let me get this straight...
 

Does Beckett grading service also sell cards they grade on Ebay under the name Beckettmedia ??

I feel a BCCG reference coming on...

yes and....
 

Yes and do a search on the board... ....it has been debated and hashed out ad nauseum...or go for it here :)

.

Largely it's a hobby and business without any rules or regulations with the exception of those you choose to impose upon yourself.

Truer words never spoken. Well, at least until those pesky federal agents start poking around.

welcome back...to the WILD WILD WEST, folks!!!

It kind of takes the "3rd party" out of "3rd Party Grading", doesn't it?
JimB

I'm with Frank on this one. What a conflict of interest. I'll have to check the older threads about Beckett.

Actually, the answer is no. Beckett Grading Services is a division within Becket Media. BGS grades cards but does not run the auctions.

I understand and appreciate many will see little significance in this distinction, and that's fine by me. My point here was to answer the initial question as it was written, and the question named a specific division within Beckett, BGS. If the question was a more general "Does Beckett grade and auction cards?," my answer would be Yes.

If someone fallows up with, "So, David, are you claiming it's not a conflict interest to ...," I'll repeat what I just said: I was just answering the question as it was written.

yes, I don't see much distinction there. I'm of the opinion that entitiies that grade cards for $$ should probably not be trying to profit by selling such cards as well. They should be concentrating on grading cards and bettering the hobby. Instead they foament suspicion and distrust in many longtime collectors. This just smells funny....to be cliche'. I don't care if Beckett 's fast food division ( if they had one...LOL) was selling the cards, it still doesn't seem right to me. I am not a coin or stamp collector , but I seem to remember some of my friends that do complaining about the same thing a few years back. Someone who graded coins was also profiting big time from selling their own graded material. I'm not sure how you justify that business practice with a straight face. :confused:

Conflict of interest? Yes, but it seems like the market and collectors have a nice way of dealing with that by applying a discount to BVG cards.

For example, I bought a BVG 3.5 T206 Cobb "Bat off Shoulder" for about $721 last year. A PSA 3 Cobb sold for $1100 at the time. I was happy to pick it up and cross it over to an SGC 40. I wondered why the auction went for so low, but I suspect it may be that people don't trust Beckett auctions or Beckett grading because of this conflict of interest, so they bid less. You'll always be safe if you buy the card, not the holder.

http://www.sgccardregistry.com/cards/us133525.jpg

before i came to this site, Beckett was the only grading company whose slabs i would buy. I was very surprised no one here supported them.

From my experience, they have always graded very tough and have yet to see an over grade, although i am sure they do exist.

I have since learned/ noticed from the much more experienced and knowledgable guys that SGC is acceptable and PSA is ok as long at you dont buy from Jose Hernandez, or anyone else selling high end cards in the LA area

Personally Beckett grading has always been favorable.

Conflict of interest concerns are legitimate and should be addressed by a company to its customers. But I'll tell you this, if you're going to try and convince a United States Company, whether its Coca Cola or Microsoft, that it should drop a major profit making portion of it's company at its loss, good fricking luck. We're talking Don Quixote and windmills here.

So you are saying that Beckett's card sale are a major portion of it's profit ? How long has that been the case ? I suspect that the lower realized prices for Beckett graded cards speak volumes about trust and perception as a prior poster wrote. When demand for their graded cards dries up, that will be that. :D. I've always liked ungraded cards personally. My brother and I joined PSA several years ago when we first started collecting pre-war cards. We didn't join for the hope of future $$$ either. We wanted to make sure we weren't getting ripped off by buying counterfiet items. Once I learned how to identify fakes on my own I stopped submitting cards on a regular basis. We now use the service for my brothers PSA registry sets and to keep in touch with some other collectors. I still don't understand why PSA graded cards seem to garner higher prices than other companies. A card is a card to me whether it's in plastic or not. I keep my T206's in those old 3 ring binder pages so I can look at them easily. I have avery few graded cards right now.

How long has it been since the National where the subpoenas were served? Are we going on two years now?

Yep, Chicago, 2008 National

Isn't this the same reason that James Spence stopped selling autographs? I would be willing to bet that any autographs that he sold would have come with a certificate saying it was authentic.......but if he still sold autographs, would anyone trust his authentication ?

It depends what era's cards you are talking about. I always bought BGS for modern stuff. Since I shifted gears to prewar collecting, however, BGS (BVG) doesn't hold a candle to SGC, imo. Depending on the issue, PSA may be acceptable, but I am far and away most comfortable buying SGC slabs for my prewar cards. It is a personal choice though and one that each collector needs to make for himself (or herself).

As far as Beckettmedia selling BGS graded cards, I can certainly see how the conflict of interest (whether real or only perceived due to company structure) is there. On one hand, I prefer that they are at least out there under their own name so that we don't have a "did you know that so-and-so works for Beckett and is selling their cards" type expose. On the other hand, I guess I wouldn't expect for them to sell PSA-slabbed cards. Since I largely don't collect modern cards any more, Beckett is pretty much a moot point to me since I avoid them.

Bvg
 

Beckett is an advertiser and I know some of the guys personally. That being said I trust BVG very much and have never had an issue with their grading (since they bought back one high profile mistake, Cobb-Drum)....I actually trust their grading far more than PSA......but that is just my opinion. PSA does a decent job (I am sure a few PSA bigots will need to chime in, in order to protect their slabs). I am just giving my personal opinion here. As for Beckettmedia selling on Ebay...it's hard to get passed that perception of a conflict, though I don't have an issue with it. I pay as much as I want to for any given card, regardless of the seller or slab. ....regards

Amen, could not have said it better...

Leon's right
 

In the end , a card is only worth what we as collectors are willing to pay for it.

I'll echo Jim's comment: you can pick up some really sharp pre-war cards on ebay in BVG holders which look better than their similarly graded PSA and SGC counterparts and at a much better price. I have crossed over BVG caramels to SGC and received a bump every time but once.
(Added to state that I cracked the cards out and submitted them raw).

I think,from what I've seen,that BVG does a pretty good job.The T206's I have that are graded by BVG seem very accurate-maybe a little on the "tight" side even,which IMO,is better than "overgraded".

I don't go for anything graded by BCCG,on the other hand.Seems bunk,and I feel they should do away with it(I know,they bank off it,so they won't).

I have the most confidence in SGC,BVG second,and PSA last.PSA seems to be all over the place in the V/G-V/g-EX range..............

Regards,Clayton