Sometimes, a single fold, a light spray mark, or an image that isn’t quite in the middle can make the difference between a $300 card and a $30,000 card. Most people who aren’t into the hobby don’t know that. That is, collectors do. They’ve known for a long time. And that’s one of the most interesting things about the lawsuit against Professional Sports Authenticator, or PSA. The system didn’t fail without a fuss. Some say it failed right in front of everyone.
Eric Savoy is a baseball card collector who started a class-action lawsuit against PSA, saying that the company graded changed cards on its standard 1-to-10 scale, which is the same scale that PSA says only shows real, unaltered items. Savoy says he sent cards to PSA to be graded and bought cards that had already been graded. He thinks that at least one of the cards he bought had been changed before it got its grade. That’s not a small problem. A grade bump of just one or two points can make a card ten times more valuable in this market.
The lawsuit shows a very clear case. In late 2017, a 1952 Stan Musial card with a spray black print mark on its white frame was sold for $2,800. Seven months later, a 1952 Musial that looked brand new (no flaws, same player, same year) sold for $28,100. Collectors began to contrast the two. They came to the conclusion that the cards were the same item that had been changed between sales to fix the problem and then sent in again for a better grade. They said that PSA graded it both times without pointing out the difference. The difference between $2,800 and $28,100 tells you everything you need to know about what’s at stake.
The nature of the alleged scheme is what makes the lawsuit especially bad for PSA. It wasn’t just about getting rid of stains or creases, though those things are said to have happened. It was said that the edges of the cards were “trimmed” to make them look better inside the grading case. There are small marks on each card that are unique, like the way the picture fits in the frame, the fiber patterns on the surface, and the way dirt builds up over time. You can trick a grader if you change those details. The suit says that PSA graders were either lied to or didn’t look too closely.
A structural issue is also brought up in the lawsuit that is hard to ignore. A collector reports the card’s value to PSA before sending it in, so the fees are based on what the company thinks the card is worth on the market. The fee goes up as the stated value goes up. The lawsuit says that this gives PSA a financial reason to over-grade cards sent by high-volume customers, who send a lot of cards and bring in a lot of fee money. Maybe that’s not a fair way to look at how businesses that grade work. It’s also possible that it’s the right one.
In July 2019, The Washington Post reported that collectors had found about $1.4 million in sales of altered cards on their own. Notably, some of those collectors used PSA’s own records to support their claim, finding cards that got lower grades the first time they were turned in but higher grades the second time. The lawsuit is very clear about this point: it says that PSA kept grading those cards even though it knew from its own records that it had graded them lower before.
The lawsuit also names PWCC Marketplace LLC, an auction site that is accused of selling changed cards that were advertised as not being changed. The complaint talks about a chain of events: cards were graded at one level, changed, resubmitted, and graded higher. The original buyer then sold these cards through PWCC. If the claims are true, it makes for a nice loop.
It’s still not clear how this lawsuit will end in the end. For a long time, PSA has been seen as the gold standard in card authentication. Their slabs are seen as trustworthy enough to move markets. That name is now part of what’s being tried. For collectors who built their collections on those grades, seeing this happen must feel like a mix of betrayal and vindication. They were aware. Someone had to sue to get people to pay attention.
