"Auctioneer Bashing" by Joe Orlando

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

Steve,

To answer your question, yes, if I have nothing to hide, I would post here. If I'm running the leading 3rd party authenticator in the hobby, I would recognize that as head of that company I have a responsibility to forthrightly address legitimate concerns expressed on the leading chat board in the hobby. In doing so, yes, I know there will be those who will attack me no matter what I say. But I think that if I come across as responsive to those concerns, I will gain the respect of the vast majority of board members. And in the process I will only brighten my company's business outlook.

And I would always return telephone calls.

So why then doesn't he post? Perhaps because he knows he will not be able to persuade well-intentioned reasonable people that his company's actions are motivated by anything other than its bottom line. So in such instance he will reasonably conclude that his best strategy will be to confine his remarks to a friendly forum that he controls where he can stifle all dissent.

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Posted By: Jason L

#1) Bruce - LOVED your post - very funny stuff!

#2) I just got my SMR yesterday and I have to say that I was astounded at the ridiculous lack of reading material. It's getting worse. Not to mention the fact that the coverboy (MJ) was not even pictured in the article about the basketball set in question. weird choice.
Read the blurb from Joey O. and I have to say that he didn't seem to say much. Just a whine to stop picking on his friends. not sure why he thought it needed him to say it. That's what I don't understand. It just doesn't seem like a good business idea to pick on your client base (hobbyists).

really weird stuff.

I wonder how PSA is going to handle the recession.

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Posted By: Alan

Do you think he's a lurker on this board ?

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Posted By: Brad Larson

This thread really proved Joe's point about internet message boards and the ease of bashing a company in a public forum. I guess the guy should just abandon the editorials that he does, because all it provides is fuel for neato message board guys to bash a company that they could just as easily avoid doing business with in a silent manner instead of feeling the need to use the anonymous power of the internet to "make a difference."

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Posted By: DD

"I would recognize that as head of that company I have a responsibility to forthrightly address legitimate concerns expressed on the leading chat board in the hobby".

Corey, that is totally true. And Joe does address it on the leading chat board in the hobby; the PSA CU board.

I believe that he does do this. Deleting threads, ignoring phone calls, pretending criticism is misplaced, etc., all address concerns. Unfortunately for everyone, they are Joe's concerns.

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Posted By: leon

Yeah, Joe addresses it on a chatboard where he can remove anything he doesn't like.....And you are partially wrong about the best chatboard on the internet. Yes, the PSA one is best at shiny new stuff.....but it can't hold a candle to this one for pre-war....not even remotely close, in my biased opinion. Half of their posters wouldn't have a clue what a t206 is....nor do they care...which is fine too....I think if Corey would have said "The best pre-war card chatboard on the internet" it would have been more correct. I am sure their boards get more traffic....not better, but more......

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Posted By: Steve

I'm sure Leon would love to hear from Joe when these issues come up.



lol I'm just as sure too.


Steve

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Posted By: Rich Klein

I'd go the Beckett message boards; and while it is moderated; very few if any threads are deleted from those boards --

I would probably use PSA for good information on 1957-1990 cards.

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: DD

Leon,
You know I love this board. My comment on the best board was tongue-in-cheek.

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Posted By: Brad

"Yes, the PSA one is best at shiny new stuff.....but it can't hold a candle to this one for pre-war....not even remotely close, in my biased opinion".

I agree 100% on that statement. And I would take away the "biased" and replace with "fact based" LOL.

The knowledge of pre-war on these boards is unbelievable and leagues ahead of anywhere else I've visited. However, the amount of biased opinions of grading companies and constant bashing of one particular grading company is also more frequent than anywhere I visit. I guess you trade one for the other, lol.

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Posted By: leon

I agree the PSA bashing does get tiresome. Hey, at least they aren't bashing me (today-...yet)....

Also, no way do I think PSA switches out cards. I think they have probably made mistakes on reholdering cards to have new submission numbers on the flips but I don't think they would switch out cards...That sounds too crazy....

One last thing...I agree with King. We don't want to hear about "what if" and "maybe" concerning PSA or any company. Give us some facts.....

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Posted By: boxingcardman

JO can write what he wants in "his" magazine. If what he writes is wrong, silly, ridiculous, self-serving, disingenuous or any other species of spin or BS in the view of collectors here, he will get called out for it, same as any other person in the Hobby who mouths off about the Hobby. As far as bias goes, many of the regular posters here have had unsatisfactory encounters with JO in the past, but there are very few people here who are inherently unfair in their responses to things posted here. Not because they are all such great people (didn't think I would get all "up with people", did you? ) but because they would get flamed as badly or worse for launching an unfair attack. There have been a few instances of posters here with axes to grind and the general community gets sick of it after a while and calls out those people.

Jim Rome summed it up best: "Have a take and don't suck."

