Ok I just spewed my water. That’s funny.

I thought PSA already stamped “bad” cards ..............with invisible ink before slabbing them with a higher grade.:eek:

I have found it fun to buy certain cards that are graded for less then the grading costs. So that way you can buy graded cards without helping them whichever company you dont like

its akin to buying a very used car for a brand of car you dont want to support for whatever reason....

The Wagner is close to a million with more than 14 days to go. Apparently there are still a few out there that want to own expensive PSA graded cards.

http://www.milehighcardco.com/1909_1...-LOT64997.aspx

I think quite a few people with deep pockets would like a Wagner.... regardless of who graded it.

The card market isn't going to collapse. People have too much invested. Money, time, emotion, part of their identity, history, you name it.

This will go for a stupid number and someone will say the winner paid too much and then five years from now that will look like a cheap price.

Speaking of this Wagner...

Would most cards with missing corners like this Wagner get a "2" grade?

So much of both top corners are missing, that a significant portion of the orange background is gone. When corner wear far exceeds the white borders, is it customary for the card to get a "2"? I've seen cards far better than this graded "1" or "AUTH".

I agree. It's a very special card & the "2" grade probably reinforces it being so special.

Incredible.

I'd send it back for a possible bump to a '3'.

While I agree this Wagner is likely over-graded as a technical matter, I don’t think the grade matters with this card. When I get a Wagner one day, I hope it looks that good, regardless of grade.

Beautiful card, regardless of the grade.
With this card I'm not sure the grade matters that much anyway.
That's about as a presentable low grade copy as you could hope for.

I don't know that pointing to the most iconic card in the hobby really makes much of a point. A real Honus T206 will sell for huge money, no matter what holder it is in.

When people think that the value of high-grade PSA cards will fall. they are referring to 8s, 9s and 10s, not Wagner T206s in a "2" holder.

Keep up the good work, gang. Rob

In my view if the card world was imploding demand for all cards would decline. You would have a real shift in the demand curve and all prices would be lower. I just don't see it. The David Hall auctions did extremely well. If you look at completed listings from PWCC you wouldn't know there was an issue.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item...g=200&_fosrp=1


Here is the link to their completed sales. If there was a bear market you would see it and you don't.

In the same Mile High auction there is a 58 Topps Mantle PSA 9 that is at nearly 19k. I don't have VCP and looked at the SMR and they have it at $22k and the only sale I saw was from 2014 and it was just over 21k.

The Mantle PSA 8 that most on this board screamed was shilled and how disgusting that a zero feedback bidder won. The person has a feedback rating now of 1 and has only bid on one item.

I think this is just going to be another round of disappointment for those that don't like PSA and grading in general.

PSA's stock was supposed to implode and instead has screamed north and is up nearly 50% since the story broke. Their sales are through the roof and their backlog is the largest in company history. It is hard for me to see a scenario where this turns on a dime.

DPeck, I feel that vintage (1920 and older) prices in the last two pwcc auctions have been noticeable low, most especially in the last auction. I attribute this to vintage collectors on this and a few other hobby boards either boycotting altogether (like I am), or refusing to chase cards knowing they may be shilled. In fact, the last two vintage offerings for pwcc have been weak, which again I attribute to consignors boycotting. Maybe it’s not boycott, but a coincidence. But I choose to believe it’s the former and that consumership can make a difference/statement through buying/consigning, or curbing/ceasing, habits.

I encourage anyone who has an issue with PSA, of PWCC or any TPG or auction house, to at the least, express that issue with their wallet and choices, however that manifests. Don’t consign. Don’t bid. Don’t submit. Don’t collect. Stating “nothing is changing” on a chat board will only serve to help fulfill that very statement. Indeed, choosing to cease posting such statements is a consumership action we can all take as a stance against this....

Agree stuff is changing....it’s going down in higher graded PSA 8’s-10’s are going to crash cards below ExMt-Nrmnt will be fine especially raw.

I do not believe many of the sold listing are Real Sales. The Vault in my Mind is a Buy Back Cover for their clients....Pump up if a dummie doesn't come in late and take the high bid card goes back in the vault to be repeated at a later date.
I guess it must be legal to do but who knows ???

"In my view if the card world was imploding demand for all cards would decline."

Disagree.

The PSA empire was built on grading commons - not icons.

I think there will be a decline, but even if not there will be a shift. In particular, high-grade cards and pricing will change.

