Memory Lane
 

Anyone have a sense as to how late this could go? These auctions all closing at once rather than lot by lot are ridiculous. Thanks if anyone can help.

Guess closed around 4am. I was fast asleep so didn’t matter one way of another. Great business model. Guy wants to spend money on your stuff but he has to stay up to 4am to be in the hunt. Whatever.

It closed at 5:05 am. Completely senseless not to close lot by lot. Back to sleep for me.

I forgot about it. :)

If it isn't REA, this Board doesn't seem to care.

I am biased and mainly concentrate on doing business with companies that advertise here. There are so many it is easy to do. I still buy elsewhere but would rather support those who support the forum.

Criticize PWCC all you want, but they don't engage in this stupidity. Auctions close during normal hours.

If you're willing to leave auto-bids, or snipes in the case of ebay, closing time is pretty much meaningless.

And it adds discipline to the bidding process

The 1959 Topps #464 Mays catch went for $33,989. There's one in PSA 8 for $130 BIN on ebay. I have one in about vg/e that I probably paid 50 cents for 40 years ago.
I liked that T205 Goode SGC 7, but I didn't want to pay $750 for it, when I can get a psa 4 for $39.
The e107 LaChance was at $1,100 when I went to sleep and it closed at around $15,000, so the late bidding helped that consignor.
I picked up a 1952 Topps Spahn in an SGC 8 holder for what I thought was a good price, but it's hard to know what to pay for stuff that you want these days. Rob

What's with some of the crazy e107 "common players" prices here and in REA? Multiple people building sets?

Some people are not comfortable leaving auto-bids. Also, auto or snipe bids do not help when a person truly doesn't know how high he/she is willing to bid until faced with losing the lot. That has happened with me. I believe being human there is a subconscious aspect to deciding how high to bid, and sometimes when we set a level we do it believing we will not be topped. Then when we unexpectantly are, we (to our surprise) bid higher.

I have no more desire than the other guy to stay up to some crazy hour waiting for an auction to close. But there have been times when topped on my key lot at the last minute and not having the means or desire to go higher that I shifted course and placed bids on other lots. I would not have been able to do that had those lots closed, and the consignor would not have received maximum price for his/her items.

Some auction houses (e.g., REA, RMY) have adopted a hybrid system. Start extended bidding earlier and have a sharp cutoff at some designated hour (usually around midnight) at which point the entire auction closes. This method in my view is a good compromise but still allows for last minute snipping.

I've wondered why no auction house has yet to try the following closing method, unless the software doesn't exist -- as the hour gets later and later to either in stages or in one step to reduce the interval after which if no bid is placed the auction closes. So say at 11 PM the interval reduces to 3 minutes, and at midnight it reduces to one minute. My guess is the auction will close fairly quickly once this happens, but it will allow all bidders full opportunity to retain all bidding options until the auction ends.

Like everything else, this method is not perfect, but maybe it will turn out to be the best of imperfect choices.

Great price IMO. SGC is dead. A PSA 8 53T went for twice that.

+1. Meanwhile, you have a gorgeous plank 2.5 close at $18k and a Young 5 close just north of $60k, both of which I think were steals in their own right but especially so compared to recent common sales

This would be a relatively simple upgrade to make to any well coded piece of software.

Understood, but as to auto bids, man if any of the major AHs have the cojones to be running people up after guys have gone to jail I would certainly be surprised. I'm not bidding on hugely expensive lots but I'm comfortable leaving them. Maybe that's naïve.

SGC's slow death
 

I agree, and I believe more than any other single reason for the downfall, the registry is to blame. It's not that PSA has any better or more reliable grading system. I don't hear a ground-swell that PSA is so much more stringent than SGC. They probably both dock each other's cross-overs to make it seem that the other is less stringent.

SGC's weakness is also not due to PSA's superior service. The SGC holders are the nicest among all of the TPG's and they should be helped by recent changes to the font on the slab, so a person like me with fading eyesight can now actually read the serial number. I think it is the PSA registry killing SGC. Whoever was in charge of that aspect of the offering for SGC missed the boat, didn't hear the alarm clock ring, and as a result SGC is in a relatively poor position.

I have probably 500+ PSA graded items, and maybe 100 or so SGC. At one point years ago, I preferred SGC. I still prefer them service wise and from the holder aesthestics. But I think the demand side of the equation has snowballed against them. I think the registry difference exacerbated that. I have mixed sets now and while I won't cross cards over due to the hassle and wait times now, I may actually buy a PSA card to fill out the set and then sell my equivalent SGC. I can't be alone in that behavior.

