I guess Dave Foreman just couldn't resist a big payday. Stuff and MONEY trumps all.

If you want to file an anti-trust/monopoly complaint here’s how: https://www.justice.gov/atr/complaint-center

The practical consideration for me is that in the very near future I doubt cards that PSA rejected as minsize will subsequently get a number grade at SGC.

Minsize is way up at PSA (possibly thanks to the technology a fellow board member brought there) but easily 90% of my PSA rejects get a number at SGC. If said technology is shared with SGC that kills that avenue.

Meanwhile...

I'll just continue to collect and admire my raw cards.

There may be two positives that come out of it, the SGC Registry brought back with new capital infusion(or they might go with a combined PSA/SGC Registry) AND crossovers may be much easier to get done as they now have no reason to "hate" on the host holder.

All of these posts are speculative and we really have no idea how it will turn out for the the companies or the consumers, only time will tell.

Dave doesn’t work in the Peace Corps, he runs a business and has a family. And there have been plenty of times he could have sold SGC but didn’t because he didn’t want to leave SGC customers holding the bag. He felt comfortable this time because SGC will largely remain SGC but with improvements that only Collectors can provide. It’s human nature to presume the worst, and some trepidation is understandable. But I don’t believe the sky is falling, I think SGC will become a better version of itself.

+1

A combined pop report would be nice as well.


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The big Question to Me is Will Submissions to SGC Continue to stay high at this level or will they drop off????? Time Will Tell...What's the Board Think?

If you're worried, it's easy enough to stop buying SGC cards. Less clear what to do if you own a lot, particularly in the prior versions of the flip. Best course probably not to panic.

100 percent agree. I have seen posts on other sites asking if they should dump their SGC collection, sell now, etc.

I say stay the course and wait to hear how it plays out, then decide.

I will say that I do have trepidation in buying SGC slabs right now, but that could change when new information comes out.

Sgc
 

+1,000….well said Jeff!

Rumor on Blowout that Nat is also looking to sell Goldin Auctions.

I heard that as well. Sounds like he doesn't think the juice is worth the squeeze and just wants to cut bait, if true.

Maybe the former owner can buy it back now. With any luck, at a discount to the original sales price.

Hmmm, would have thought he'd use SGC to funnel more vintage cards through Goldin, just like he does with PSA.

IMO, Goldin isn't going to be worth nearly as much without the PSA connection.

Personally, I have no concerns on most cards I collect. SGC is a very reputable company and their grade and slabs stand scrutiny in the marketplace, unlike GAI or PRO. They are being acquired, not going out of business like GAI or PRO. And, they are being acquired by PSA, "The King of grading". I think there is an argument that SGC flips may get a bump as a result of their being acquired, and becoming part of PSA. I wont buy SGC hoping that becomes the case, but I currently have no concern whatsoever with SGC slabs.

From Jeff L: "Dave doesn’t work in the Peace Corps, he runs a business and has a family. And there have been plenty of times he could have sold SGC but didn’t because he didn’t want to leave SGC customers holding the bag. He felt comfortable this time because SGC will largely remain SGC but with improvements that only Collectors can provide. It’s human nature to presume the worst, and some trepidation is understandable. But I don’t believe the sky is falling, I think SGC will become a better version of itself"

Well said Jeff, I agree with you 1000%. Mazel to Dave, who held out for years looking for an option that would not leave "SGC customers holding the bag". Another reason I believe this deal will be fine for SGC customers and collectors.

I agree. My personal take is that SGC would be a useful brand to add to the Collectors omniverse because it grades lots of stuff that PSA does not. Why not capture that revenue under the PSA roof, especially when it can be integrated into the Goldin auction flow and the PSA vault? Best of all, PSA can offer SGC registry participants a discounted opportunity to cross to the PSA registry; in effect, make the customers pay to transfer the pop from SGC to PSA. It is similar to what Fanatics did in 2021, when it effectively created that sort of flow by picking up PWCC (it already has director and investor overlap with CCG: Michael Rubin, founder and executive chairman of Fanatics, is part of the group that acquired CGC in 2021).

