Matty Portrait SGC 5 for $4k+
 

Am I losing my mind, or did this just happen? The insanity continues.

How about the Tinker Hands on knees PSA 6.5 that just went for $4702 (last sale was 7/5/17 for $1778)? All the t206’s in pwcc are nuts tonight.

it's only a matter of time before this shilling has a massive negative impact on the hobby

The last two Psa 5 Matty portraits which have sold within the last 6 months ended at $3600 and $3471.

The Sgc 5 which ended tonight @ $4200 was far superior in eye appeal to both of those examples. I'm not surprised!

Insanity ?

Is it insane apple stock APL is up 800% since I bought it?

Gold is up up up

T206 cards are a commodity!

CV

without getting into whether the percentage increases are too high, there is a general shift in the market to eye appeal over grade. the price of the sgc 5 mathewson reflects that.

It’s gotta be the flip.;)

agreed..silly to compare this to stock prices........how much were clemente 1955 psa 7 rookies 'going' for last year...and a slew of others than magically declined in value even after the stock market went up

Shill...

How come you and Scott say it was a shill when, in post 4, Tony says there are lesser looking examples that only went for a little less? This was not an extraordinarily high price with respect to those? Unless there is more to it, I think ya'll are reckless in this particular case. NO doubt there are consignors or friends and family that shill on ebay (and in AH's auctions) but I would be careful about accusing with no corroborating evidence.

Leon- I hope you are right as I'm going after a 'big dog' tonight.

My comment was more in general, but was irresponsible since it was made in a thread about a specific item.

That being said the two bidders with the most individual bids on the Matty have 52% and 72% of all of their bids with PWCC. Coupled with the fact that these two bidders inched the price up in tandem does cause one (me anyway) concern.

However this is not a knock on Brent, as I am currently pondering how to prevent this kind of thing in my own online auction

Hmm...
 

Also odd was the ending result bid for the T206 W. Johnson portrait PSA 1.5 that went for $1,650.

On ebay recently a PSA 1 went for $375. And there is currently up on ebay a PSA 2 with BIN for $1,299.99

So, is someone really buying the PSA 1.5 for $1,650. and passing on the PSA 2 for $1,299.99 ?

I'm not trying to defend every bidding situation we see on PWCC here, but what you're describing there as tandem bidding is what happens in an auction as a bidding war no? I will sometimes place multiple bids at the end of an auction if it turns out my snipe was set too low, it can be a matter of impulse. I think some folks have that same impulse for the duration of the auction. Its not smart as it can lead to being bid up but I'm sure you've met competitive people who might enjoy doing the back and forth on an item especially if its below market price. Add a hot item into that equation and I'm sure you will find two bidders duking it out in an auction. Why would you want to prevent that in your own online auctions? I don't think that potential consignors with you will find that appealing. Not everyone has the same bidding habits that you might think are normal/traditional.

Whenever an ebay seller has 200-400 T206's listed in an auction on ebay my bidding percentage with them usually ends up above 75% for the duration of the auction as I collect T206. With the amount of advertising PWCC does I'll bet there are more than a few who don't bid on ebay unless its with PWCC, this would raise their percentage.. There are also not that many good cards auctioned as compared to lsited with a high set price, so bidding my be narrowed down to a certain seller when they have a large offering.

If you think about these things objectively you can see reasons for things that might otherwise be red flags. I don't see the price of Matty as crazy either, it went $500 higher than the last one... Just my 2c.

I have not looked at the bidding history on this particular auction, but the percentage of bids with PWCC doesn't really mean much. There are months when I probably have a bidding percentage that high with PWCC, and I have never consigned anything with them or shilled an auction.

The real dubious indicator to look for is bid retractions.

Two guys trying to top each other. . .trying to bid as little as they can to get it as cheaply as possible as the clock is running out . . . . Isn't that exactly how you figure ALL auctions end on eBay for highly coveted items? I do.

PWCC isn't an auction house where the closing clock gets reset repeatedly.

Curious. What is the eye appeal of the Psa 1 and Psa 2 example you mention? The Psa 1.5 in PWCC last night was stellar for the grade, thus the ending price.

I actually took a look at both, and I can certainly understand why someone would pay more for the 1.5 over the 2.

except these two were NOT at the very end. and one of them "string bid" according to Brent's definition about a dozen times advancing the bid up the minimum each time.

