PWCC vault?
 

I received an email from PWCC that I could use their vault as the address to ship any purchases from them, eBay, other auctions, etc. By doing this, I would avoid paying sales tax since the address for the vault is in Oregon.

Does anyone use this? If so, can you provide me with more information about how it works and what costs there are associated with it? The email mentions an ingestion fee equal to 0.5% of the market value of the card for the first year of storage, but then it says something about requesting fulfillment at any time after ingestion which is usually 5 to 7 business days. Any explanation of how this actually works would be appreciated.

You should speak to an accountant before you do this. Something advertised as existing solely to help you avoid paying sales tax requires some professional advice. As it’s a PWCC invention I’d probably speak to three CPAs.

Hey Jeff, You think 3 is enough? Sounds a bit sketchy

And as an aside, I tend to get fulfillment less than 5-7 days after ingestion!

1 for each sticker?

My experience says that states aren’t too accepting of transparent efforts to avoid paying sales tax. Just sayin.

Lots of things that are set up to avoid or reduce taxes seem more form over substance. It's hard for me to believe PWCC is out there publicizing this without having vetted it with legal and accounting advisers. Then again...

I received the same e-mail from P.W.C.C. They mean well, but as a N.J. resident, this state are very strict about their state tax so I would not be interested in putting my cards in a their vault. Also, heaven for bid, something happens to the company or the state steps in & cleans out what's in the vault? I can be affected. You are correct, this should not be brought out out publicly. The whole idea is too risky for me.

I’ve been fortunate to visit 49 states in my lifetime missing only Oregon.

If I pack up my collection and send it to the vault, would I be able to visit them???

If not, I’ll just send them to Zimbabwe? I’ve never been there either.

The idea of a remote collection intrigues me.

I don't know what to think about this vault. What happens if you die and no one knows what is in "the vault". I mean, it's an interesting concept. Just too many unkowns.

it's kinda similar to the idea of owning a part of a card?

Personally it's not something I'd be interested in...more of a concept for "investors."


If you buy a high buck card from PWCC...save on taxes intially...with the intent to resell through PWCC at a later date.

.... and can someone with a bottle of Peach Schnapps open "The Vault"?

Right -- you never have to see or touch the stupid card. It's just an asset on a balance sheet.

exactly!!

Wait...cards are stupid??

My cards aren't stupid, they're just a little slow.

my cards ride the short bus to the vault!

Where they are promptly ingested.

Will card owners be allowed to come and spend time with their cards in the vault?
If so, perhaps an Airbnb or Extended Stay America could be built on site. :)

Ya think? https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/vault Only concept they highlight is the sales tax-free state. See for yourself.

Dunno about anyone else but I would feel much better leaving my stuff at home or at a bank.

They now also offer investment advice.

https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/investment-advising

This all really feels like the excess before the collapse.

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I'm with you Carl.....Does any other collectible do all this?? Comics? Coins? Art???

From what I've heard, most dealers/auctions at the high end of things regularly work with clients to help them build a collection that meets their goals. If those goals are primarily investment related then that's what they do.


A good regular brick and mortar dealer does the same thing, just at a lower level, and with less formality. The guys I used to go to back in the day would occasionally hand me a Goudey Ruth and tell me "this is $100 you should buy it" Sadly that was advice I never took.

I have a PO Box in the Dominican Republic. Anyone wants to list me as the owner and have high priced cards sent directly to my "vault" please reach out for details. And I will charge a small price for this service.

That all makes sense, but the PWCC Investment Advisory board, complete with Merrill Lynch looking photo is a bit much. I'm not saying it's predatory, but it feels a wee bit over the top. Would like to see their bona fides.

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That's why we have Geraldo Rivera. He can make amends for the Al Capone fiasco, and your cards might even get some TV exposure. :rolleyes:

Wheres Dpeck? How can these guys be selling unsecured " investments" with no license, private placement memorandum, etc. Seems like a whole lotta good ideas, poorly executed .

Maybe everyone should try to understand what services come with the vault before turning negative. Everyone seems to be such know-it-alls before knowing the facts. The vault’s primary mission is not a sales tax avoidance initiative. I’ve personally seen the Vault and believe the business strategy behind it is brilliant. Just my opinion from someone who owns and runs a very large business. And yes, I will take full advantage of these services. Do what’s right for you and draw your own conclusions.

Brady

This hobby is so f'd.

Full name.when giving.an.opion of.person or service.reqiired

Ok, enlighten us. What is the great point of this other than tax avoidance? I received their email too, and that that seemed to be the clear thrust of it. Maybe I need my secret decoder ring on this one.

13 posts...and what do you get


Another post praising the vault of Brett

you've SEEN "the vault?" Is it real and SPECTACULAR???

His ID is his full name. He hasn't posted much here I guess but certainly a known collector.

And yes, I could see where a secure storage facility could be attractive to someone with substantial value in cards who didn't care about access to them; or lived relatively close, or whose intent was to resell through PWCC. On the other hand, as Steve points out, PWCC certainly has emphasized the sales tax aspect in its promotion.

Tax avoidance is OK. Tax evasion is not.