If the rumors are true about Dave, then doesn't that suggest he is more equipped to detect alterations than just about anyone? I cannot see how SGC's acquisition will be good for the collectors in the long run but the hobby is not about collectors any longer, as someone posted earlier.

Until one of these companies makes an announcement, which will be short on facts, I could see the value of SGC dropping dramatically and submissions being down too.

The other issue is that the majority of my PSA "minsize" rejects also get numerical grades by PSA upon resubmission (sans 61 Fleer basketball), not just SGC. It's extremely frustrating. But at least they're not charging a grading fee for it.

Read what BODA said in the link provided by Peter in this thread, and get back with me on that.
BODA is so valuable to the hobby I would probably let him on this forum regardless of his anonymity.

[/U]

SGC has been very open about the fact that their principals and employees can submit their own. People just don't seem to care, as long as those turnaround times are solid.

So, if my SGC slabs are going to collapse 50% in value due to this merger/avoidance of SGC panic (OMG!!!), aren't my PSA slabs gonna appreciate by 50% (gotta have PSA ONLY!!) and thus the whole thing is much to do about nothing wash?!?!?!? LOL

Fantastic Jeff
 

Spot on.

I would like to say that if Dave F was running the Peace Coepa I do think he would de a great job.

Your comment was about Dave being in the grading room.

My point was not if it is good to have a guy with Dave's rep owning a grading company but might not be had having someone who has Dave's rep as a grader.

First official announcement...oy...

www.gosgc.com/SGC-Joins-Collectors

https://www.facebook.com/sgcgrading/ From Peter S.

Doesn’t Dave grade Cards because he’s one of the best vintage graders out there I mean I thought it was him Scott and Derek that was the best that SGC had or still have the only one that’s gone is Derek I believe

Happy talk keep talkin' happy talk.

It’s actually a positive thing. In case you haven’t noticed the success rate on crossovers these days is very low. Once they discontinue the holder, which they most certainly do to reduce costs and duplication, you’ll have to either spend a lot of money to crossover and get most probably reduced grades or stop upgrading the set. This will save all of us money. The average Joe will figure this out soon. God forbid your holder gets cracked, scratched, damaged. My SGC sets will probably be frozen in time.

All newly sets or partially graded set will go to PSA. I started this migration 10+ years ago. Also, CSG should buy the rights to the old SGC holder, but make it tamper-proof.

I’m really hoping that they will finally allow a mixed grading company registry set, like they do with coins.


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Is PSA going forward not going to Cross at Same Grade as SGC Slabs ? If they’re buying the company aren’t they responsible too?

He is smiling because he still has his job. Not saying he is lying but nobody should bank on anything he said, imo. Nice attempt at reassurance. If I were grading it I would give it altered stock and evidence of trimming.

I cannot envision a scenario where Collectors runs SGC unchanged. Call me foolish. The two companies only have one thing in common in their business model--they authenticate collectibles. Their approach to business could not be any different so if Collector's management loves the SGC model so much then why not change to be more like them?

Wow. That's disappointing news. Better get those SGC submissions in while we can.

Long term, it wouldn't seem to make sense to acquire a competitor then just run it as a separate division competing with the main division.

They have different standards and they haven’t in the past when they were competitors. The best thing they could do to keep the people happy is have a mixed registry, not that everyone registers their cards today.


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It happens all the time.

Many car manufacturers produce and sell competing brands. Car rental companies own competing brands. Heck, REA just bought Huggins. It makes no sense to buy a company only to shut it down. My gut is there are synergies/efficiencies they can realize operating both companies, reducing expenses and maximizing production and efficiency. It makes a ton of sense to acquire a competitor to run it as a separate division. It makes no sense to pay good money for a small, relatively non-competitor only to kill it/shut it down.

Peter, I respect your legal conclusions much more than your financial opinions!

I'm not an SGC guy (nor a hater really) but I agree w/this sentiment completely.

Wow, beautifully done sketch!

