Heritage & PWCC and the PSA 9 Mays
 

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watc...-now-its-gone/

Presented without comment.

Another Story ugh �� ….

The moral is if you think you are smarter then the industry maybe you should humble yourself and you rely on yourself. Shipping it from state to state business to business letting others posses it in their vault….nah not for me.

Maybe should have been "sure" before forking out $93k , or whatever the price was.

Shipping is a fickle process, sure to go wrong at times. Unfortunately , this was one of those times.
Not sure where to place blame , here. If there is any to be placed.

Unfortunately My instinct tells me there was several fumbles along the way.

Hope it gets resolved, but there again, if Im dropping $90K, I would be sure, at least I hope I would.

Thomas

That site has a firewall up now but it looks like the card was subsequently found by PWCC, allegedly it shipped to the wrong address. So except for time and frustration, and possibly an over graded card, it doesn't look like anyone is out anything. But maybe I am not reading it correctly?
.

Notwithstanding the respective issues and foibles of the various players (PSA, Heritage, and PWCC), this sounds like a case of buyer's remorse. According to what I have read: (i) This guy (government worker) buys the card from a Heritage auction for $93k, pays and directs Heritage to send the card to the PWCC Vault, (ii) PWCC receives the card and emails the guy high resolution scans that shows things he does not like, (iii) he demands that Heritage takes the card back and directs PWCC to send to Heritage, which they do, (iv) Heritage says its a PSA 9, as advertised, and to take the matter up with PSA under their grade guaranty, (v) Heritage sends the package back to PWCC unopened, and somewhere along the line the (insured) package was lost and later found, (vi) the card is back in the PWCC Vault, Heritage will not return the money and maintains they sold a PSA 9 Mays, end of story, and to go back to PSA, and the owner is an upset baby who has now talked to the Texas AG and gotten the press involved.

It appears the only one who did anything wrong here is the buyer, who is unhappy he bought an over-graded card.

I was unable to open it but googled and found another write up on it

https://darik.news/oklahoma/the-myst...203540393.html

And I agree with Ryan both on his recap and his conclusion.

Buyers remorse on a card that was potentially over graded and thus over paid for it

Amazing how things could go so wrong by so many especially when dealing with a high value item like this

What is described as scratches looks like paper fibers to me.

The surprise to me is that a buyer at that level actually cares what's beneath the flip.

Also they seem plainly visible in the Heritage scans.

1952 Berk Ross Willie Mays PSA Mint 9 - None Higher.... https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c.../50049-56488.s

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

Well stated Ryan. 2 additional thoughts 1) Did he not use the zoom in feature of HA website. I'll criticize HA website and practices where do, but they do give very high resolution images. 2) Did a PSA 9 Berk Ross Mays really jump from $4400 in May 2020 to $93k in Nov 2021?

Agreed. I am unclear as to how he only noticed them in the PWCC scans, and not in the Heritage scans.

So has the buyer ever seen the card in person yet? If not, it seems a bit odd to get this worked up about something he's never held in his own hands. I agree that the imperfections may be paper fibers that somehow got encapsulated along with the card, rather than imperfections on the card itself. But one would probably have to see it in person to confirm.

From the DMN article:

"PWCC’s logistics coordinator wrote Flatto back last week, saying: “I took a look into this for you to see what is going on and unfortunately, we do not have this package in our possession. The tracking data indicates this was shipped to and delivered to an address that is not ours and has a different ZIP code from our location.”

"The good news is that after The Watchdog started asking questions, magically, the Mays card suddenly reappeared. PWCC staffers told Flatto they found it."

"In a statement emailed to The Watchdog, PWCC co-owner Betsy Huigens blamed Heritage Auctions for sending the card to a bad address and “with no identifying information about the card’s ownership.”

What I'd be curious to know is, who is the underbidder who bid that guy up so high? There wasn't just one person willing to go that high and so far over the earlier price. Kind of surprising there would be at least two people willing to go that high anyway, seeing as how it isn't even his rookie year, or considered a mainstream card.

Of course, isn't it also true that under Texas law that employees of an AH are allowed to bid on items being sold by their employer? So, anyone know which AH auctioned off the Mays card in May 2020 for so much less?

The sheer number of typos made it nearly unreadable. But it was funny in parts. Willie "Mace" .... who I haven't heard of, but have to think had a unique style of baserunning.
Or playing "how many different ways can you spell the same guys name"

But I think someone at pwcc should have had a look when he complained to see if that was just stuff on the scanner or slabbed along with the card.

Or better still, they guy should have gotten the card himself and looked at it.

Bob, both were HA.

