Absolutely! Just like realtors want us to all trade houses every 6 months.

i have a vault at my beach house ,,,this is securty

This is my favorite part:

The company’s grading scale will include “Perfect 10”, “Gem Mint 10” and “Mint Plus 9.5” in addition to the traditional 1-9.

I guess it's just a matter of time before people start giving out 11 grades (i.e. PSA 11).

I don't remember who said it, but I've got to agree with the sentiment that "There's no such thing as a perfect baseball card..." I suppose the modern crowd might disagree, but for anything over 10 years old, I think the concept still applies.

More likely a shed in Leon's backyard guarded by his dogs.

Or OVER 10% if you live just one state north of you.

I've never used a "vault", but I did sell an expensive card to a person in Japan. I was concerned about shipping, insurance, etc. to ship the card to Japan. As it turned out, I shipped the card to his PWCC vault account. That took a big load off. Another concern was I wanted to ship it USPS. The max USPS insurance coverage available through ebay was $5000. Not totally insured, but enough that I felt comfortable. It made it to PWCC with no problems.

So, if someone outside of CONUS purchases a card - from a seller's perspective - shipping the card to a "vault" within CONUS is fantastic.

With all the comments so far in this thread regarding taxes, an even deeper river is selling something outside of CONUS - and shipping to a "vault" in the United States. Complicated stuff.

If it makes you feel any better, with single party hegemony here in Oregon, our politicos are working hard to implement a sales tax. As with all taxes, they will sell us all on the low rate, but it will just be a matter of time until we rival WA. Plus we have among the highest state income tax rates in the country, whereas you have none!

Collectors I know are not interested in using this kind of service. They want the cards in their possession. Investors/Day Traders May Be Intrigued by this Kind of Like Buying Stock on Leverage, take out a loan against your cards in their vault. If they drop your SOL, you still owe back the loan difference Once they sell your card at less than your loan. I guess this is where we are at...PWCC THE NEW BROKERAGE HOUSE FOR TRADING CARD ASSETS. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL STORY.

PWCC THE E TRADE OF SPORT CARD'S

I’m fine with traders and investors never actually even seeing their cards. I’m great with people finding legal means to keep more of their money instead of getting it taken by the state. But if a person chooses to leave their cards with PWCC, well, they don’t deserve what happens but it will be difficult to have any sympathy for them.

Boom, agree!

What do you envision happening?

The vault thing combined with this loan scheme amounts to basically an online casino, no? I don't see the appeal of card collecting if you never even get to possess the items...

Much like the hyped-up NFT craze, I think we'll see this vault fad fade away with time.

investing not collecting, son
assets not cards

Does PWCC still use the term Assets instead of cards ?

It appears so:

"PWCC Capital provides loans and cash advances to clients against Vault assets and offers notes at various interest rates for clients seeking alternative investments."

"PWCC offers clients an exciting opportunity to build their personal collections and invest in a rapidly growing asset class."

Source: https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/about-the-marketplace

PWCC= The E TRADE OF SPORTS CARDS

Really wonder if this money rush to establish businesses to grade "assets" and stick them in vaults isn't a day late and a couple of million dollars short.

Very little of this mania is about Mickey Mantle cards and Babe Ruth. It's about Luka Doncic gold refractors and Trevor Lawrence and Jasson Dominquez and Zion and other modern players. In my limited time watching breaks and reading about the modern card realm, it's clear so many potential big guys have already blown up and burned a lot of people. A few years ago people were killing themselves to get Tua and Spencer Torkelson rookies. Not so much all of a sudden. And as PSA clears out their backlog the supply of graded Luka cards, for example, is going to depress prices further. And we've already had new grading card companies appear in the scene and fail to make much of a ripple.

I think some of these people are throwing away money. I think the mania in new cards is peaked. Time will tell.

Sgc already does. 98 is mint 10...but they have 100 "pristine"

It is similar to owning stocks and bonds these days. You buy what you want and look at it online in your Vault account. I personally have not held a stock certificate in over 20 years and have not held a bond in over 5 years. But I still have ownership of the stocks and bonds. Baseball cards are viewed as assets/investments now whether the "traditional" collector realizes or not. More and more "new" collectors view collecting this way. Whether they get burned or not in the long run well only time will tell...