This may be legal the same way that buying items in a tax-free state is fine. It’s just when you bring them back to your home state that the Use tax kicks in.

More info
 

I looked on the PWCC website for more info, and there are fees charged for any cards sent to the vault unless they are from a PWCC auction, so on top of the 0.5% storage fee that was mentioned in the e-mail I received, the following fees also apply. For non-graded cards, there is a $10 minimum fee so for a card under around $140-150, it looks like that fee would offset any sales tax savings.

Archival Fee.
Graded Cards – 1% of market value is charged at intake of assets (minimum fee of $2 per asset and a maximum fee of $100 per asset). Note: completely graded sets, mixed grading company sets or sets registered with PSA, SGC, and/or Beckett use the same ingestion process as single graded cards.

Non-Graded Cards – 1% of market value is charged at intake of assets (minimum fee of $10 per asset and maximum fee of $100 per asset).

Can't believe this got no love

Where's Sloate the great Seinfeld fan?

Ingestion just seems like the wrong word. I think they use it multiple times.

For those who don't know Brady he had one of the best tables at the Chicago national and is well known and respected in the hobby. I completely agree and will be using this service as well. Many of my cards just sit in a bank vault as it is and I have to pay to ship and insure them to pwcc when it's time to sell. And if shipping them to and storing them in Oregon saves on sales tax as well then i will not be surprised if many collectors start using the vault. Perhaps even a few of those criticizing in this thread.

I totally agree that this sounds like crap that happens before a collapse. Reminds me of the dot.com bubble and the “new economy” spew that was going on at the turn of the century. Look out below!!! Maybe hide in the vault until the crash is over??

oy gavault!

In fact, he is featured in this week's Sports Collector's Digest.

On a 200K card sale, the sales tax savings for a NY buyer is about 18K if the card is instead shipped to a vault in Oregon. Same card sitting in a Citibank safe deposit box in NYC, surrounded by alarms and guards, costs the buyer 18K extra. The main thrust of this visionary program is tax avoidance. Period. Again, I’m niot saying it’s illegal as I’m not a CPA but to suggest that the tax savings on pricey cards is not the main lure of this PWCC vault is disingenuous.

I had 2 very reputable CPA’s look into the vault and both strongly advised me not to use it. It is being advertised as a way to avoid paying state tax and they were not comfortable with that verbiage. While I suggest anyone considering using them to get your own guidance, I feel much more comfortable not being involved. And that’s only regarding the tax issue, I have not even gotten into other potential land mines that could happen.

But the guy with one of the best tables at the national thinks its great, sign me up

Sounds a lot like practices from the fine art market bleeding into baseball cards, so PWCC can process ongoing transactions without buyers and sellers ever seeing their "art investments" or needing to remove them from storage. If baseball collecting were more international, we could expect a similar vault on a Cayman Island for further tax savings. Perhaps they offer that kind of big-spender service in a less-publicized way? (While not an art expert myself, Google provides a lot of info on the world of fine art markets.)

I know that when OH residents file their state income tax return that they have the ability to list all purchases made during that tax year in which they did not pay any sales tax. Any sales tax that should have been paid is than added to their income tax liability and paid at that time with their tax return. I am pretty confident that all other states have the same thing when filing their returns. However, I am not sure how to handle this for states like Florida that have no state income tax. ( I must admit that I am surprised that of all the CPAs who were consulted that no one mentioned this).

With that said, rather than bashing the PWCC Vault for their poor marketing tactics, I am really curious to hear why people should or should not use the PWCC Vault.

To avoid paying sales tax.

My biggest issue with the vault is that it is in Oregon and I am in Maryland. If they put a vault in Delaware (hint hint), another state with no sales tax, I would strongly consider using such an East-Side service.

New Hampshire, "Live Free Or Die", no sales or income tax.

Gee! Considering most of us here are collectors...i actually like to physically possess the cards i buy/own. So for me this is a nonstarter not even a discussion .

Dinosaur.

Haha

I was poking around the investment advisory pages on the PWCC website last night and the word "joyless" came to mind. I don't begrudge anyone trying to make money but for me collecting is more about history and personal fulfillment.

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I have a ton of questions about this, but I just realized I don't even care enough to type them all out. To each their own...even if their own is stupid.

New world. In their (IMO baseless and disingenuous) defense of the altered PSA 4.5 Mantle that they posted on Blowout, they refer to it as an "asset." Good Lord.

I will be devil's advocate, a little bit. There are many who will find the investment aspect of collecting to be insane, stupid, or worse. However, I am also sure there are quite a few who think it's not a bad idea. The one thing I think I got out of college was learning that my view is often not shared by many, or even most, and that's ok. I am more than happy to share my collecting space with anyone who wants to do so in an honest and transparent way. Investor, collector, whatever.... The more the merrier. And if we don't think there are investors coming into our hobby then we are either naive or stupid, one of the two. I like what Brent is doing even if most of it isn't for me personally. Also, after getting to know Brent a little better there is no doubt in my mind that when he makes a mistake, as we all do, he will fix it quickly.

Do you like his defense of the altered 4.5 Mantle? To summarize, soaking and pressing a corner is "conservation" because it moves the card closer to its original state.