No one of these things (bid patterns, frequency with pwcc, etc) is conclusive, but taken as a whole it's at the least suspicious.

I've noticed that there are more and more lower graded cards selling for big money these days.

The new REA catalog is full of them.

Could it be that Net54's BST has enough clout to change shopping habits?

I think you're spot on with your observations.

And I also believe in the premise that N54 has a big influence on pricing trends.

I also am talking generally as well. Not saying for this particular item...also not saying it was on the 1955 clemente...just saying there is history of cards spiking out of nowhere where it may not be as organic as we would like....not saying it happened in this case....also was a reaction when someone was comparing the sales with recent stock prices...so was more of take on not comparing stocks with cards in this genre at this time until there is much more data points and time..

i've never understood the issue with "string bidding." why wouldn't a buyer want to increase the next bid the minimum amount in many auction scenarios assuming there is no bid retraction and the buyer pays? please explain.

as for the price of the matty, t206 prices of iconic hofers are outpacing the market, and the sgc 5 has better eye appeal imo than recent psa 5 sales in the mid 3k range.

we're seeing more examples of sgc cards getting psa prices in popular registry sets based on the eye appeal of the card rather than the grade or tpg company. that's a good thing for the hobby.

I don't care much about it but PWCC created a policy against it, but they don't enforce their own policies very consistently.

It also can be used abusively to run up the high bidder, if the string bidder stops just below his max. Sometimes depending on the bid amounts you can tell when the next bid will top. There was at least one guy who did this all the time in PWCC and Brent was aware of it. That bidder is no longer active.

It also looks suspicious when it's done right out of the gate, nobody realistically is trying to win the auction on day one of ten but PWCC auctions have, or had at least, a lot of early string bidding.

So it depends on context.

the 50's/60's/70's card bubble is very different than the dynamic in popular tobacco and cracker jack cards imo. the biggest difference is the pop. the second major difference is that buyers of the latter are differentiating between eye appeal and technical grade. buyers are paying prices that are sometimes 2-3 grades above the assigned grade for great eye appeal cards manufactured 100 years ago, not 50 years ago. that isn't to say that shilling isn't a factor...it is. but pricing seems less divorced from reality than what we were seeing in mid-2016 with high end clemente and rose rookies.

yes, some of the time you can tell when the next bid will top but i don't believe in most instances you can, which makes it a high risk strategy unless you are willing to pay for the card or retract your bid. that's the reason i've focused on the message of eliminating serial bid retractors from participating in ebay auctions.

i dont think pop is a factor when you are talking about a PSa 4-5 T206 versus a 1950s PSA 7-8

my point is that very strong eye appeal of a psa 4-5 t206 is adding a couple of grades to the final price, so the pop of a 4-5 is less relevant. pwcc's PQ and HE labels are a successful marketing tool to exploit that. buyers are willing to 6 prices for a really nice 4-5. that dynamic is less true of most 50s/60s cards -- with the exception of '51 and '52 mantle -- which have larger pops to begin with in general, and have less variation among high end examples because of better manufacturing processes 50 years later.

Logically it seems like the risk of this in a PWCC acution should be less than other eBay auctions, as Brett is going to collect payment whoever "wins" the item. If some guy is just listing an item himself and his buddy accidentally "wins" the item by bidding too high, they can just make believe the transaction never happened and re-list it. Or cancel the transaction on some fraudulent ground.

I once shiiled a Celine Dion meet and greet package at a live charity auction because my buddy who ran the event told me no way his friend was not going to win it. And it was for charity. And the winner was nearly a billionaire. But I still occasionally get a cold sweat thinking I had to pay $28,000 to meet her.

1, 1.5 and 2 are all low grade, so I wouldn't read too much into the grades themselves. The "grade uber alles" mentality seems to be a trait of those trying to compete on the registry and those dudes aren't chasing 1.5 vs. 2. The eye appeal trend has been building for a while.

T206s
 

It’s ALL about the eye appeal. People rather have an extremely nice 1.5 (with a negligible technical defect that lowers the grade) than a borderline eye appeal 2 or 3. That is EXACTLY where the hobby has leaned towards. Bottom line is VCP is useless without an image.