May 2020

Nov 2021

Correcting the mis-worded first sentence in the Dallas morning News story :

Isaac Flatto loves Willie Mays so much that a few months ago he bought a slab and had it sent to PWCC.

Loves Willie Mays my ass.

He cares less about that card than I do about the dump my dog took on our last walk (I at least cared enough to scoop it up and throw it in the trash).

Thanks, did not know that. Still can't wrap my head around the almost 20X increase in price in such a short time for a Berk Ross card, and how at least two people were thinking the same. I could see a few multiples increase over the earlier price, but 20X?!?!?! Wow!!!

It's one thing when a TPG slabs a card with a subjective grade that folks may disagree with. In fact that happens all the time when cards are resubmitted hoping for a 'bump'. Or when the grading scale changes over time. If PSA says its a nine, then it is a nine - until they regrade it and assign a new grade. Then it is the new grade.

It's another thing when they certify a card as unaltered (by giving it a numerical grade) or certify that an autograph is authentic and then it is proved otherwise.

Dude bought a nine and that is what he got. Stop yer whining.

But, Betsy, how did the card reappear in your greedy little hands after missing for so long? Didn't see anything about that in your statement.

Mantle Berk Ross in 8 went from 16k to 91k in less than a year.

To those not paying attention
 

Yes high grade Berks ross cards exploded over the last year. It wasn’t just this mays. Also Doug how do you know what this man thinks of Willie Mays? Because he has money doesn’t mean he doesn’t love the player. What a judgemental ignorant claim to make. So tired of some of you acting like the arbiters of what makes someone a true collector. In some of your eyes it seems to mean someone who doesn’t know crap that likes to sit in internet chat rooms bitching up a storm. About things they think they know a lot about but in the end are actually rather ignorant.

What bothers me is this guy going to the Texas attorney general. This is why law enforcement doesn't give two shits about people being ripped off in this hobby, in my opinion.

A guy pays nearly 100k for a piece of cardboard, foolishly mails it back to the auction house he purchased it from; things get messed up because of said foolishness, so then he expects the attorney general to get involved? Gimme a break! Who in the attorney general's office could possibly give two shits about this guy and his $93,000 baseball card?

If you can afford that much for a baseball card, hire your own people to straighten it out you numbskull!

I don't know if the paywall is still up but here is the original story sans the typos

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watc...CvDVEowWcBjVVg

Sure, he's so in love with Mays and the card, he spent $93k and sent it to a third party reseller to hold for him? He's interested in a potential profit in the slab. He's a true collector of slabs from his favorite player, good for him.

Doug "judgementally bitching up a storm, as the ignorant arbiter of what makes a 'true' collector" Goodman



PS -fu** that guy, and his buyer's remorse.

PPS - Insert smiley face here about my f-bomb

I agree with Doug. This guys buys a high grade card and ships it to a vault in another state to avoid taxes. He doesn't sound like any collector I've ever known. Then he complains about the card being overgraded without ever actually holding it? I think that Ryan is right: he got buyers remorse, perhaps because of the high price of the card, and now he's seeking to cancel the transaction.

I'd be curious what the Texas AG thinks about the avoidance of paying Texas state sales taxes.

If I were the Texas AG, I'd tell him to contact the Oregon AG, that's where the card was sent and resides.

That's a very good point.

As for the buyer's complaint

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...ong%20jack.gif

Just a note -- he may not even know this but one of the high ranking people in the Texas Attorney General's office is a big-time collector which much knowledge of what goes in this hobby/business.

If he knew that great, if not, there are actually people in the AG office who understand cards

Rich

Seems difficult to me to support the buyer's case on either fraudulently selling (Heritage) or fraudulently grading (PSA) when he has never even held the card in question. Overgrading / misgrading as we know with PSA is incredibly common, yes - even with super expensive cards.

I would stand by Heritage in saying that they sold a PSA 9. Whether or not it's a properly graded 9 is not their problem. That guy saw it, saw it high res, and bought it anyway.

Why would PWCC do this? Is this normal behavior/protocol before a card is placed in their vault?
Is this a slam against Heritage or PSA or both?
"PWCC took closeup photos of the card and sent them to Flatto. When he saw them, he was furious"

couldn't the scratches also be on the Fake PSA case?:D

I don't think either company is at fault. The blame lies on the investor.. Maybe he should invest in something else?

A question- Why on earth would a true collector send a card to a vault? Every collector I know wants their cards in hand. I wouldn't feel I was a collector if I didn't have my cards but that's just me.
.

To avoid paying taxes. If you make several purchases a year around that amount the savings can add up.:)

True as a statement, yet BS as an excuse.

