[benjulmag]

Bob,

I hear you and I suppose if the objective is to address the concerns of those who are in this hobby not for the pleasure but instead for the investment potential, what you are proposing can't hurt.

That said, IMO the bigger problem which still needs to be addressed is that the current business model of grading cards (reliance on visual inspection) is outdated and cannot keep up with the advances in altering and counterfeiting, much the same way police radar devices soon become obsolete once the latest radar detector hits the market. So even if there was a unified grading system all could agree on, that still doesn't mean there will be any reduction in altered cards receiving numerical grades.

What I like most about your proposal is the idea of a single unified registry. It is the PSA set registry that causes PSA cards to sell at higher prices than identically graded cards from another TPG. It would not surprise me if polled a majority of knowledgeable collectors would rate SGC as having better graders, but those same people would still want their cards slabbed by PSA because the cards would fetch higher prices.

In another thread there was a discussion of forcing PSA to include other TPGs in its set registry. Among the comments to that idea was the firm view that it would be met with howling resistance from many well-heeled collectors who believe much of the value and prestige of their collections reside in their place in the PSA registry.