When you hold a graded card in its slab, you feel a certain kind of quiet confidence. The official label, the serial number, and the hard plastic case are all signs of safety. For many collectors, that slab is the end of the story. PSA’s most recent fraud report, on the other hand, shows that the talk sometimes took place in a factory overseas before the card got to their desk.
That number is tough to deal with. A year ago, Professional Sports Authenticator caught more than $200 million worth of fake and changed collectibles. That’s 45.3% more than the previous year. And Ryan Hoge, president of grading at Collectors, the company that owns PSA, says that even that number is low. Based on PSA 10 values for all fraudulent submissions, the real risk could be more than $1 billion. It’s not a rounding mistake. It’s a market inside a market.
The most disturbing thing about the fraud report is not just how big it is, but also who it is aimed at. Scammers don’t just throw out a lot of offers and hope one of them sticks. They are acting in a cold way, going after cards that move quickly and are easy to recognize, like Charizard, Michael Jordan, Mickey Mantle, Tom Brady, and Ken Griffey Jr. These aren’t just picks. These are the cards that new collectors look up first, the ones that people of all ages want, and the ones that almost sell themselves. That they are predictable is exactly what makes them easy to take advantage of.
The number of fake cards on some cards is almost unbelievable. Twelve of the thirteen Honus Wagner T206 cards that PSA received were fake. This card is often called the “holy grail” of card collecting. That’s 92.3 percent. Nearly 62% of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards that were examined were fake. This card is one of the most romanticized in the hobby. The value of Michael Jordan’s 1986 Fleer and 1984 Star cards was about 25%. These aren’t rare items that were found in a dealer’s box. Unfortunately, thieves keep making these cards because most card collectors want to own them.
It’s interesting that Pokémon has become its own crisis within the crisis. 56.3% of all fake submissions are now TCG cards, and the number of Pokémon cards that are fake has increased 125% year over year. Hoge said that some collectors think it’s safer to buy Pokémon cards because fake sports cards are a problem in that area. It doesn’t. Bad people are interested in money, and Pokémon has a lot of it. The fact that PSA’s facility in Japan receives cards that are 95% TCG has made that fact impossible to ignore.
It is important to understand how grading companies have responded. PSA has built alerts right into its grading software for cards like the Mantle, the Jordan Fleer, and the Star #101 that have been used for fraud in the past. When one of these cards gets to a grader’s desk, the system flags it, shows the known tells, and pretty much forces a pause before authentication can continue. It means that the graders know they can’t always remember everything without a structured reminder. That makes me feel a little uneasy. And something to make you feel better.
It’s still not clear how many fake cards have already made it through the system over the years, since neither PSA nor any other grading company has given a full public answer to that question. One thing that is clear is that the hobby is coming to an end. The slab was never a sure thing. In the end, it was always a judgment call made by a person using imperfect tools and lacking all the facts. There is no getting around that fact, but the fraud report makes it harder to hide.
People who collect things have always had faith in the market, the seller, and the person who verifies the items. You still have faith. Ten years ago, a PSA slab seemed like the only way to know for sure if something was real. Now, it’s being put through stress tests that didn’t seem possible.
