarding authenticating them. I was told that this was okay and then they sent back the cards with the label in a top loader without encapsulation. There is no way for me to prove to a potential buyer that I have paid for this service so it is worthless. If you do want this kind of service, you can use PSA altered authentic or Becket. Do not use CGC as they do not provide the very basic 3rd party authentication service for card authentication… slabbing the card. further, although I believe that their definition is wrong and their graders are correct, their definition defines an alteration as something that is changed to be “deceptive” and they cite an example of coloring in a border and such. These cards were not this case and were not misrepresented or deceptive, gold bordered cards that were trimmed so they could be shuffled back in the day when we didn’t use sleeves on our cards… man were we stupid. anyways… i think that definition is wrong, any alteration that is different from a factory churned card is an alteration but this just goes to further show that they don’t have consistency nor will they be able to answer clear questions when you call customer support… because there aren’t good answers to this crazy web. Here’s the best part… they are considering offering this service I. The future so I may have the opportunity to resubmit my cards. No thanks CCG. That’s the last time. First it was cases you could open by hand now you don’t authenticate cards. you don’t belong in the card business