Ryan lol. I was thinking about merging it and integrating it, not shutting it down. A year from now we can look back and see which course they took.

I don't find the comparison of a grading company to a car company, or restaurant chains, to be analogous. The grading companies in particular have very different approaches to business. Also think card grading is not a diverse enough industry that it would make sense to have 2 brands under 1 parent.

I think for the merger to violate anti-trust laws a party would need to prove that the merger would make it impossible to compete in the market. Companies like Beckett and CGC will have a tough time making that case since they probably won't go bankrupt as a result of the merger. Consumers already have limited choices for quality grading companies though so this really sucks for collectors and nobody can do much about it.

Agree! Time will tell. Right now we are just a bunch of talking heads who really know nothing.

All I am saying is that there is brand recognition with SGC and they have a following. If PSA eliminates them, then they pick up some of that following and they likely lose some of that following. If they keep SGC (mostly) as is, they retain likely 100% of the following and potentially create additional business for either PSA, SGC or both. This should be a 1+1 =3 situation.

Both companies are in the same business. Figure a way to streamline and merge processes, back office, overhead, etc. and increase the profits of both companies; and yes, maybe a little cornering of the market too.

Troy is a genius because he agreed with my earlier statement :) : "While I don’t love this, my gut is it will somehow all work in the end. It usually does. Nothing I can do about it and I will still be collecting cards, so it will be what it be."

Actually, the standard is that the merger has to threaten to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. It doesn't have to make it impossible to compete. Section 7 of the Clayton Act.

Combined company will have what? 70% of grading by volume? And if we're just looking at baseball, probably closer to 100% of prewar and 90% of postwar vintage?

PSA may already have been a monopoly. And given PSA's already huge market share and SGC's small share, change in market concentration may not be that great as a result of the deal. For a quick test add up the sum of the squares of their market shares before and after. This is called the HHI Index and is one tool used by the government. It's been a while since I've done this so would need to remind myself how to interpret the results. You also have to consider entry barriers not just existing market structure.

Having been bought and merged before more than likely back office procedures will be combined with some superficial public changes. May help avoid any antitrust issues.

A likely synergy would be to put the tux and flip into a PSA slab gaining some cost savings on slab purchases…


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Was a lot better when the hobby was about older fat con artists, guys with pagers on their waist, wearing big ass gold medallions around their necks, conning 12 year olds at card shows, talking about the Playmate of the Month July 1978. The good old days.

Competing businesses benefit the consumer. Although there are potentially some positives, this is a net loss for consumers. Those cheering this deal need to take an Econ 101 course.

I have 2 subs for SGC queued up and was going to complete the sub and mail out on Saturday, but now with thus news not sure what to do.

I did find it a bit comical that Peter seemed to praise collectors in his video, but in the past all but criticized the "other guys" when promoting SGC...I guess keeping your job will have that affect.

AB InBev, is similar in nature. They purchased Miller Coors a few years ago and both still exist aa separate companies albeit with caveats.

It's business, it's competition, they're trying to win. And I have no doubt that Peter & Co. will work as hard as possible to continue to outperform PSA in terms of quality of grading, turnaround times, etc. If I bought a grading company today, the very first person I would want to hire would be Peter -- and I don't know who would be second. In my eyes, he's the overall top person in the grading business today.

Interesting video at post 137 (I am sorry but I do not know how to just post the video, maybe someone smarter can do that). I don’t know who this guy is or who his “sources” are, but it’s an interesting take.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showth...1581626&page=6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqsNaWftwe8&t=5s

Ryan on something like that the You Tube at the bottom will bring up the video on their site.

This may be the most accurate statement in the history of this forum.

Thanks Peter! It’s a good video. I am glad it’s now more accessible.

Yes 💯 agree.

I’m surprised PSA never considered making a black slab add on option since a big selling point for SGC was the great look of their black “tux” slab.

All PSA had to do was make their current slab available in also a black color instead of clear and maybe make it cost an extra $2-5. Easy extra revenue.