Now goes to 11.

Also same with stocks you can buy other stocks on margin. Collectors are hoping and banking on their cards going higher in price/value just like stock investors hope the stock prices go up (unless they are short sellers) so they can sell for a profit and never worry about coming out of pocket for the difference they borrowed.

At some point yes the SEC may get involved but as long as WhiteHawk has its filings in order then they should be fine. PWCC has 175 million reasons to be smiling today.

When the PWCC ETF COMING OUT?

They should use the term Ass-hats

There's a day trading element though, I think a lot of guys are buying players like these hoping they get hot, not hoping they become the next Mantle or Kobe over the long haul.

I think leaving expensive valuables with a fraud ring that has a significant risk of getting into trouble with the state poses clear and obvious dangers. Good luck to those who don’t see it.

I was trying to sort out whether your concern is that PWCC's legal problems might jeopardize one's ability to get their cards back, or that PWCC would commit some separate fraud and refuse to return cards, or both. These are different concerns.

Both.

I guess a lot of people assume his legal troubles are over and trust him otherwise. Interesting how this has played out.

Most of them simply ignored the fraud ring in the first place, then came to defend them once it was old news (like our last go around on PWCC). They don't seem to have ever stopped trusting him even as Blowout exposed clear and compelling evidence.

Why one would choose to store their cards with a known fraud ring will never make sense to me; it's not like PWCC is the only vault in the game. You can dodge taxable sales with others too.

There is a sucker born every minute.

Are his rates/terms/logistics better maybe? I have no idea.

Theoretically Could the Vault be used as a front by the house to get whatever price they want on whatever card they seem fit? Just keep relisting it.

Certainly if an auction house owns an item that is being listed in their own auction, it makes you wonder about whether they might be tempted to approach the auction differently than if they're merely listing the item on behalf of another owner.

Sounds a lot like some of what PWCC has done in the past. It wasn’t the card altering that got them kicked off eBay; eBay publicly announced (they must have been absolutely confident beyond a doubt to do that) it was their shill bidding operation.

The real shock would be if PWCC doesn’t shill and fake results for certain items they want to hype and promote legit transactions of to collect fees on without having to even ship or move the card.

Based on the quality of the PWCC website.....
 

What makes anyone think that Brent and Betsy can manage $175XL well in their lending biz?

They easily have the single worst website of any AH in the world! And what is it? 12 to 18 months old??? Pathetic

Ohhhh. The Market could POP too? :D What could possibly go wrong where Brent Mastro, known 5-pronged fraudster is concerned LOL

I greet the news with the same emotion as any PWCC news:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...ong%20jack.gif

They can do whatever they want and I do not care since I will never do business with them. I don't lay down with dogs and I don't wake up with fleas.

That's so disgusting. Do you have to post that? It isn't original, it isn't funny, and it isn't appropriate. It makes you look like you're 12 years old.

Not sure if this hook up with the lender is suggestive of PWCC growing or not. What it is incredible to me that after their suspension from eBay for shill bidding on top of a multi year FBI investigation into that and the card altering, that anyone wants anything at all to do with them. Not to imply that every other industry entity is run beyond reproach by ethical law abiding people but some actually are. Fraud has clearly found its way into the industry and made itself right at home.

Done business with PWCC but none since I was put on notice as to their now obvious business practices. So to bring this back to the thread topic, I would stash my collection in Hefty trash bags outside my home before I left anything with him at the vault. Even if the material is not at risk, should something go down, who knows what a nightmare it would be trying to retrieve the material.

Absolutely correct Jay. Had often told clients, tax evasion is a crime, but tax avoidance is your constitutional and God given right. LOL

In Ryan's defense, I'm guessing he just mixed up the terminology and was referring to the idea of people using a vault purposely to get out of paying sales tax. And doing so by almost immediately pulling out cards they had sent to a vault and having them sent to their residence.

