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Last Updated On: July 19th, 2024
There’s no way around it: the card hobby is filled with scammers eager to prey on collectors’ zeal and hype. This threat not only takes the fun out of the hobby, but it can also cost collectors hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.
Of course, card collecting is far from the only big-money industry attracting bad actors; just last April, a forger of 15th-century woodcuts was sentenced to four years in prison (including restitution amounting to over $200,000).
But out of the ashes, a hero has risen. No, not Batman – the website Tiffanycards.com has taken it upon itself to create an “Altered Card Database.” In this post, we’ll look closer at the Altered Card Database, how it functions, and how you can use it at home. We’ll also discuss altered cards more broadly and suggest ways even beginner collectors can spot fakes.
Let’s jump in!
Table of Contents
Overview of the Altered Card Database
The Altered Card Database scours countless sources online – social media, eBay, third-party vendors like Goldin and PWCC – to compile and track cards that have been identified as altered. According to Tiffany Cards, an altered card is any that “undergoes modifications or changes from its original condition, whether with the intent to deceive a buyer or enhance the perceived condition of the card. . .”
The Altered Card Database essentially acts like an aggregation of any known irregularities affecting a card. Vigilant collectors can report cards that then appear in the database. This process tends to veer on the more stringent side, as we’ll see below, but when it comes to catching out-and-out fakes, a crowd-sourced database makes a ton of sense.
The site doesn’t just track “altered cards” either. In fact (and perhaps more importantly), Tiffany Cards also provides information on known “fakes.” These don’t need any explanation: a fake card is, well, a fake card.
All told, it’s an excellent resource to double-check your own big-ticket purchases and graded slabs.
What does the database track?
You’ll find all four major sports tracked by the Altered Card Database. Additionally, the database tracks a host of “other” cards, including Pokémon, NASCAR, boxing, and soccer.
As for what the database actually tracks, the cards tend to fall into four different categories:
- Altered:
- Trimmed – “When any sharp instrument such as a cutter, scalpel, or scissors are used to enhance a card’s edges, corners and/or centering”
- Colored – “When color is added to a card using ink, paint, marker, or a solution to artificially enhance its colors”
- Doctored in other ways – This includes “rebacking,” a process that involves separating the front and back of a card and replacing them with a different card
- Stolen: Cards that have been reported as stolen, or, in some cases, “backdoor” cards that were never intended for public release.
- Faked: “Any card or graded slab that is intended to deceive a collector into believe [sic] that it is an authentic original card or graded slab”
- Cleaned: When collectors use “cleaning kits” consisting of equipment and chemicals (i.e., beyond merely wiping the card with a microfiber cloth) that seek to restore the visual appearance of a card to its initial quality and improve its prospective value and grade
When should buyers verify against the database?
At a minimum, buyers should consult the Altered Card Database for high-end purchases, for instance cards valued at $1,000 or greater. Think your top-tier rookies, RPAs, Star Rubies, PMGs, and other in-demand inserts or parallels (perhaps an MJ Fleer insert from the ‘90s?).
When it comes to verifying against the database, much of the decision comes down to risk appetite. In all likelihood, most lower-end cards won’t face much danger of being counterfeited precisely because of the effort, time, and risk involved. Faking a Topps Now card probably doesn’t provide quite the ROI most scammers seek.
How to use the Altered Card Database
While we love the Altered Card Database, there’s a bit of a rub: it’s not the most user-friendly. We’ll discuss some of those issues below, but first, let’s walk through how to actually go about using the Database.
When you first encounter the Database, you’ll be instructed to select one of the following options:
The most likely options you’ll end up picking are either by sport or Cert Number (the grading card company’s unique slab identifier). Let’s take each one in turn, beginning with sport.
By Sport
If we select one of the sports, we’ll be taken directly to the portion of the database concerning that sport’s cards. The cards are listed in alphabetical order by the player’s last name (the first basketball name in the Database is a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the second: Lew Alcindor).
Each row consists of an individual card broken down by categories like Cert Number, if applicable, photos, the reason for the card being included in the Database (“Possibly”), and a link to the individual who reported the card.
If we click on the link in the “Possibly” box, we’re taken directly to the source of the issue. In the case of the first Abdul-Jabbar card on that list, we’re redirected to a discussion in Blowout Cards about trimmed cards, which features the card in question (and a handful of others).
Remember, we’re filtering by a given sport, which is more useful in limiting the results returned in the browser. We may want to search by a given player or card at this point, like we did here with Allen Iverson by hitting Ctrl + f in our browser and typing the player name.
By Grading Slab Cert #
The Cert Number database option looks strikingly similar to the one we just explored, with one difference: this page is organized in ascending order of Cert Number. To make the most of this feature, you’ll want to have your slabs handy so you can type in the cert number in the browser search/find box.
Let’s try it with one of my own cards, a PSA 10 2019 Donruss Optic #3 Giannis Antetokounmpo Splash! Purple.
Fortunately, no results turned back up! Let’s try this again, this time with a Kobe Bryant card from BGS that we know turns up in the Database (cert #0007417148):
Turns out, this specific card is considered fake.
