[jchcollins]

The pricing swings and general TPG insanity of 2020 into this year I think was finally enough to pushing me into saying "no more", as a garden variety collector of vintage cards.

The truth at least from my perspective is that there have been many things about grading that have been sketchy for quite some time, and the pricing with SGC for me a few months back was the last straw. Even in an environment with reasonable flat pricing, there are still far too many inconsistencies and shenanigans with grading that give me pause. For example, shoddy slab quality and grading range swings with SGC. I think at the end of the day all grading is accurate for at this point is for authenticity purposes - and yes, I'm talking about the big 3. A card that can be a 5 one day, and then cracked and submitted the next week only to get a 6.5 just makes zero sense to me. That happened to me earlier this year. This is borderline fraud for companies that have been doing this for 30 years at this point, and should freaking be able to do better if they continue to take money from their customers. I have zero faith in the ongoing process. Cards that are valued for their eye appeal over everything else will ALWAYS have a component of their technical grading that will remain subjective. No 2 ways about that. Yet these companies continue to prey on collectors who have been convinced otherwise...

Maybe if I were mostly a dealer and not a collector, I would still be in the practice of engaging TPG's for profitability, but I'm not. For those of you who are, and even those collectors who just love a well graded card in a nice slab (I actually still fall into that category when being idealistic, all my negativity here aside...) I hope that prices get reasonable again for you soon.