PSA Closes Grading Loophole

PSA, the biggest authenticator of trading cards, has for years had a loophole that allowed counterfeit cards appearing to be legitimate to some unsuspecting buyers just because they had authentic autographs on them and were in PSA slabs. They can be found all over eBay and other marketplaces, where the slab’s label simply says “Trading Card” instead of the year and set the card would be from, and then says that the autograph is authentic. PSA was abdicating their authentication duties by only looking at the autograph and not the card.

It should be noted that not all of these contain counterfeit cards; in fact, a scan of eBay listings shows that a very small percentage of these are the type that would ever be counterfeited. But it gave bad actors the opportunity to counterfeit a valuable card, then pay a small fee to get it autographed by the player. PSA would then authenticate the autograph and encapsulate the card, giving many the impression that the card was legit as well, leading to huge profit for the bad actor.

Back in February, Hobby Champs on Twitter highlighted a Goldin Auctions listing for a “Trading Card” designated card purporting to be a 1990 Topps Frank Thomas No Name On Front (NNOF) error, perhaps the most valuable Junk Wax Era card.

Someone is selling these bogus @TheBigHurt_35 NNOF rookie autos (auto is real, card is not) on @GoldinCo under the @PSAcard "CARD" pretense. One sold for nearly $1,400 last week. This asinine practice needs to stop. All it does is cost unsuspecting buyers future heartache. pic.twitter.com/Pz8FM3Gplt
— Hobby Champs (@HobbyChamps) February 1, 2024

They were selling for well over $1,000 in these slabs, because people thought they were getting a legit NNOF card autographed. Thankfully, Ken Goldin did the right thing and made these listings more accurate.

I’ve written about this topic in my newsletter and on Twitter, and now PSA’s CEO Ryan Hoge has confirmed that they are closing this loophole:

Yes. Per our new policy we are doing an auth check and won’t encapsulate custom or counterfeit cards with a real auto.
— Ryan Hoge (@rhoge) August 31, 2024

At apparently no extra cost, PSA will now authenticate all cards coming in with autographs on them. This is a huge win for the industry, and it’s great to see PSA doing the right thing finally.