Performance Issues
The Altered Card Database isn’t without its flaws, however. Like any three-tool baseball prospect, the database gets close to nailing it, minus a few performance issues.
For starters, the database is incredibly slow. This is the unfortunate trade-off when dealing with thousands upon thousands of entries.
Second, the site isn’t as user-friendly as it could be. This is most evident when searching for a card: computer users must use Ctrl + f from their browser, while iPhone users need to toggle to the “Find on Page” function, and Android users have their own separate process. A simple search bar would go a long way toward eliminating this hassle.
Ultimately, these are minor inconveniences compared to the Altered Card Database’s overpowering utility. At the same time, they are fairly easy fixes that (hopefully) could be included in an updated version.
Gray Areas / Controversy
It’s not just the user interface that may raise some eyebrows. Let’s look at some other ways a card (or collector) may end up on the Altered Card Database for right or wrong.
Cleaned Cards
The Altered Card Database closely tracks cleaned cards. As it stands in the hobby, the practice of cleaning cards is a polarizing issue, with strong cases to be made on both sides.
Just last year, we put together a comprehensive list of card surface area issues and the ways to avoid them. We even touted a vendor – “Kurt’s Card Care” – that seemed to have cracked the code on breathing fresh life into faded gems.
Here’s the issue: because the Altered Card Database relies on crowd-sourced reports of cleaned cards, anyone who tags Kurt’s Card Care on Instagram almost certainly sees their card end up in the Database. Check out the Giannis Antetokounmpo card featured in this post:
If we search by PSA Cert number, we find the same card with the issue labeled as “Cleaned.”
Whether this practice is fair is entirely up to the collector. Some purists would rather have a card with more surface issues and lacking any attempted cleaning, while others believe more firmly in the value of an aesthetically pleasing card.
Known Trimmers
Another way that the Altered Card Database’s more conservative approach to reporting might have unintended consequences is via its “Known Card Doc” identifier.
These are people that at one point are alleged to have trimmed or altered a card in some way. As a result, every one of the cards in their grading submission is red flagged in the database for the possibility of having been doctored — without any before and after photos to prove the same.
In some ways, this rigidity is helpful; breaking the rules only once should give collectors a pause for concern about future transactions. But in the same breath, the lack of context or supporting information about “Known Card Docs” opens the Database up to some reasonable scrutiny.
How to Spot a Fake: Quick Tips
Ultimately, the database is supremely helpful for spotting fake and altered cards. But how can you begin identifying these at home? Here are three tests you may be able to run on a card.
The Eye Test
You don’t necessarily need to rush out and purchase any fancy equipment to judge a card’s veracity; use your built-in lie detectors, A.K.A., your eyes! Check out these cards, posted in Blowout Cards:
Do you notice anything different between the two? Yes, one is graded while the other is not, but what about the card itself. Here’s a hint: the graded card has been altered, while the raw card is legit. You can tell by checking out the edges of the black bar across the card’s midsection.
See how the raw card is frayed slightly while the graded card is perfect? Just by eyesight alone, we’re able to call out this card. And by the way — that card made it into the database:
The Database also has instances of altered patch cards where a scammer would swap out a single-color patch in favor of a more compelling multi-color swatch. The difference in value can be significant in this regard given collectors consider single-color patches boring.
Slab Test
Similarly, you can verify a slab by its patent number. This was especially helpful in 2022, when BGS was caught in a major brouhaha over faked slabs. What the forgers forgot is that most major companies’ slabs are patented, meaning the small serial code at the slab’s base is a key indicator of its authenticity.
Many slabs also come with anti-theft features in newer models, including PSA’s reflective lighthouse and fugitive ink. Not only does this help detect forgeries, but also makes for a great reason to reholder your cards.
Flashlight Test
Most phones today come equipped with a flashlight, which is an excellent tool to use for older cards. Vintage cards (think ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s) were printed on a much thicker card stock. Thus, if you shine a light on a card and can see through it, it’s likely a fake, with the scammers using a thinner material than originally used.
Summary
The Altered Card Database does an excellent job consolidating many of the “known” issues tracked down by internet sleuths. That said, it stands to reason that there are tons of unknown trims and fakes yet to be discovered (and may never be!).
But the Altered Card Database does offer some hope. At the very least, it’s a start to reclaiming the hobby from nefarious scammers. In that vein, the Database shouldn’t be viewed as entirely comprehensive, but rather as an instructive guide for collectors when considering a big-money purchase.
Fortunately, other entities are getting involved. Graders like PSA have been imaging all cards graded since January 2023. While helpful, it’s easy to see the gaps where they exist: PSA experienced a grading surge between 2020 and 2022, so those cards aren’t included in the digitization, for instance.
Further, newer card graders like TAG are taking digital imaging to the next level, providing almost the equivalent of a card’s genome sequence in its handy DIG report.
Ultimately, it’s hard to have too much vigilance when it comes to fake cards. A few tweaks would make the Altered Card Database pop, while additional help from the grading companies is more than welcome!