CSG missed the boat on that one too, a black apron is so much more aesthetically pleasing for pre-war cards that they never would have had to buy them, they would have just put them out of business offering a black apron.

I'm disappointed. Just very disappointed. But I just decided that if I win the lottery, it would be fun to create a new grading company! Come on, Powerball numbers!

SGC acquisition
 

Lets see...SGC used to have a contact telephone, maybe now they will implement a new one for contact, have not submitted since they dropped that

Has Nat Turner said or has anyone asked him what the long term plans are with the purchase? He’s always seemed pretty open on social media sites and if I remember correctly is a member here.

I'm not saying beer is analagous to card grading, but I'm hoping that this is sort of like InBev or one of the big guys buying a craft brewery and not changing the recipes (diluting them with corn or rice instead of barley, etc.)

If it is true that Collectors tried to buy SGC multiple times in the past, but failed, I wonder what, if anything, changed this time?

Was it just more money? Was it that Peter sees the writing on the wall and that card grading (like beer) may have topped out and selling in the future would not be as profitable?

Or could it be that SGC got better terms? For instance, a guarantee that SGC could continue on without much interference, or that it would even get an infusion in cash to make improvements? This is probably just wishful thinking on my behalf, but everyone can dream.

I saw your AB InBev analogy and had a fleeting twinge of optimism. But then I remembered that they stopped making Bourbon County Coffee Stout in 12-oz. bottles, and the price per ounce nearly doubled. :(

The terms of Collectors' purchase would tell us a lot, but unlikely that much will be disclosed publicly given that both the buyer and the target are private companies with private shareholders.

I would think that PSA is really "buying" SGC's loyal customer base. It wouldn't surprise me if PSA saw data in their due diligence that suggests that SGC devotees are unlikely to submit to PSA as a general matter.

As such, if the deal is announced and SGC customers flee en masse to PSA, PSA probably wouldn't care so much. But if they hate PSA and flee to CGC or Beckett, PSA would look like a muppet.

So, I wouldn't be surprised if there are conditions in the deal that link the price that the SGC shareholders ultimately receive to the financial performance of the SGC unit over a certain time period -- maybe 1 year.

If this is the case, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw over-grading at SGC during this 1-year period.

I would think Collectors is going to go public. Gaining more market share, revenues/employees/locations in a similar market. Yes they will have some redundancy in certain spots, but the added value is easier multiplied under their platform in certain areas (as communicated).

I do think added locations and skilled employees really matters here. I am sure some of us are in the current business world finding new eager employees committed to learn is much harder these days specifically with a unique skill set of reviewing cards. Our by far biggest turnover is 20-25 year olds. Is it a combination of new mindset about your job, COVID, work from home etc.

I know with my business we are constantly looking to acquire a small business to add to our platform. It usually is a winner for both sides.

Back to this topic I will wait to pass judgment, but these guys are all smart I have to think they will use the metrics and make smart decisions to enhance the platform and hopefully satisfy the end user.

It would be great is PSA set up additional operations capacity at SGC HQ in FL to cut down 4 days of round trip travel time for those submitting to PSA from the East Coast. This would improve UX and also take some burden off the CA operation.

I also wonder what the electricity cost is to run grading slab machines in FL vs CA. If significantly less expensive in FL, with PSAs crushing volume, they could save a lot of money by operating in FL with SGCs existing infrastructure.

It would be ridiculous. Not a chance they will crossover. Maybe offer a discount.


Psa MAY slab....the sgc slab. You heard it here first

So if Number 4 on the poll happens (Dissolves SGC by absorbing it into PSA and stops making SGC slabs.) people with SGC slabs are gonna be SOL Pissed.

Yes, they can opt for psa to slab....the slab!




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Personally speaking, even if PSA offered a cross and guaranteed the grade, I would not waste my money to cross over. SGC has been and still is a reputable company. I guess some folks may see SGC slabbed cards as less desirable, but that does not bother me.

I don't really see anything good coming from this.

