I have read some of the threads above but not all of them and don't think it matters much. What I do think matters is that once a card has been graded it has effectively been commoditized. Commoditized in the sense that it might not be widely available but it should be indistinguishable from another graded similarly from the same grading company and therefore is identifiable and SUBSTITUTABLE. SUBSTITUTABLE is the key thing here. It is basic free market tenant that a psa 4 of a certain player is a psa 4 of that player regardless of who the seller is, the laws of economics make those 2 cards equal value.

There is only one way those 2 cards can be worth different amounts and that is if other services have been attached to those cards or they have been exposed to a greater audience of potential buyers. Given that, I feel I don't ever need to read these stories, similar cards should be selling for approximately the same price regardless of who the seller is. If they don't, something has to be occurring during specific auctions for that psa 4 that is not occurring in other auction all else being equal. If that weren't the case, arbitrage would be possible and would occur, that's how things work, period. I'm not talking about any specific seller here I am talking about the process and market dynamics.

In my opinion, something is occurring in certain auctions to garner higher prices for the exact card than in other auctions for that same card.

Can it be anything else?????

Sure, some people exclude buy it now listings from their searches. Other that that, nothing

Your premise that all cards in the same grade from the same TPG are worth the same is flawed.

I agree.

Many cards, despite the same grade have different flaws and each of those flaws affects the cards value.

Some don't mind a bit of off center, or dinged corners and some don't mind small wrinkles/creases, but there are always those, including myself, depending on the flaw, can't stand certain things; creases for me.

Also, it depends who is looking at the time, how bad they need a card, etc, etc, etc.

Too many variables to say all 4's, for example, should be priced the same.

All PSA 4's (or any grade), are not equal. One only has to look at PSA's grading standards to realize this.

First off, does the card have 50/50 centering, or is it centered 85/15?

Is there a crease in the card, or not?

Is the surface scuffed/scratched, or not?

How bad is any rounding of the corners?

How much of the original gloss remains?

Are the borders clean & white, or are they dirty?

Finally, who is the seller of the card? If on ebay, what is their feedback level? Basically, how reputable are they? I would much rather spend a bit more and deal with a known reputable seller, than take a chance with "Bubba's Auctions".

Steve

I was waiting for that response, the premise is not flawed. I am talking about a general population of say psa 4's. While one specific psa 4 might be a bit different from another psa 4 in general they are graded using identified guidelines and fall within a specific framework to be graded a psa 4. That's whats meant by commoditized. Think for instance about cocoa beans one bean might be a bit better than another but still fall within the grade "A" classification . A psa 4 is essentially a psa 4 and if you sell enough of them the quality averages out.

If you can establish that one seller only sells the highest quality cards within that specific stratification of say a psa 4 then you can be right (or it can be viable that they garner higher prices than another seller) but I think to believe that one seller takes the time or rejects other cards that are considered weak for the grade I think is naive despite what they might claim in their descriptions.

Thoughts?

I understand what you're trying to say in principle, but I think the argument is weakened by drawing an analogy to real commodities like cocoa beans. In a single bushel, there's what, maybe 100K beans? Of course minor differences between single beans are not likely to be noticed and they are purchased according to their broad classification. However, in any given year, a T206 Red Cobb PSA 4 might see 20-30 examples change hands, and these occasions are infrequent enough whereby the individual quality of each card can be assessed and valued relative to other examples.

If you're talking about PSA 9 Ken Griffey Juniors, where 100's might be sold in a given year, then I agree with your point, that prices should generally fall within a very tight range. But I believe it's hard to apply that argument to pre-war where populations are significantly lower.

We know Cortney was pals with Brent. Do we know if the consignor John P. was friends with or knew Brent? Was John P. friends with or did he know Cortney?

Wouldn't that be called an auctions "mailing list"?

In an ideal world, yes.

LOL. No. There will be no bidding anywhere on anything.

It is unfortunate that the previous thread was locked because, in our opinion, there is no reason to limit honest and thoughtful dialogue. We truly value the unbiased nature of the discussion boards, so intentionally try to only chime in when needed. This will be our only post on this thread.

Many of you have raised concerns about the request that Brent made to Cortney that he place another bid to become the high bidder. The honest truth is that the request was made because had he not taken a place as the high bidder we would have blocked him for string bidding. It was a request simply to enable Cortney to remain allowed to bid with PWCC. It was an ill-advised in hindsight, hasn't happened before, and won't happen again. It is absolutely not a normal request, because Cortney is not a normal bidder.