I mean, what is the percentage of high grade Pre-War cards in holders that are altered? 50%? More? I don't know, though my guess would be more. People may still want and collect and pay fair money for these cards, even if they know they might be altered, but someone would have to be either entirely ignorant or brain dead to pay the same premium as before-- especially considering many of these altered cards are being exposed daily and, upon exposure, their value drops by, what?, a factor of 50 in one second. I suspect this will also happen with modern cards, even today's. And I expect a sizable enough number of collectors to leave that market altogether.

"What would I pay for a really good looking card that has been altered or restored and would be labeled as such?" That's how many will start pricing high-grade cards.

As I've regularly said, it doesn't take everyone changing their pricing considerations and collecting habits to shift the market, just a sizable percentage. That there are some "Registry holdouts" is neither here nor there.

In the future, cards clearly identified and identifiable as unaltered may get big premiums. This may happen in today's cards and inserts, where box breaks are filmed live. Put the card directly in a holder with tamper-evident seal, photograph it and send it to PSA or whomever.

Butt of many This is Spinal Tap jokes originally, but SCDAuthentic had a Grade 11 for cards that came directly from packs.

And once there are sales of sets or collections, or even single cards, that have been prominently advertised to be "proven to be unaltered" and/or "rare and highest graded proven unaltered cards," that will definitely catch some hobby collecting awareness. All those unproven to be unaltered PSs 9s and 10s in PSA holders may suddenly be considered by the hobby to be "nice but second tier" in the collecting echelon. Wouldn't be surprised if PSA and SGC come out with a "Straight from pack" designation for their holders.

I promise you that once a big auction house or eBay seller offered a prominently advertised and noticed sale of high graded and graded "known to be unaltered cards" (ala documented as straight from packs, or otherwise shown), it will change collecting minds and tastes. Once collectors boast, as they like to, about owning the "highest graded proven to be unaltered" card or set, hobby minds and tastes will change.

I think BO's exposure should continue forever, because it keeps the hobby honest and aware, and gives sanity and common sense to people buying potentially altered cards. As I said elsewhere, BO and others exposing misidentifications, alterations and misgrades are part of the grading. Obviously, PSA is unable and/or unwilling to proper authentication and grading on their own. In the area of highest grade Pre-War cards, their error rate may prove to be higher than 50%. Which, if that is the case, common sense and anyone who got a C- or above in middle school Logic for Dummies class would tell a collector to go by the opposite of their opinion because the complete opposite is more likely to be correct. Heck, I think even someone who got a D and skipped half the classes could figure out that one.

And, considering the PR releases and intuitional stance that people should ignore it and quit whining and that it's not an issue of concern for them and their stockholders and at times throwing up their hands and saying "What do you expect from us?" and only addressing cards that are officially outed and choosing not to remove outed cards from their database, a question to ask is if they are even attempting to correctly grade cards? At this point, is correctly labeled cards even a concern, or their main concern? If it is, they'd better do a better job of demonstrating it. As far as I saw, Joe O's letter's stated "We don't know how to do it, so get over it." Even PSA forum members were shocked and disappointed at that response. One said that at the very least it was tone-deaf to the concerns of their customers.

It's pretty obvious that PSA doesn't want to correctly grade all the cards out there. They want to have a way they can avoid doing it. And, again, even that D middle school student who skipped half the classes can see that "We are a company that correctly grades your cards" and "We are a company trying to avoid assigning correct grades to cards" are at odds with each other.

And even that very mentality existing in their grading model should point to a company you don't rely on for correct grading. Forget the issue of if they can do it, because they don't even want to do it. Their PR statements and actions actually say "Our business model is that we don't want to have to correctly grade all those cards out there in holders. It would be against our business and grading model to have to correctly grade them."

PSA and their cadre of "Buy the label even though it's wrong" collectors has become the bizarro world of grading.

Seinfeld: Bizarro Jerry

Or, for an even better comparison, Attorney Lionel Hutz in The Simpsons

They should always maintain their meaning: simple and attractive plastic slabs that allow you to collect cards that are different sizes and designs and stack them neatly on top of one another. You can even put an altered card in one of these and its plastic casing allows it to conform nicely to the standards of your set. I always liked this about PSA, and that their slabs are nice and thin.

I felt that for NM T206 cards it was right at 99.9 %

I once drank too much wine and won a NM T206 black cap Matty. I was thrilled to discover it had undisclosed paper loss, which clearly violated the grade. It was also clearly trimmed;however, bringing that to the AH's attention would have gotten me nowhere, other than for them to ask PSA to sharpen their knives.

I would definitely buy PSA-slabbed hole-punched T206's with labels 'from the FBI collection'.

(Great thread David)

Does PSA have a Consigliere?

Who is advising them ? Is Robert Duvall on their payroll ??