The only way I see it working long term is a situation similar to packs, where PSA sends all the vintage and things they don't grade to SGC for the number. And SGC sends modern to PSA for a number. Then back for slabbing.
That seems like too much handling, but it seems to work for packs.

I've seen an acquisition go bad from the customer side. Used to use CVS, but they were not great and very arrogant. Went to Target which was much better.
They got turned into CVS, and went from nice and helpful to *you arrogant in under a month. No change in the staff either.

The claim that PSA will bring "technical expertise" to make SGC better is a joke.

Why? Turner is a tech guy, and SGC has historically always been behind in tech. Seems like an easy application.

I would assume that PSA looked at SGC's #s, and felt that they were on track to take a larger % of the market. Financially, it would make sense then to buy out SGC and close them down, if the cost of doing so was less than the market share loss they were projecting.

I don't think there's going to be a mixed registry, or even a registry on the horizon. At least in the somewhat near-term.

People who send their stuff to SGC obviously don't really care about a registry to begin with. They just want accurate-ish grades, a quicker turnaround, and semi-attractive holders.

I think 1st things 1st, is the search engine for the pop report needs to be cleaned up. Just looking through the T206's while submitting, there can be multiple choices for the exact same card, while not even offering a choice on the various back variations within each brand that has them.

Can be even more confusing with many of the more obscure tobacco sets.

I don't know how much money PSA paid for SGC, but if most that was said is to be believed, hopefully there's language in the contract that forbids PSA from disappearing the brand or even many of it's practices from existence.

I've also just sent in 21 cards to SGC that I've been procrastinating on for awhile. Nothing to knock your socks off, but the announcement kind of motivated me to get it done. Figured I'd already dragged my ass on them for awhile...didn't want to give PSA 6 more months to drag their ass on them on top of that. :rolleyes:

I have a hard time believing PSA spent a lot of money just to disappear SGC and alienate a load of vintage collectors in the process. Many who have no interest in losing contact with their cards for months (much, much longer in the not so distant past) on end, and likely wouldn't get a lot of their cards graded otherwise.

Whatever market share SGC has...PSA isn't going to just get it, simply by doing things the way PSA has always done things. SGC got most of that market share by doing certain things different from PSA to begin with.

A lot of collectors will just as soon keep most of their lower grade/value stuff raw, or in whatever holders they already reside in.

Interesting - I have a stack that I was planning to send them but this news changed my mind. They will either remain raw or go to CGC, for now at least.

oh, oh, :D:D;)

I was on the CGC/CGS bandwagon in the beginning, but they really lost me with their flip-flopping early on. I've got a bunch of those green flips I feel like I just wasted my money on.

They changed their name, changed their holders, supposedly changed their grading standards.

Just can't picture putting a T206 in one of their holders. Newer stuff yes, but not vintage.

I probably like CGC's product better then PSA, but if PSA could just figure out how to drastically improve their turnaround time, they would probably put a nail in the coffin of the sports card division of CGC.

If you have any interest in maximizing the value of your cards, how can you use CGC? I'm asking seriously. It's like throwing money away if you expect to sell your cards someday.

well put, as only you can...:)

"Most things that I worry about, never happen anyway".

:D:D:D
happy Happy Joy joy

At this time, I do agree with this sentiment. Collectors can do what they want, but if you do want to maximize your cards, I would not use CGC. That’s like showing up to play Pebble Beach with clubs you bought from Goodwill.

Just an FYI -

I sent an email to SGC expressing my displeasure with the merger. For whatever it is worth, here is their reply:

Thank you for reaching out. Reading your email, I can tell how loyal and passionate you are about the SGC Brand. I can confirm that SGC has been acquired by Collectors, however, with the start of this new chapter for SGC, I am pleased to let you know that there are no changes happening with SGC. You can still expect the same service as before with our turnaround time, our collector friendly grading fees, and our Customer Service Team. Please feel free to reach out at any time if you have any questions or concerns and I assure you we will be more than happy to do what we can to continue to offer the highest level of service that our customers have become accustomed to.

I think it might be ebay that is buying Goldin Auctions.