Cortney has since been blocked completely from participating in PWCC auctions, yet we are closely working with him to close a balance from previous purchases and consignments. Additionally, we are working to ensure that he is properly refunded for a recent purchase that unfortunately had a compromised PSA case and a counterfeit card. After this refund is complete, and balance is closed, our business dealings with him will be complete.

Betsy Huigens

Betsy,

Out of curiosity, how do you know Cortney would have been able to become the top bidder at a reason amount? How do you know the high bidder at the time you made that request had not already put in an atomic top all type of bid? Would you have required him to pay even if he ended up winning at that high bid?

I understand that string bidding can be a sign of shill bidding so what is everyone's thoughts on a legitimate bidder using string bidding in an attempt to scare other users away from an auction?

DJ

I string bid all the time. Not because I'm shilling, but because I'm on the phone a lot for work and have several monitors going. When I'm multitasking and on autopilot I tend to just click on the bid button several times rather than type in a number. I never even thought of it as being an issue until I saw a couple of these threads.

Just had to quote that.

Why would you click on it several times?

In the name of honest dialogue who did the work on the wwg dimaggio?

"there is no reason to limit honest and thoughtful dialogue" and you "truly value the unbiased nature of discussion boards" yet you are not interested in participating in said dialogue and you pick and choose which questions to answer.

Exactly.

In the name of thoughtful dialogue you sell many very high end cards and obviously are aware of the huge issue with compromised or fake slabs in that market segment. How did cortney,s card get through your screening process and what went wrong? How do you know if it is an isolated incident?

Bs meter go off? Lol.

Auctions and Collusion
 

Auctions will always be susceptible to manipulation from collusion. In a fixed price scenario, the sale price is determined only by the seller and the buyer – a truly arms-length scenario. However, in an auction scenario, the sale price is determined by the seller, the buyer and the second highest bidder. The second highest bidder has no risk, allowing: (1) the seller and the second highest bidder to collude to raise the hammer price or (2) the buyer and the would-be second highest bidder to collude to lower the hammer price. Case 1 is the classic shill bidding scenario. In Case 2, consider a case where two “friends” who have the same collecting interests agree that one of them will bid in a particular auction and the other will refrain, thereby reducing the hammer price.

Even though I love winning auctions below my “max bid” as much as the next guy, I believe this collusion is why eBay has trended toward a fixed pricing model and why that is probably where things are likely trending long term.

Unless someone can come-up with a solution to the collusion problem, of course.

Sorry PWCC but between string bidding and bid retractions, bid retractions are way, way, way more important to stop than string bidding. Yet you continue to focus on the former.

Get serious about banning anyone with >1 bid retraction in the past 6 months and maybe we'll take your comments seriously. Compared to banning those who retract bids, worrying about string bidding is a waste of time.

jeff

Because he "Found" the top bid by string bidding. The next bid was less than the minium bid so you in essence have found the top bid. If he bids one more time then he would have become the high bidder. Cortney knew exactly what he was doing when he did that, he'd been warned not to do it. No matter what you think of PWCC I don't know how anyone can come to any other conclusion as to what was being discussed in those two text shots that Cortney posted. PWCC should have cancelled his bids instead of asking him to take the top bid.

And once again the focus is being shifted from the real issue here. A card was purchased, doctored and somehow got into a PSA 7 slab when you or I would never have gotten that grade if we'd presented it to PSA.

First off, I want to thank the one who enlightened me on this post by PWCC (Brent)........

Now Brent, I promised to keep quiet about a few things that I know you don't want on here, as long as there was no more "mud slinging or trash talk" about me, but if you keep this up, I'll be back. The drama that comes with these forums is not for me, which is why I backed away; and is highly unprofessional. You're working closely with me BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING FORCED TO and are only taking action BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING FORCED TO.

Also, after TODAY, (with the help of a very high ranking authority figure), our debt is settled once you send me my cards. It only took getting them involved to work out in 2 days what you wouldn't invoice in 4 months, yet wanted to slam me on as a "very large unpaid debt".

Would you like me to enlighten these people about "the recent purchase" and what else is entailed? Piss me off. I think it's clear who WON this war by how THIS DAY ended!!!!! I will not mention names, b/c that was an ill advised choice in the only other thread that I've EVER been involved in, but I absolutely will enlighten them on other "recent purchases". Keep it up hoss. I'm trying to play nice, but I will fight back and throw a lot more into this fire.

