UNBELIEVABLE! PSA and the HERMANSK 48 LEAF!

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Posted By: dan mckee

IDIOTS! PSA GRADERS ARE IDIOTS!



http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2771266816&category=16269

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Posted By: jay behrens

Just a quick question, are you sure you are seeing the same card being auctioned several times? I haven't been following this Hermansk thing close, but if there really are as many mislabeled cards as what you ahve been posting, then there really is a serious knowledge problem over at PSA

Jay

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Posted By: Brian H.

Isn't this flogging a dead horse.... I have had cards badly mislabelled by both PSA and SGC -- they will both fix it promptly for free and with apologies.

Yes, they make mistakes (we all make mistakes) but it comes with volume and trying to maintain low costs through dividing the labor process. Sure, it would be nice if they didn't make mistakes; it would be nice if I didn't make mistakes to... It would also be nice if there were a little less glee someone discovers that someone else has made a mistake.

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Posted By: jay behrens

In some professions there is no room for error. Although mislabeling a card is not a life or death error like a surgeon can make, errors like the Hermanski are errors that should never be made if you have knowledgeable employees.

It's one thing to make a typo, it's whole other story when you actually type out Hermansk and label it as an error when all you have to do is look at the card and see that what you are putting on the label is not the name on the card.

I can look past the occassional typo, but to mislabel a card that involves making more than a simple typo is inexcusable for a professional organization.

Jay

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Posted By: Nixon

EDITORIAL: in my opinion, grading is stupid and grading "experts" are phonies. Trimmed cards are being graded. Cards are being mislabeled. Subjective numbers are being assigned to cardboard -- and some people eat it up, and part with way too much cash in exchange for what? Not a card. Not history. Nope. They buy a number. Great. Someone looks at cardboard and assigns a number to it? Give me a break. "Grading" is smoke and mirrors. It's fiction. Wake up.

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Posted By: Ben

NIXON = Post of the year!!!

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Posted By: Lee Behrens

I kind of look at it as paying for a holder to protect the card and if by chance I decide to sell the card it will get more money than when raw. It is still a very nice holder to protect your cards. I collect those T202s and it is tough to find a good way to store them other then slabbing them.

Lee

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Posted By: runscott

If you were thinking about opening a coffee shop, but couldn't find anyone who knew how to brew a good cup of coffee, would you do it? The answer is obvious. But...if you could find a bunch of idiots who were willing to pay a lot of money for a bad cup of coffee in a really attractive cup, you might open your shop anyway. This board has a lot of people who will defend a bad cup of coffee to the death.

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Posted By: Nixon

Before PSA, SGC, GAI, and so on, collectors managed to safely store their cards without having them entombed. I don't need PSA to protect my cards. Before grading services, collectors managed to educate themselves to recognize the fake from the real, the trimmed from the intact. I don't need some self- proclaimed "expert" to tell me what's good and what's not. And if protection is all there is to it, why does everyone insist that grading services give their cards numbers? Let's face it: advocates of grading services fall into three categories: the first is the grading companies that make money; and the second are the sellers who make money by taking advantage of the third group -- card buyers whose gut level appreciation of a card isn't the player, the card, or the history, but the number assigned to it by that self-proclaimed expert. The folks in groups one and two I respect; they're just making as much money as they can, and that's great. It's the folks in group three who are the chumps.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Nixon, got a real name to with your handle?

You also did not tell what group 3 was, so no way to determine if your description of 'chumps' may be accurate.

I am on old time collector and more than capable of telling what is fake and able to grade a store my cards, but the reason I use a grading service, in my case SGC, is that the slab is very attractive. Much better than anything I could do myself. So I don't mind shelling out a few bucks to show and protect my most prized cards. Binders are ok, but I have had more thana few people over the years manage to damage cards in binders and plain plastic screwdowns aren't very attractive.

As for complaints about people paying for a number on a slab, you are preaching to the choir here. Pretty much everyone here that buys slabbed cards buys the card in the slab, not the grade asigned to it. Take trip to the CU baord and see what kind of reaction you get over there.

