Originally posted by whelan144l It is a 30/30 short - Holy Grail. Just Google searched and back in April 13 - original owner admitted to trimming the sides - 2 million dollar upgrade.

Yup crazy to think, and I thought some of these MMA cards were expensive
This is currently happening in the basketball market as well, scammers cutting up uncut sheets of rare 90's inserts. So now instead of say a print run of only 50, there now may be 100 or more cards on the market. And BGS is actually grading them with no mention that they are cut from a sheet. PSA refused to grade them, but BGS is bigger in the modern basketball hobby anyways.

Originally posted by whelan144l Joe - There was an HBO or 30/30 show on that card (think it was 30/30) - if you have a chance, watch it.  Even with the question of altered or not, the card has continued to change hands at a profit.  PSA claims it inspected card under magnification and it was not altered.  This is moving in a different direction, but I would like to get other members opinions on this: With an autographed card, which would you rather have: Card grades 9.5, Auto grades 9 or Card grades 9, Auto grades 10. Or do you think grading is a waste of time and money?

Brian, I well have to check that out. PSA knows the card was altered, not sure if it was Joe Orlando the president, or another employee, but they said they still graded the card, even though they knew it was trimmed, due to the historically nature of the card. And yes every time it changes hands, the seller always turns a profit. It was or maybe still is owned by Wayne Gretzky.

I would prefer a 9.5, with 9 auto, if the auto is not too bad. I have seen and owned quite a few Bowman Chrome baseball prospect autos, that are graded a 10 auto, and they have multiple streaks in the auto and long horrible. Like I was taught with coins, buy the card not the holder.

As most of you know, I only buy Lauzon and Souza cards, but every few sets there is always a few other cards I want. But my biggest pet peeve, is sticker autos. I would rather have a 9 and a 9 auto, on an on card auto card, than a sticker auto 9.5, with a 9.5 auto

one thing to take into account especially with MMA autos is that no company - PSA/BGS whatever, has an extensive database of comparisons - and no company has an authenticator that "knows" MMA autos well at this point - not to mention alot of MMA guys have horrendous autos anyway - i cant imagine trying to authenticate a forrest or mitrione auto ever - they are just to sloppy - hell even look at the way there are almost 2 completely different spider autos that came on certified cards from topps

Ron -
I use BGS and like them, but they don't authenticate the sticker autos. They only grade them. They would mark the card altered if you tried to remove a sticker or put another sticker on the card, but they leave the authentification to the card company.
There are some Nate Diaz autos (in person) that claim to be authentic on eBay. The cards are signed ND. Based on every Diaz I have seen, they are fake, but that have been authenticated. Check them out and let me know what you think.