Like how I didn't use "the word", see I'm learning... :)

I get that.
However, what kind of true collector doesn't want to have their cards in hand or close by? As a collector it makes no sense to me. And I get the ole, "a collector can collect any way that want to" adage. I collect with cards not pictures online from a vault. I check out my physical cards very frequently. To each their own..
.

I'm not going to judge who is a true collector and who isn't. People can collect however they want, store it how they want, can flip, can "invest", it's really all their choice just as I choose to do my thing (which is to take pictures, put them in my google drive and look at them every once in a while in hand.) However, this guy has no room to complain. Whether you like HA or not they take great pictures that you can zoom in and could clearly see all these details. This guy clearly has buyers remorse, he probably thought he could flip it quickly and then realizes he is stuck.

This isn't necessarily a correct statement that Texas sales tax was avoided. The one article I read, out of the different links posted, never indicated what state the buyer, Flatow, lived in. His residence state, if it did have a sales tax, would be the state losing out on the sales tax by having the card sent directly to the PWCC vault in Oregon. It isn't necessarily Texas that lost out on the sales tax on this Mays card then.

Heritage however is based in Texas. So, if there is a perceived violation in fair trade practices by them, you would probably be correct to initially contact some office or department in Texas about it. Just not certain the Texas AG's office is the proper place to start for such a complaint. But Oregon's AG clearly has nothing to do with this in regards to Heritage.

Leon,

If this buyer lived in a state with say a 7% sales tax rate, using PWCC's vault just saved him about $6,500 he'd otherwise have to pay as sales tax. That savings could allow someone to pick up a few really nice additional cards as well for one's collection. And it has been discussed before about how we don't know the specific policy of each of these "vaults" currently out there on how they'll treat sales tax on items removed from them after they've been left in one for an extended period of time. Chances are that after enough time has passed, you could remove items from the vault and not owe any sales tax.

So granted, a real collector would likely want such a great card in hand. But how many real collectors may be willing and happy to wait an extra six months, a year, or maybe even longer, and leave the card in the vault before asking it be sent to them, knowing that by doing do so they may have saved enough in sales tax to buy a decent T206 Cobb as well? And in this case the card is slabbed, so it's not like the owner would be able to truly hold, feel, or even smell the actual card anyway.

Now this may not be acceptable to you, but I wouldn't be shocked to find out that quite a few true collectors wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of something like this, if presented with the proper situation. Just saying.....

Well said Bob. +1

And I would add to that: While all of my cards reside near me, I rarely look at them person. I much more often look at pictures of them on my phone, which I could just as easily do if my cards were in a vault instead of in safe deposit box nearby.

Great point as well Ryan. Many people opt to keep their more valuable cards in a safe deposit box, so like a vault, they're not handling and looking at their actual cards on an ongoing basis. Couple that with some potentially serious money to be saved on sales taxes, and you're likely to start getting more and more people to ask why wouldn't a true collector take advantage of someone's vault.

Just a guess that people dropping 100K type world record money on a card aren't THAT concerned about sales tax. And storing cards close to home with a heavily regulated bank just isn't the same as storing them remotely with a private company with a world of legal problems. You couldn't pay me to put my cards in Brent's custody.

Don't disagree with anything you're saying Peter, but very often I would think that someone who has that kind of money to spend on a card was able to accumulate it from taking advantage of smart, frugal measures at some point in their life. Like using a vault to save on sales taxes. And once someone has developed such thinking and habits, especially in regards to money and finances, I would think they tend to stay with them.

Having said that, a vault is not my optimal idea of collecting either. And can definitely understand people's hesitancy to maybe use one vault provider option over another, for various reasons. LOL

People shattering world records for cards do not, in my judgment and experience, tend to be frugal types.

I'm just following the info in that article. The guy buying the card does not sound like a billionaire with money to burn.

So let me ask you. If you went to buy this card and found using a vault could potentially save you thousands of dollars in sales taxes, would you ever consider using a vault to do so, or not?

No. I don't want someone else, other than a local bank, having possession of my card.

So in your scenario a person that waits long enough doesn't potentially need to pay sales tax? Sounds like a novel idea..
I might want to verify that lol.
So yeah, if I can buy a 50k card...and save 4500 tax to not have it for a year...or maybe longer, sure I would consider a vault...