Heck, I smell round 3 :)

If brent just acknowledged selling a counterfeit card in a compromised holder i sure would think it would be appropriate to hear more detail and to hear from pwcc about it, instead of the this is our last post noise. People need to understand this as much as possible.

Mmm,,, as the plot thickens. :rolleyes:
I honestly think Brent/PWCC need to really come clean here if they hope to save face, if it's not too late already?

I agree, and as I alluded to in the other thread, there are 3 players in this fiasco, not just 2, and so far, we are only getting tidbits and not the details we need to piece this together once and for all.

If it's a higher dollar card or something I'm seriously after I'll snipe it, but when I'm impulse bidding I'll typically just click until I'm the high bid. There's no strategy or malice behind it, it's more out of laziness when I'm on the phone or watching tv or whatever.


I agree with this 100%. I was outbid on a card this morning then the guy retracted. I clicked on his history for the heck of it and he has 43 retractions in the past 6 months. Ebay obviously doesn't care about that.

Nor does, despite what they say, PWCC apparently. :confused:

Just to clarify, the auction with the retraction I experienced this morning was not PWCC.

My apologies, I thought it was.

I still stand by my comment, however, as it has been shown multiple times in the other thread, and a few others, that they clearly don't obey their own rules or guidelines.

"Tell people what they want to hear-and what they want to hear, is what won't happen.

"...there is no reason to limit honest and thoughtful dialogue. This will be our only post on this thread." Betsy and Brent must think everyone is not as smart as they are. No other POSSIBLE explanation for any of their responses.

For their sake they had better hope they are never cross examined. If their posts are any reflection of their testimony it would not work out too well for them. We all know there be no consequences for the BS that has been going on in their auctions and now the links to card doctoring but they really should have made it a policy to not reply at all.

A policy that seems to be working out for Goldin auctions.

Greg i think many people just have no interest in or appetite for controversy or negativity. So they convince themselves it is ok, or it doesnt affect them. I mean we just had a rather startling admission, that pwcc sold a counterfeit card in a compromised holder, and the silence is deafening. Not implying any fault, but it calls out for more information from pwcc as the implications go well beyond a dispute between brent and cortney.

My thoughts for years were that if I were to send cards to pwcc they'd never get those prices. I can only say I shocked they'd admit it regardless of the "context" provided. Not only did they ask someone to bid, whether or not it was their own consigment, they ASSURED they'd be outbid!

Man talking about going round and round...there is a lot of discussion about if they ASSURED they would be outbid. If you bid a $1000 on a 1952 Topps PSA 8 Mantle and i said 'you will be outbid' does that mean anything..

plus leon i believe said that the text we saw could be open to many interpretations...

Anyway, we never got to see any of those other texts that were promised by Courtney (he said had problems getting them off his phone)

Sounds like an episode of catfish (im sorry my camera doesnt work )

It is quickly looking like Courtney/Cortney (really unsure of spelling as it has been used so interchangeably) has taken some stuff out of context, unless of course he unleashes the beast like he should and proves us all wrong.

He has been contacted multiple times and is ignoring/dancing around things when specifically told he can be helped to get the items off of his phone, repeatedly going back to the beginning when he joined.

I don't doubt that the texts are not damning by themselves to a certain extent, but it may not be as extreme as he is making them out to be. This doesn't change the fact that PWCC isn't addressing it either, and that they were likely the ones to who cleaned the card, which is an entirely different issue.

I will stand corrected. He did just reply to my post privately.

Hopefully he will take necessary steps to secure his phone conversation content soon, should something go wrong like, theft, failure or damage.

The issue surrounding compromised cases is not new to the hobby and has sadly affected every major auction house. We receive 15,000+ items for consignment each month. We have at least five sets of eyes review each card. In most cases, we identify the rare instances of fraud. On some unfortunate occasions, we miss it. In each case, just like the case with Cortney, we do what is right, take responsibility for the loss, and refund the purchase price to the buyer.

Betsy Huigens

Ok. Based on the message above. Is PWCC making it right? Did PWCC offer a refund to the winner? And if so, Will PWCC reholder the card, such the fact saying its been 'restored'. And if PSA doesn't label it as such, well the pitchfork turns to them I guess. What ever has or will or will not happen, just bad business for the hobby.
Edit: I am asking about the DiMaggio, not about the compromised holder.

Just another guy with a pitchfork.

The problem, and not by any means limited to PWCC, is that the problems are not always discovered later, as they were in Cortney's case. I was surprised to hear that the card was counterfeit though, I previously was aware of lower graded cards going into higher graded holders but not outright counterfeiting.