T206s
 

EXACTLY Jim! Collectors rather stare at a beautiful card than a higher numerical grade. Many times, the “technical” aspects for a card’s grade allows for lower graded cards to easily outdistance higher assessments with regard to superior aesthetics. This circumstance is widespread with low to mid grade cards, and we are seeing it with pricing results.

So, was this illegal in the state you placed the bid? Thanks for your confession.

+1

VCP has images, they aren't hard to get. Here you go.

I feel like the price for the SGC was too high. Market value for their "holders" isn't really the same, and in these mid grades there are often flaws that PSA probably downgrades. I know I'm speaking broadly, but I think most that try and cross would tell you the same thing - expectation from SGC to PSA should normally be a grade lower. There are exceptions, and this might be one.

As someone who collects T206 portraits I can say the Matty is a tough one to find in the mid-grades that really ticks all the boxes. I've owned 4-5 of them at different times between 3-6, but don't currently have one as I still have not found the right one.

I don't think the auction bidding looks all that suspect, the winner put in two bids. One at $100, one to win.


This one sold in REA in May for $3,600
Registration is off, centering is good, color is really good
https://i.imgur.com/D5KZVlol.jpg


This one sold in PWCC in April for $3471, and in PWCC in February before that (...no additional comment) for $3018
Registration is really good, centering is great but color isn't quite as vivid
https://i.imgur.com/v9FUCGkl.jpg


This one sold in Memory Lane in January for $2827
Registration is a little off, centering is great and color is great
https://i.imgur.com/hj0n0kgl.jpg


This on sold in Goldin last November for $3300, and in PWCC in March 2017 for $3450 (oops...)
Registration is a little off, centering is great and color is great
https://i.imgur.com/9sS1raIl.jpg


And the SGC 5 Certified High End for $4209
Registration is great, centering is great, color is great
https://i.imgur.com/O6SDecGl.jpg

My original point was really focused on the continued escalation of the T206 "big boys". But, you have to be careful comparing color from different scans. There's a lot of variability in scanners, as well as how much an image has been processed to look good. You can tell a lot just looking at the differences in border colors on the PSA flips.

I think the psa 5 in 2017 is the nicest. The corners are sharper.

Yeah I have made this point time and again when people compare 52T Mantles. It drives me crazy when you see an obviously nuked scan and people ooh and aah at the color. :)

This thread has been particularly interesting (and entertaining) to me, due to the fact that I am the buyer of the card. The price was high, but not insane in my opinion, and I am happy with the purchase. I researched past sales carefully to determine a price that I was comfortable with. For me, it simply came down to the fact that this particular card (IMO) had significantly better eye appeal than other recent mid grade sales (listed on VCP), and I bid accordingly. Incidentally, I think the SGC 5 card that I purchased last night and the PSA 5 card (posted above by bounce) with cert # ending in 146 are the same card. Contrast is definitely different in the scans, but appears to be the same card... I am a collector, with no intention of selling the card, and could not care less about the PWCC sticker (that I will probably remove), or set registries. Mid grade T206 portraits of elite HOFers, that are very well centered with good color and registration, just aren’t that easy to find, and I knew that I would have to bid strong to have a chance of winning the card. I bid twice on the card. Once at $100 (which was pretty pointless), and the final bid that I placed with about 10 seconds left in the auction. I hope that there was no shilling, but I guess it is always possible in an online auction. This was definitely no bargain purchase, but I am happy to have won the card and look forward to getting it in hand and adding it to my collection. I appreciate all the comments in this thread, including those that say I way overpaid. Thanks all!

Andrew

+1

back in my lurking days, i read many posts from a former member who would come on here the day after an auction and bemoan the crazy high price a piece of Negro League memorabilia or a HOF rookie card sold for. i mean he would nearly call the buyer stupid. then as these threads evolved, it would turn out the member more often than not was the underbidder. so his bid wasn't idiotic. only the person who went one click higher was.

the moral of the story is it's easy to criticize other people's purchases when they don't fit your perception of what's acceptable. more often than not these people find themselves doing more bitching than buying.

STRING BIDDING - I know a lot about this because Brent and I talked about it as I was doing it as they define it, and they asked me about it. It's still one of the least understood bidding practices out there. I don't agree with their policy, but I understand why it exists.

