Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoPoto
Sorry, I didn't mean to infringe on your intellectual property rights, he said good-naturedly. But isn't it the case that PSA was buried under an avalanche of "circulated" current-year cards that were sold by Topps (et al) to "specialists", who immediately and with as little handling as possible submitted them to PSA for grading in anticipation of selling them as soon as they were returned as PSA 10s? Unless I'm wrong about that, it seems like common sense (and basic free-market capitalism) for Fanatics to address the tsunami of demand for PSA 10 (which is essentially a euphemism for uncirculated) current-year cards directly.
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LOL
George, Wasn't picking on you, and my apologies if it came across that way. Just mentioning it in case you wanted to go back and see what others may have already said in the earlier thread(s). I'm bad at finding and attaching old thread links myself.
I get your point about PSA and trying to get 10s from them, but seems like after listening to all the talk and criticism their grading gets, it sounds like it is really getting harder to get 10 grades from them. Plus there's the additional dissatisfaction with the backlog issue and submitters waiting months and months to get their graded cards returned, not to even mention the increased fees. But why would Fanatics/Topps be so concerned about PSA? The way things are working now, what does Fanatics/Topps make off people buying their cards, and then submitting them right away to PSA (or any other TPG)? Far as I can tell, nothing. So if Fanatics/Topps were to decide to start marketing directly to their customer base, and basically begin taking distribution over from the breakers, why not try something like also offering their customers the opportunity to have cards they win from them encapsulated as "uncirculated" right from the factory? Fanatics/Topps can then charge their customers extra for this service, and make money that otherwise would just be going to TPGs. It also eliminates the possibility that customers buying cards through breakers, or from other sources, could inadvertently do damage to them in handling and sending them off for grading, regardless of how careful they are, and thus end up with a lower grade. Heck, the TPG they send their cards to could mishandle and damage someone's cards, ever so slightly, also resulting in lower grades. And any submitter would probably never know it. And you sure as heck know the TPG likely won't admit to damaging someone's cards. Don't know about you, but I honestly can't really tell the difference between a 9, 9.5, or 10, with the naked eye. And if the cards are encapsulated at the factory, people buying them in the after-/secondary markets won't have to worry so much about card doctors having gotten their hands on them before they sent off to TPGs for grading. So if given the opportunity, I could see some people, at least in the beginning, possibly embrace the idea of a factory issued "uncirculated" designation. And as you said/asked, isn't a PSA 10 card more or less considered the equivalent of an uncirculated card? To that statement I agree and say yes. But then what's to stop the possibility in the future, if the practice becomes more and more accepted by even just some collectors, that a Fanatics/Topps factory encapsulated "uncirculated" card now in people's eyes becomes the equivalent of a PSA 10?
If Fanatics/Topps could pull that off, I could even see them possibly looking to later on acquire one of the established TPGs that possibly took a hit from such actions. That would help Fanatics to add to and expand their vertical market even further. Just look what they've done to the sports card manufacturing business as a whole, and Topps specifically, in a relatively very short period of time. If Fanatics has already gone this far with the card manufacturing part of the industry, what makes you think they'll stop there, and maybe not try to get into (and possibly take over) the distribution/wholesale sales, breaking, and grading parts of the industry next? Fanatics, ergo the major U.S. sports leagues and their accompanying player's associations and unions, is all about making as much money for themselves as they can. How they intend to do that, and how it will end up affecting our little niche of the collecting universe, remains to be seen.