It depends on whether you're thinking long or short term. In the short term, I think all TPG will fell a bit of a pinch. Any service relies on customer confidence that that service is at least adequate for the price. And this sort of high profile admission will probably lower that confidence.
That being said, organizations that do similar things in different hobbies have faced the same sort of problem and dealt with it. Coins and stamps used to get certificates without even a picture, just an opinion about the item being genuine (I forget if the old coin ones had grades, I'm thinking they did, but it's been so long since I've seen one I can't be sure)
Then some "stuff" happened.
People figured out that a coin that wasn't quite uncirculated could be swapped for one that was nicer. With no picture on the cert it was hard to tell.
So the authenticators and others started slabbing. Some better at it than others.
In stamps basically the same thing happened. Plus one of the major authenticators had a scandal where a couple large dealers items got passed as good when they weren't. They handled it well, clearing out a load of people and invalidating some certs they assume to be bad.
And everyone began adding pictures of the item.
Some items come now with multiple certs, and because there's very little slabbing anything with an old cert is worth getting redone. (Condition can change, some faking gets figured out, even the technology changes - years ago a certain group of stamps was delisted because being sure they were real was VERY difficult. That's changed, and now they're back in the catalog and being rediscovered, some after 40+ years in an odd collecting limbo)
PSE slabbed stamps, and might still, but it's proven unpopular. And grading for stamps has had the same arguments against as TPG for cards.
The end result is a
better authentication and grading service. And the services have constantly upgraded their abilities and certificates. They're also typically more trustworthy.
The stamp places take their time, and get it right nearly every time. They also make use of the category "we decline to offer an opinion" when they need to.
I think in the long run the major grading companies will be just fine. But they'll make some big changes, more than just a less tamperable case. Some of those may need to be driven by new competitors with a better method, but overall things will be better.
I have no idea on the collection or whose it was.
Steve Birmingham
PS yes, I know this is a bit too optimistic for this crowd.