However, as Peter later pointed out, I don't believe it would be the vault company's responsibility to ever collect and remit sales taxes to any state on behalf of a card's owner. The vault company only provides a storage service, and to my knowledge has nothing to do with actual sale or purchase of items, nor in the handling of any monies involved in such sales. In the case of PWCC and Goldin, who both provide vault services, I believe their vault operations are set up as/in completely different business entities from their auction/sales businesses. It would be stupid business practice to have their different operations all in one single entity, and I don't think either of them are stupid by any means. As Peter stated, it would most likely be considered a use tax owed by the individual who bought the card and then took it out of a vault right away to add to their personal collection at their home. How a state is going to find out about such individuals who may may be abusing this practice, remains to be seen.

We collect baseball cards. I think the maturity thing went out the window a long time ago.

Not necessarily. The idea of charging sales tax on an item being shipped to a buyer is that the sales tax is charged based on where an item is ultimately to be stored or used. It is different from when you actually walk into a store and buy something and take physical possession of the item right there. In that case it doesn't matter what state you may actually live in, you pay sales tax to the state where you physically took possession of an item, based on where the store you bought it from is located. If you were on vacation in say Oregon, and bought some mementoes, collectibles, and such, and then took everything back home with you, to say California, you aren't going to be met at the CA border by one of its sales tax agents demanding you pay CA sales tax on items you're now bringing back into your home state. You wouldn't owe any use tax to CA as you already paid the applicable sales tax to the state the store you bought and took possession of the items you purchased was in, even if it was Oregon that has no sales tax.

There is no law anywhere that says you have to keep everything at your home residence. So if you do decide to have cards you buy sent and kept at an out of state location, that is perfectly acceptable, and something I don't think any state can change by simple legislation. And to then move items from one state to another shouldn't automatically cause the owner to suddenly owe sales taxes on items moved, should it? To argue otherwise could end up opening a huge can of worms. Like for example anytime someone moves from one state to another, and takes all their belongings with them, are they now going to be subject to having all their belongings inspected by someone from the state they are moving into, and potentially getting assessed a sales/use tax on all their belongings they brought with them? That would go over with the voting public like a ton of crap, but is intrinsically the same as storing your cards in one state, and then deciding later to move them elsewhere. And since supposedly not everyone using a vault is doing so just to evade sales taxes, passing any legislation that potentially proves detrimental to them likely won't be viewed in a kind light either. It is not entirely as black and white a question as one may initially think.

Hey Bob,

Just thinking out loud but while there is no law that says that everything we buy has to be sent and kept in our homes, it is clear most, some, many of the purchases that are going to vaults are not necessarily staying at the vaults. The vaults are a brief stopping point for the purchase which the buyer has every intention of taking physical possession of as soon as possible. I think that is where the gray area may not be so gray.

How that could be enforced, I dunno and since the vault concept is relatively new and I have no statistics on what percentage of the items that are shipped to them stay with them. It is entirely possible the tax evasion practice is not material enough to be worth the effort. I also think it would would be complex to track purchases (entering and leaving the vaults) even if that was the burden of each vault to do on a quarterly basis.

Chase

And this is a big reason why I'm guessing the vault services are provided by entirely separate companies than the related AH/sales companies. At least it now lets people know to ask these vault providers how their businesses are set up, and if they are independent and totally separate from other possibly commonly owned businesses. And by separate, I mean where there is not just one single business that owns and runs the AH/sales operation and the vault, or where one is a total or partially owned subsidiary business of the other. And you can have both businesses owned entirely by the same people, yet they ae still considered separate as long as the businesses themselves don't own any part of each other.

My guess is the operation lending people money on their collectibles may be set up as an entirely different/separate business and entity from the vault and AH/sales businesses as well. Would make some sense.

I’m pretty sure this is exactly the situation why use tax exists - for people buying stuff in low or no sales tax states and then taking it home with them to high sales tax states.

You’re not met at the border by a tax agent.

But the law does say that you owe use tax.

It’s just that no one actually ever pays it.

