Why don't Net54 members start up a TPG
 

This board's collective knowledge far surpasses anything any TPG has to offer. Seeing how many individuals spend so much time on pointing out card issues, reprints, trimmed etc., my question is, why don't some of these well knowledged collectors start something up?

I trust the boards advice much more than what I've seen at PSA, SGC, BGS you name it. If this were to happen, I would no doubt submit my cards.

What are others thoughts? Has anyone considered actually starting up a TPG or entertained thoughts?

I know it's tough, but you see all these junk "authenticators" pop up all the time, I can see if happening.

I was approached a few years back from someone well respected in the hobby about the idea. First, I think he thinks I'm more knowledgeable than I am. There are people around here who've forgotten more than I know. Second I was just starting the auction and couldn't even consider splitting my focus, not to mention the conflict of interest problems.

Are there guys here who are capable? 100%.

Are there guys here who are capable who have (or are interested in spending) the time it would take to do this? Ay, there's the rub!

This is spot on. The skill and ability is unquestionably here, but the logistics, money, and time required to set it up is more than most (all?) want to invest.

I do not have any graded cards, not my bag, but I have indirectly asked this question before only to be derided. It seems to be a no-brainer, but for the effort. The level of knowledge on this forum is second to none.

+1 agreed

Others have got past that conflict of interest thing.:D

Scott is spot on. There are several here that could do it and a couple have even seemed pretty serious about doing it. Anybody thinking about doing it now?

Ive always felt it would be a great idea. One of the pitfalls is that PSA is king because of marketing, not because of grading experience and that takes a massive amount of dollars and time to change customers preferences.

The founder of Verisleeve was a member here back in the day. Not sure if the company is even still operating, but they graded fair from everything I could tell. They obviously didn’t have the resources to compete with the big three, but did a fair job for what they offered IMO.




Because it’s much easier correct someone else’s mistakes than it is to be in the position to make the mistakes. As a society we also adore tearing down success.

It looks like Verisleeve is still in business. $3 for standard 15 business day service and $5 for Premium 5 day service.

I know this isn't the place to rant about grading companies, but if I were designing a grading company from scratch, I would make the priority to authenticate cards and determine if they are altered. Anything beyond that seems to add very little actual value to a collector. PSA's grading inconsistency is very well known at this point, and we've all seen plenty of cards that look undergraded and overgraded, and there is no rhyme or reason to it. You don't get any kind of explanation as to why your card got the grade it did.

At this stage of my collecting existence, I want to know if the cards I have are real, and if they have been trimmed or re-colored. Beyond that, it doesn't matter. PSA's real stroke of genius was to create the set registry, and to then control the population on very desirable cards, trying to spark that competitive streak in people to get them to always search for that elusive higher grade, low population card for their registry.

It looks like Greg Morris is starting a grading company now too...

This ☝

wait what??? is there anything online about this?

My guess is no one here wants to risk at least $25mm in startup capital or invest the 80 hr work weeks to start a grading company that might be, if all goes well, a viable 3rd player in a relatively small industry.

The idea of Net54 starting/administering a TPG is pretty far-fetched for all the reasons mentioned above. There are huge upfront costs and staffing/marketing issues that couldn't be solved by pure 'hobbyists' despite their deep understanding of grading standards. Not to mention physical custody and consistency issues that would come into play with decentralized grading which I'm assuming is the proposal.

All that said: formalizing a collective condition review process would actually be a pretty cool experiment. The idea being you upload card with the best pictures you can (warts and all) and the community offers their opinion on the grade or grading components. Those grades are then averaged and you have a 'report card' on your card....no encapsulation, no guarantee of authenticity, but just a standardized group opinion of your raw card.

Someone is already doing a crowd-sourced grading

This!

The countless threads we have where people ask opinions have convinced me there will never be a consensus or anything like it. On your typical post, you have people saying this edge is trimmed, that edge is trimmed, the card is fine, and so on. It's hard even to get a consensus on a fake. I swear there was one where different people opined each edge was trimmed. Even worse with the guess the grade threads. In these circumstances an average is meaningless.

I was curious and looked Verisleeve up. From their home page it looks like the last "special" was in 2018. Either they quit offering specials or they haven't update their home page.

Yes!!!! Lets do it. Where is that Angel investor board member that called me in August of 2019? The Midwest needs a grading service! So much cheaper on shipping and just about everything else.

In order to get the proper guys from here to be graders it would require salaries big enough to get them to stop what they are doing to come and work for a grader. Possible relocation of said graders, since you can't have multiple locations without proper equipment. That would cost too much for a start up. I figured a good $2.5 mil just to float for 3 years as a basic company without any relocation cost for employees.

Another thing is, No matter who you have as graders Nothing guarantees the hobby will accept said company. Look at today's companies and who is here still after all these years. You would also need a lot of hobby support to drive resale values and keep them in line with the big 3.

AI software is cheaper now and I am still ignorant to most of it no matter how hard I try to understand it. Would be nice to finally have a team of younger guys that know this stuff to help apply all the right functions needed to properly grade a card like I want. There is a lot I have said about this in the past and feel like there has been some people in the hobby that take advantage of people and screw them over. Those people will never be allowed to be employed or use the services of any company I would be involved in. Suck to be a crook I guess.:D

A great idea on paper, given the deep baseball card knowledge on this board, but, for the reasons already stated, just too time-consuming and expensive to be viable. How about if the board co-authors, as they see it, some kind of reference tool about the current state of the baseball card market and AH's who live off it, showing all the pitfalls, schemes, shill bidding, crooks and the like.
I, for one, have kept all my cards rejected for trimming, altered or even fake cards, such as a Cobb Wolverine which had me fooled (the pixels were wrong). They would make a nice exhibit.
It is great to toss these ideas around.

I may be interested. There is no one better. Holla

:cool::cool::cool:

How is the sticker business working out?

I've considered doing authentication similar to what the stamp guys do.
Here in the US it's similar to cards, with most of the business going to three big players and then a handful of specialists. Slabbing failed in that market, the tradition of albums is just too entrenched. So you get certificates.

In other parts of the world, it's more down to individual specialists or specialized clubs.

To me the downfall wouldn't be startup costs, as most of that can be done small, which may be even better for accuracy. The downfall for me would be how disorganized I am.

Reinstallment this summer. Sit tight

There is also the "data" one uses to ID Cards. Trust me when I say this, it's a lot more complicated than you think it should be to properly label cards and not cause any "plagiarism" issues.

Rich