PWCC defined it as bumping the minimum bid multiple times without actually taking the lead. I understand how it could look odd when you can't see the names and broader bidding history, but without that you don't have all the facts or context. This was one of the big downsides of eBay not displaying the user IDs in the bid history.

For me, it's strategic to help manage my time bidding. I bid on literally hundreds if not thousands of items every week, so sniping isn't effective but I also don't want to have to come back to everything. Those "string bids" helped me rule out somewhere between 10-25% of auctions.

I wanted to either (1) get right behind the high bidder on something I really did want to win, or (2) drop out from any continued bidding because the high bid was sufficiently higher than I would want to pay. I normally did this a day or two prior to auction end to rule some auctions out, but sometimes did it late in the auction on things I really was trying to win.

When you're already high bidder in an auction, you don't have much incentive to bump your bid higher unless you've been outbid. If you know someone else is right there, it may put you to the test sooner - which for me is good because it helps me rule some things out so I could focus elsewhere.

Maybe other people did it to shill, but for me it was mostly time management.

I think they are the exact same card...

I had thought the same thing, but wanted to see what others thought before I said anything. I suspect this was a crossover that didn't go as expected, and then did.

Couple of final thoughts

1) The price didn't bother me because it was $500 higher than the last one, but because it was 50% higher than a comparable card from 9 months ago. That's a big increase.

2) If it is the same card (and sure seems like it is), anyone else think it's weird that it WAS NOT Certified High End the first time PWCC sold it, but it was this time?

I suppose it is possible it is the same card. The images are a tad fuzzy on my phone.

Andrew - Congrats on a FANTASTIC acquisition. Well done. You will not regret that purchase one bit. I have over-paid for most of my collection and now glad I bought them when I did.

[QUOTE=bounce;1819999]VCP has images, they aren't hard to get. Here you go.

I feel like the price for the SGC was too high. Market value for their "holders" isn't really the same, and in these mid grades there are often flaws that PSA probably downgrades. I know I'm speaking broadly, but I think most that try and cross would tell you the same thing - expectation from SGC to PSA should normally be a grade lower. There are exceptions, and this might be one.

David - While I don't completely disagree with your sentiment. And I know you are speaking more in a general sense, however, I do believe that PSA is intentionally harder on crossovers. I've seen too many stories where a card is rejected in its slab, but have a very high rate of success once it's submitted raw.

Also, PSA and SGC are tougher on different flaws so their grades reflect that. We also know there a many PSA cards out there that wouldn't even receive the same grade today due to their tightening the screws. So de-valuing any SGC card graded years ago because it won't cross isn't completely fair because many PSA cards would fail as well.

I guess my main point is using the blanket sentiment that SGC cards should be viewed a 1 grade lower is not entirely fair. Each card is it's own unique situation. Many are worthy and many are not. Tough to put a percentage on it.

As someone who collects T206 portraits I can say the Matty is a tough one to find in the mid-grades that really ticks all the boxes. I've owned 4-5 of them at different times between 3-6, but don't currently have one as I still have not found the right one.

This I am in total agreement. Many of the top tier portraits are tough to find that check all the boxes. I think collectors are really honing in on that. I couldn't be happier with my 4.

http://www.net54baseball.com/picture...ictureid=25593

I worry that while you paid what you were WILLING to pay, you paid more than you HAD to pay. If you're happy that's great, but would you be happier if it was $800 cheaper?

I think most people would take the 1.5 over the 2 even at the higher price.

Attachment 331502Attachment 331503

and that's not paper loss on the left border of the 1.5 is a print
flaw that is found on a few Johnson Portraits.

Attachment 331504

Yes, obviously. Since I want to continue to participate in the hobby, and since I typically seek out the type of cards that appear mainly in larger online auctions, I choose to bid what I am willing to pay, and hope for the best.

not really, considering there was an underbidder that was $50 less

or is that a bogus bid? that bidder dropped in $1600 earlier on so doesn't really seem nefarious

it's really RedFan's fault, considering if he had just passed the other bidder would have won the card at just over $3700 and then we're not talking about it

it's a great card, and it's not an easy find in that grade with that eye appeal

it was steep, but we've gotten a reasonable explanation as to what happened, which is actually kind of cool if you ask me

if you're building a collection of cards like this, you'll never miss that $500 - just make it up somewhere else