Are we certain he is avoiding tax?
It works when bought on eBay but I do not get the option to send to the vault and save from auction houses.
I suppose if you registered using the vault as your address might be different.
And yes, I use the vault.
Thomas

Each state varies, but I know that in CA that can happen, per the CA Dept. of Fee and Tax Administration:

"Purchases for use outside of California. Your purchase of property (other than vehicles, vessels, or aircraft) outside of California is generally not considered to have been purchased for use in California and use tax does not apply if the property is:
delivered outside of California,
first functionally used outside of California, and
used, stored, or both used and stored outside of California for more than 90 days from the date of purchase to the date of entry into California.*

*This is exclusive of any time the property was being shipped or stored for shipment to California.

However, in general, if you purchase property outside of California and first functionally use the property in California, your purchase is subject to use tax. "Functional use" means the use for which the property was designed. You should retain documentation to show that the property was purchased for use outside of California. "

I guess the issue is whether it was put to functional use in the OR vault.

There's also an offset for sales tax paid in another state.

Leon,

Sales and Use Taxes are state, not federal laws, so they can really vary from state to state. Also, you won't typically see anything specifically written into such state laws that talks or deals with sales and use taxes being due when someone moves from one state/location to another. Sales and use taxes are typically calculated and due right when you purchase something, not long after you've bought and owned something, and then later on move and take them with you. Have you ever in your life heard of someone moving from one state to another, and then having to figure out if they now have to pay sales/use tax to the new resident state they just moved into? I'm going to guess that will be a huge NO, because no state and their legislature could ever be that stupid (regardless of how hard a lot of them may try).

So, if you bought cards and had them immediately sent straight to, held, and then kept in a vault in a state with no sales taxes, that is where your cards are deemed to be kept/used, and therefore the sales/use taxes of that same state are applicable. The laws are the same for individuals and businesses. Ford Motor is headquartered out of Detroit, but has factories and offices all over the country. But if someone from the main office in Detroit orders something to be delivered and used at a plant in say Ohio, Ohio and not Michigan sales/use tax will be due on what was purchased, even if the invoice gets sent to Detroit, and the check to pay for the purchase comes from there as well. And the same goes for individuals like you and me, it doesn't matter where we live at the time we buy something online or otherwise have delivered to us from an out of state seller that determines sales/use tax on our purchase, it is where the item purchased is to be sent/kept/used. And that is one thing that is pretty much recognized and universally followed by all the states with sales and use taxes. And that is why the vaults work to keep people from paying any sales/use taxes when they're located in states with no sales/use taxes.

Now states are aware that people may try to get around sales taxes on big ticket items like cars. So even if you drive across state lines to buy a car, the sales tax will be charged based on where you end up registering and using the car, not necessarily where your main residence is. Think of someone having a vacation home they stay at a few weeks out of the year that is in another state, and they buy a car just to keep and use at the vacation home. The sales tax is due to the state your car is kept and used in, in that vacation home state, not the state you permanently reside in.

Normally state's sales/use tax laws say nothing about a time frame for how long after you purchased something in one state that you then need to wait before moving it to another state, and be totally free of any concern that the new state you just moved it to might think you now owe them sales/use tax on items just brought into that new state that were previously purchased elsewhere. There are some rare instances though where a time frame may be indicated in a state's sales/use tax laws. For example, California sales/tax laws have a specific provision, just for motor vehicles. If you buy a car in another state, and then move it to and register it in CA within less than one year from the date you originally bought the vehicle, you now owe CA the difference between the sales tax you paid in the state you originally bought it, and what you would have owed had you originally purchased it CA. If you originally paid more than what you would have paid CA, then you owe CA nothing. But if you owned the car a year or more before then moving it to CA, you don't ever owe CA any sales tax on the car you just moved into the state. And I believe they may have something about 90 days for other regular sales well. And CA is a very aggressive taxing state, yet even they realize you can't be subject to sales/use tax forever on items you're just moving from one state/location to another.

It's just that to my knowledge, most state currently have no specific language in their sales/use tax laws that spells out how long you'd have to keep a card in one of these vaults before you could then take it out and bring it home with you, and have absolutely no sales/use tax consequence from your state of residence. So, when looking at and maybe selecting which different vault provider you may be thinking of using, you may want to ask and find out up front what their policies are on charging sales/use taxes on something you end up removing from their vault, especially if it is long after you originally bought it and put it in there.

Great post. Was typing my own and didn't see yours. And as you said, this varies by state. But it clearly demonstrates that you likely should be able to get around sales/use taxes and possibly still be able to bring things to your home eventually. Just need to check what the vaults may or may not want to do. And just don't assume what they tell you is 100% accurate.

And as for "functional use", I would think that the safeguarding and safekeeping of your valuable assets would be an adequate functional use. And if you ever happened to also have the vault service provider take and sell something from your vault for you, that should clearly demonstrate another functional use of the vault.