When the collector or dealer cannot get the same price in the market for a card in an SGC holder as a PSA holder, who other than someone who intends to never sell the card would choose SGC.

SGC's limited options to save the situation could include joining forces with whatever upstart company comes out with grading by machine optics rather than by humans. That, or if someone would need to come up with some kind of registry that links both of them together, perhaps adding in any other reputable TPG's if there are any (Beckett?). That seems unlikely because each company holds their own database of grading history and why would PSA share that and remove their significant advantage> For now it seems that the registry has SGC in a really bad situation.

Tony, the PSA Registry started in 2001. The decline in SGC prices is much more recent than that.

And I would add, I don't think most guys spending big bucks these days are set builders or registry folks.

SGC's slow death
 

Peter, ok, I hear that.

I think that the registry has caught on more recently - maybe not for the high end 5 and 6 figure T206 Cobbs, etc., but for the 1930's - 1960's collector, it has exploded into a sort of network effect like the social media companies have experienced. Some of them (remember MySpace) went by the wayside as the herd that moved to Facebook and Instagram found that they wanted to be where their friends were. I think the same is happening with PSA registry. It's a form of social media app.

If that's not it, what do you think the SGC downfall is? Do you think their standards or service or something else is causing the market price difference? They both have been caught up and outed in Net54 sleuthing scandals in the past couple of years...

Tony

+1... I have been saying this for 7-8 years with much criticism from members.....

That may be true, but they realize that they may some day sell the cards to a registry collector so they might as well opt for the registry friendly TPG.

I really don't think that has much to do with the prices we're seeing on the elite and centered cards. I think those values are independent of the registry.

No question the registry was a key part of building the brand, but I think it's only one of many factors now at play.

Only people I know actively collecting or submitting to SGC are pre-war collectors. Very small niche of the hobby.

And having said that, here's the irony about that....You can buy T206 SGC 84's for $350-375 range....PSA 7's are more like $525-675....I think that says it all....

Sorry...
 

I think we have turned this into a PSA vs. SGC thread and I didn't mean to. I do like to root for the underdog and would love there to be more than one reliable authority to compete for the grading business on vintage cards. I am rooting for an upstart if SGC can't recover.

Tony, I hear you.....But, if SGC doesn't rebound, the odds of another grading company are pretty slim. I'm not sure that all of SGC's recent multiple holder and grading changes was the best thing....Joe Orlando I'm sure is loving all of this....

From what I understand SGC is now also a very small operation basically running on a skeleton crew. BGS is giving PSA a good run for modern cards...especially with their "black label" concept which rolled out in 2015.

If PSA is the only company doing business, you can expect their quality to decline like any monopoly with significant barriers to entry.

And prices to increase!

Yes, that too! :D

Talk about insane $$$
 

Did anyone catch lot 226 - 1962 Venezuelan Leaders card with Mays that closed at 23K!!!:eek::eek: I am first in line to exclaim what an anomaly the card is in an 8.5 grade - absolutely stunning - but 23K!!?? for a leaders card.


Not much to add to the SGC-PSA conversation. I think SGC are more consistent(both companies with much imperfection in the consistency department) in their grading. I have always liked their holders better. Both due to the registry and the resale market, when I buy graded cards I usually buy PSA. That said I also "buy the card, not the holder" and have bid on plenty of SGC graded cards (most of which have gone higher than I wanted to).

This might not help my popularity around here, but here goes...

It's no secret that I collect lower grade cards, so to me it doesn't make any difference what holder they are in. I'd much rather take an SGC card for less money than the same card in a PSA holder. You see, I'm just a collector, not an investor or registry guy. So the less I have to pay for my cards, the more cards I can collect. I'm not caught up in having the nicest condition examples out there. Not saying there is anything wrong with that either. I love seeing sweet high grade cards in the monthly pick up threads just like everyone else does. And I don't begrudge anyone who has the means to collect high grade cards. I feel like when they push the prices of cards up and up it still helps the values of my cards slightly. But again, I collect them, I don't sell them. Sure I sell sometimes when I need to fund a purchase, but I'm not a seller per se. So, I prefer to acquire my cards in the nicer looking holders (IMO SGC is much nicer looking than PSA) for less money so I end up with more cards.

Just sort of rambling here. Carry on.

you're not alone Andy...in the minority maybe...but not alone!

I visited your site. Really nicely done. I think I might be able to help with several sets including 1954 World of Wheels!

I like the focus of your collection.