Yes, but only if the defacing/altering is for the purpose of fraud, which would apply if this were a fake error. It obviously doesn't apply to a mint error. uhhh, yeah, that would be a massive understatement. Yeah, but the PT Barnum quote still applies to the winner. Fred bid less than $35 for it and it ended at over $800. I find it hard to believe that the bidder has some kind of knowledge that a major error dealer doesn't about this coin's value!