Quote:
Originally Posted by BobC
Not talking about regulating the hobby for collectors at all. Talking about regulating those that supposedly provide services to the hobby and its collectors, that make money off all of us and try to tell us how the hobby should be. I imagine you do not care for graded cards that are incorrectly and inconsistently graded, or altered and doctored cards easily getting into slabs and no one seeming to stop doing business with those known to be behind that, interacting and doing business with dealers/consignees/AHs and such that are behind or support shill bidding, make false claims, push fake or altered items, and on and on and on. The group I'd like to see having the control and oversight would be made up of the actual collectors, so they would decide what the grading standards should be, who the members accept to do business with within the hobby community, and actually fulfill what the collectors want and desire, not the other way around.
Won't happen though because too many collectors themselves have profited off the actions of players in the industry, and wouldn't want to risk what they have tied up in their collections. If such a hobby group finally came to be, say a particular TPG refused to abide by the hobby organization's rules and such, and therefore were no longer recognized by the hobby. And if the hobby organization's members stayed united and quit doing business with that TPG and recognizing and trading in their slabs, everyone with cards in that TPG's slabs would likely see a sudden and tremendous drop in prices for their cards. Suddenly, all the hobby members with a major collection in that TPG's slabs would potentially be taking a big hit value/income wise, which would likely cause them to have serious second thoughts about having joined and following the hobby organization to begin with.
And the bad players would probably go on doing business on their own anyway, followed by those that don't know better, or couldn't care less, and either never joined the hobby organization as members to begin with, or dropped out of it after the fact. As long as they can continue to make some money and get what they want, and they don't really care much for ethics and integrity. Just like some not so well-liked players in the industry today seem to be doing well on their own, despite many people in the hobby no longer doing business with them.
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You're preaching to the choir, Reverend. However...
Again, I think many people would resist any form of regulation, even "regulating those that supposedly provide services to the hobby and its collectors."
There are those who would say eBay, PayPal, and other platforms provide a service to the hobby. There are also those who would consider it a form of regulation to lower the 1099 threshold.