True, but say they buy a '33 Goudey Ruth card for $33K off Ebay. Sending it to a vault in a state with no sales could easily save them $2K-$3K or more, in sales tax they would otherwise have to pay. You may have to leave the Ruth in the vault for a while, but you could buy a few more items with that saved money, no?

Hi Chase,

And exactly why I'm saying it isn't so easy and clear. For now, probably not enough dollars to make it worthwhile for states to try going after these vaults. The states are still basking in the glow and sales tax windfall created with the SCOTUS decision in the South Dakota vs, Wayfair case from back in 2018. And remember, the vaults aren't doing anything wrong. It is the individuals that own the cards who are responsible and potentially liable in these cases. And whereas states don't mind pushing against big companies, like Wayfair and Amazon, when it comes to sales tax law changes like in that 2018 SCOTUS decision, this issue would be pushing against individuals and going after use tax they owe. States don't have the time and resources to go after all those people for the somewhat nominal amounts each of them would potentially owe. And for the states to change sales tax laws to somehow make vaults, AHs, or other online sellers responsible in this particular case would entail some rather profound changes to sales tax laws in general, and could even lead to issues and conflicts between states. Also, big companies don't vote, people do. Tax authorities potentially going after all the individuals in a state (who can vote) usually doesn't make them very happy with elected officials who let those tax authorities come after them. The SCOTUS decision didn't really change any sales tax laws. All it did was redefine the definition of when a seller was responsible to collect and remit sales tax on sales to customers in a particular state, which is known as "nexus".

Mmmmmmm, not exactly. Under old laws, sales tax was only collected by sellers who had a physical presence in a state in which they made a sale. That physical presence gave them what is known as "nexus" in that particular state then to be responsible for collecting and remitting sales tax on sales to customers in that state. This was from back in the days before the internet and online sales. So back then, if you bought something through a catalog or magazine from an out of state seller who had no physical presence in your state, they had no sales tax nexus in your state and wouldn't charge you sales tax. And then under the "use tax" part of your state's sales and use tax laws, you were supposed to send what you should have been charged as sales tax on that purchase to your state yourself as "use tax". But virtually no individuals ever do. Truth is, the states primarily use the "use tax" part of sales tax laws to go after big businesses that would buy machinery, equipment, and such, and have it shipped to them from out of state suppliers with no sales tax nexus in the state the items were being shipped to.

However, when you go into a store and buy something there, that is where you physically take possession and ownership of an item, and that location is where the sales tax is based on and paid, not where you might live or be taking the purchased item to. You cannot generally charge someone sales tax twice on the same item, and all the states with sales taxes have agreed to not allow such a double tax to happen. It would be impossible to keep track of anyway. In some states the sales tax is not uniform, and rates can vary by county or region. So if you go visit a friend or relative one county over (that also has a lower sales tax rate), and on the way back you stop and buy some carryout food and drinks in that lower sales tax county to then take home and eat, do you really think any state sales tax agent in their right mind is going to tell you to figure out the additional sales tax you would have paid had you stopped and bought that carryout food in your home county, and be sure to then send that difference to your state as "use tax"? Probably not if they want to keep their job.

And going from state to state is pretty much the same thing. Granted, if you go to the next state to buy say a living room set because they have a lower sales tax rate, your home state might be interested in that because it is probably a more expensive purpose. But the thing is, to my knowledge no state has written into their sales and use tax statutes any de minimus or threshold amount under which they say to not bother with any "use tax" and over which they say you have to calculate and pay any "use tax". The states just don't bother normally even trying to enforce the "use tax" on individuals because of how impossible it is to track and figure it out.

I suspect its Whitehawk Capital Partners that's the regulated financial business. My read of the article is that PWCC has partnered with Whitehawk. Its similar to the way a car dealer might use a financing company to offer car loans. In that scenario the finance company is the one doing the lending. Thebthe dealer benefits because they can sell more cars and they probably get a fee from the financing company for every loan .

G@ry G01db3rg

Stupid question…. How do these companies set up these vaults? Has anyone seen one? Is it a real bank style vault in a secure location? Or is the use of the word vault just a descriptive term?