Jay

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Posted By: Nixon

Oh really? Then here's a challenge for you all, new collectors and old: the next time you send a card into a slabbing service just because it looks so pretty in the big plastic holder, tell the service to slab the card, but not to grade it. Think you can do it? Will you do it? If you won't because you think you can sell graded cards for a profit, great, I respect that. Go for it. But if the card's a keeper since you're a "collector" and you still get it graded, then be honest: you collect numbers first, and cards second. If that's you, admit it and back away from the folly: get your card slabbed, but tell the grading service to keep their "grade" to themselves.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Nixon, chill a bit. We all get your point: collecting should be a pure endeavor and not driven by money, etc. I don't know about the rest of the people on this board, but I've never purchased a card in my life with the thought of flipping it for a profit--or ever selling it in my lifetime. I am self-employed in a field far from card collecting. Nevertheless, I dare say that my personal collection is probably worth as much as anyone's on this board. I rarely buy graded cards if they're from the 50s on because I can usually tell on ebay if a card is damaged. If I can't see the card well enough, I'll just take a pass. Nevertheless, I've spent four figures on a number of cards (T206s, etc.) and I'll be damned if I'm going to buy it raw. The cleverness of the thieves on ebay and elsewhere make it very difficult to determine in a scan if a card has been tampered with. And with an objective third party grading company (except Pro of course), I at least have a better chance of knowing that I'm not throwing money down a rat hole. As for getting my personal cards graded, I have little interest as I will never sell my collection. But at age 38, I won't live forever and I would like to leave my collection to my kids in good shape. Therefore, occasionally I will get a very expensive card graded that I purchased raw just to protect it for future generations who may not be as insane as I am about the hobby. Your argument about the companies simply assigning numbers to cardboard has merit; however, you should also go to the bank and complain to the tellers about why your pile of bills with 1s on them are worth less than the ones assigned with the number 100; after all, it's just the same paper...

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Posted By: Lee Behrens

My most recent conversation with SGC involved exactly what you were talking about, putting a card in the holder without the grade. I brought this up to them because of them returning ungradable cards unslabbed. I asked why they could not at least holder them without a label. I was told it was not a practice of there. Also if you read my earlier thread you will find that I pointed out that I like the holders but if it comes to selling time it certainly helps.

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Posted By: david

i am in the same boat when i comes to slabbing my cards. for the most part i submit all my cards to sgc because i like the way they look in the holder. in most cases sgc has specials where you can slab your cards for 5-10 dollars and the cards wind up looking much better then they would for paying 2 dollars for a screw down and replacing them ever few years because they look like garbage.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Nixon, the questions still stands, what is your real name? We love to have new people join the board, but at the same time, if you are not willing to back up what you say with real name, then you end up getting your posts deleted.

No one has a problem with what youa re saying, but at least man, or woman, enough to use you real name.

Jay

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Posted By: MW

Nixon,

Try not to get too carried away here. Let's not regress back to the days of full page SCD ads filled with ungraded "Mint" condition 1933 Goudey Ruths and "Gem Mint" Hank Aaron rookies...or that certain St. Louis dealer who used to sell "Gem Mint" condition, heavily slabbed vintage baseball cards by the truckload.

With the current eBay environment, I can only imagine what things would be like WITHOUT any standardized grading. There'd be complete chaos. Those sellers who had the sharpest scissors would also have the biggest bank accounts.

Eliminating third party grading would be analogous to legitimizing card doctoring and effectually instituting it as an acceptable (and prevalent) art form. Buying an expensive, unaltered vintage baseball card on eBay would be no easier than fitting Anna Nicole Smith in a size 3 dress.

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Posted By: runscott

Each morning I go down to the stream and fill my pitcher with honey, which I eat along with some manna that is delivered each day straight from heaven.

But I daresay my collection is worth less than anyone else's on the board, with the exception of Lee. As a teacher with limited disposable income, I "rent" vintage sports items. Not compelled to own much of anything, this has worked out really well, and allows me to participate in what can be a very expensive hobby. I DO have a huge shiny penny collection - they all fell out of the sky one day when I was waiting for my manna.

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Posted By: jay behrens

LMAO!!! Would she be able to to that dress on one arm? I think a leg would be out of the question.

Jay

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Like them or not the reputable slabbers add a great deal of stability to the buying and selling of cards. I am one of those obnoxious types who goes over every card I buy with a light and magnifier and I am perfectly willing to send back misgraded items. I used to return so many of my mail order purchases that I simply refused to buy through the mail at all for quite some time. With SGC and to some extent PSA and GAI, I can buy valuable cards through the mails and through ebay without worrying about the basic condition issues that made buying such a crap shoot. Do they make occasional errors? yes (in PSA'S case Yes+). Is it better than it was 10 years ago? Absolutely. The slabbers add value to the cards because they make them more fungible. I wish money was not an issue in cards, but it is. When you spend thousands a year on cards, money is a factor in every decision. Pollyana attitudes just don't cut it.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

I'm with Brian H. --enough of the whineing about some grading service or other making a mistake. We all realize they are not perfect. Time to get a life.