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Jason L

Leon,
I had assumed JO's comment about the leading messaage board in the hobby was him talking about his own PSA CU board. He doesn't even acknowledge this one, does he?
Why would he care about pre-war? he's trying to pump volumes of plastic through the system

Adam,
I will be launching an unfair attack shortly. Please stay tuned.

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Posted By: leon

Joe said..to paraphrase "With the popularity of message boards on the Internet"......I am sure he is referring to his own as well as others. I am also sure he is at least aware of Net54 as some of my friends are friendly with him and they told me they have talked about Net54 with him....I would guess he lurks a little bit but don't know that for sure....

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Posted By: dan mckee

Call him and ask him Leon, if he doesn't answer, leave a message, he will be sure to get back to you.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I think just about everybody lurks, but not everybody is willing to admit it.

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Posted By: Alan

At last years National, one of the registry guys was showing me a PSA-1 card & was thinking that it might be a PSA-2 so he called Joe's cell phone & Joe told him to stop over to the PSA booth.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

"Go **** yourself?"

Or "come by on Monday when we're open"

Hah, that would be GAI.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: cmoking

"I think just about everybody lurks, but not everybody is willing to admit it."

Barry, I disagree. I think people on this board, and any message board for that matter, think more people read it than really do. They may know about the board, no doubt Orlando knows about N54, but may simply not have the time or energy to read even once in a while. I know if I was working full-time, I'd spend less than 10% of the time I spend now goofing off with forums, etc.

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Posted By: leon

Unfortunately the statistics prove you wrong on this one.....even if every single person has THREE computers....there still seem to be a lot of different eyes on this board per month....Here are Unique IP addresses that have hit the front page of this forum, per month, this year......


January..... 10,160
February..... 11,014
March..... 11,286
April..... 10,889
May..... 11,592

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Posted By: cmoking

Leon, great numbers, congrats. You should be proud of it, as it is clear you are.

But proof...humbug, those numbers aren't proof of anything. It proves a decent nubmer of people read this board, and that's great. But it doesn't prove anything as far as the percentage or "majority" of pre-war collectors or people in the hobby. Just to be specific, I was referring to Barry's quote of : "I think just about everybody lurks, but not everybody is willing to admit it." Now, I didn't take him literally when he used "everybody", but I did take him to mean "most people". I disagree with that...your numbers don't prove me wrong nor you right.

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Posted By: leon

I agree with you that I don't think "most" vintage collectors read this board. I do still think this is the best and most popular vintage baseball card site on the internet though (of course I am biased).....besides maybe ebay....and the numbers somewhat show that.....but technically we are in agreement .....

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Posted By: JimB

Don't mess with King when it comes to numbers!
JimB

P.S. Who knows what the percentage is, but I think it is fair to say that a sizable chunk of the active vintage card collecting community reads this board on at least a semi-regular basis.

edited to add: I would be shocked if Joe Orlando does not pop in here for a peek, at least on occassion. I would really be shocked if he is not notified when he or PSA is the subject of discussion.

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Posted By: Chris

"Unfortunately the statistics prove you wrong on this one.....even if every single person has THREE computers....there still seem to be a lot of different eyes on this board per month....Here are Unique IP addresses that have hit the front page of this forum, per month, this year......"

The numbers are definitely up there, but keep in mind Searchbots and spyders count toward those totals too. There's a lot of stuff that goes on "behind the scenes" that isn't done by a human. All those hits count too.

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Posted By: cmoking

"but technically we are in agreement ....."

Excellent!

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Posted By: Kevin Saucier

We had a long conversation no so long ago and Net54 came up. He lurks more than you would think.

Kevin

------------------------------

www.AlteredCards.com - in-depth education on advanced card doctoring techniques & detection with detailed examples

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Posted By: barrysloate

King- there are many people who do not read the board regularly, but when they are getting bashed on a thread they will get contacted by a board regular who alerts them. But as Leon pointed out, there are many more people reading than posting.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

I think our board members would be shocked by the identities of some of the people who read -- but do not post -- here.

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Posted By: Sean BH

Jeff,
Are you talking about Puff Daddy?

I guess I should be on my best behavior.

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Posted By: Matt

If one was an industry figure, it would be almost negligent not to read this board. There is no other venue that I am aware of that has has such a high concentration of expert collectors discussing major hobby issues on a daily basis.

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Posted By: Ted Sherman

I have emailed JO twice and both time he responded. It was a dire situation, counterfeit card, and anyhting really importnant, but he emailed me back right away.



so muh for my two cents

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Posted By: dan mckee

Joe sees posts on this board that involve him. I think Jim is correct that he has someone look for him and only send him posts that concern him as he can't possibly have the time to read through everything. I know this for a fact as he referenced a post of mine when he screamed at me on the phone and hung up on me. Dan.

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Posted By: B D

Rip Taylor
and Woody Allen lurk on this board
as well as Ferguson Jenkins and Dom DeLuise!

Oh! and Joe Orlando does too! And probably Tony Orlando and Orlando Cepeda!

BcD