And how was that issue of blatant altering of a 36 wwg gehrig sold by pwcc a few years ago “fixed?”

PSA ultimately zapped the card, I believe. PWCC happily sold it without disclosure prior to that.

Of course not. Soaking and pressing isn't something I would condone or approve of. To me that is just too much. I could see soaking gunk off of a card and have done so.

You've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. Big investment returns don't fall off trees.

But send your cards to some vault in the middle of Oregon, sight unseen; after all, you're saving $200 in shipping and insurance when you need to sell that card that you just bought an hour ago. (The 10K in sales tax savings is not important and is NOT the main reason for the vault -- the ease of resale is). And sleep well at night knowing that CPA after CPA makes clear this is not a kosher tax move. Worst comes to worst, audits are fun: you get to meet new people you'd otherwise never cross paths with!

Every visionary like Brent was laughed at before they were revered.

So your unqualified praise of Brent has at least a footnote, oh but I disagree with him on his position on a 50K+ card he is now auctioning.

By the way, I assume you can ship any card you win anyplace to the vault, not just from PWCC? Or is that not right.

I am generally in favor of what PWCC is doing in the hobby but the only thing so far that has me scratching my head is this.

I am not certain how they can be giving investment advice on cards and treating them like securities and not have some form of oversight.

There were a lot of people trying to do similar with the crypo currency market and the SEC stepped in.

In a thread on CU we discussed this and one thing that stuck out to me was when a person using their advisory service was quoted as saying Brent told me not to bid on that card and wait for another one. To me this is just like a realtor saying don't bid on the house I am selling. When you agree to sell someone's trading cards you are obligated to them and to try and achieve the best selling price. I find this scenario as a major conflict of interest and something I believe needs to be more well thought out.

I will just add I don't know Brady Hill personally but if anyone follows high level collectors at all the guy is a whale.

I agree completely. I certainly could understand why some who actively buy and sell might consider it as an option but I like to see and "play" with my cards.

Maybe he generously steered his client away from a trimmed or otherwise altered card in a PWCC auction? It's theoretically possible I suppose. Wait, probably not.

If I recall it said with better eye appeal for the grade.

We can all agree that not all cards within in a grade are created equally and obviously there can be intense debate over the topic but from an investment standpoint clearly eye appeal is huge.

That said the advice needs to be coming from someone who is not selling the card and talking potential bidders out of bidding on it and potentially hurting the final selling price.

Was the card in question in a PWCC auction? If so, then your scenario plays out. If it was in another auction, then that opens up another can of worms. Having your clients avoid other auctions and steering them towards your auctions. In either case, there is a definite conflict of interest.

Did I ever say I agree with everything ANYONE says? There is no doubt you and I, Brent and I, and anyone else and I, see differently on many things. I don't agree with messing with cards much at all. The things which are deemed ok by most, which we have discussed ad nauseum, are the ones I don't mind.

If "investment advice" includes advising people how much to bid on cards in PWCC auctions, that strikes me as conflicted.

Yes it was a PWCC auction. Essentially saying how unbiased their advice was.

In real estate you can't represent both sides without full disclosure.

To me this is a huge can of worms because I under no circumstances feel it is right to pay someone to sell your cards and then have them at the same time tell preferred buyers to pass and wait for a better example to come along. If they want to give advice on other sellers cards in this form great. Just not on cards they are selling.

It was in this article


https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidse.../#2b0cba6d22fa


Here is my post


Let me first say I am a big fan of PWCC and really feel they have done a great job in the trading card market. I used to marvel when I would see their listings on EBAY and it took a few years to realize they weren't actually the one's who owned all of the awesome cards they were selling. I have purchased from them many times and feel they are miles ahead of other major EBAY sellers and their great results speak for themselves.

This quote from the article caught my eye and has me pondering whether or not this is a good idea.

In several cases, Huigens steered him away from the cards PWCC was selling: “I prefer you focus on slightly higher grades where the eye appeal is less volatile and the market is more stable,” he wrote him about an early Bowman Mickey Mantle in off-condition.

My first take is that this is a conflict of interest. When you have someone list your card the goal is to achieve the highest selling price. If the person selling it for you is talking buyers out of bidding on your card it can work against the final selling price as less buyers are in the market for it. I feel that this is kind of like a listing agent in real estate talking you out of the house they are selling. Their first priority is to the person whose home or in this case card that they are representing. I do think it is a great concept when dealing with others sellers cards and another value add that PWCC is trying to offer.

Curious what others think about it.

Sure...that's a conflict of interest...and an exhibition of preferential treatment likely in the hopes of making more money from that client at a later date...imo.

Similar to the preferential treatment that may occur on the part of the TPG'ers to their best clients/friends...same as what occurs in the government and in big business on a daily basis.

Money corrupts. Lots of money corrupts, if not absolutely, pretty close to it.

What if PWCC said on the front end that they represent both buyers and sellers interests?

I guess I can imagine telling a friend not to bid on a card I am selling as it isn't the best card for them, given their circumstances and desires? If my specific intent is to be honest, transparent and helpful I don't think there is a problem.

yup!