[Snowman]

Brent didn't do the stickers. That program was added a few years back, and it's been the same two guys awarding the stickers the entire time. The stickers have nothing to do with altered cards being sold on their platform and there has never been any evidence to suggest that certain consigners received stickers on cards when the eye appeal didn't warrant them. Those are just Blowhard Forum conspiracy theories.

As far as whether the stickers add value or not, I actually built a regression model to estimate the impact of the stickers on hammer prices and I controlled for eye appeal in the model. I'd have to dig through my computer to find the exact coefficients for each sticker, but I remember that the stickers definitely did add value in addition to just what the eye appeal of the cards would otherwise suggest they would sell for. The A stickers added a very marginal amount in addition to the eye appeal itself (I believe it was around 2% or so, definitely less than 5% though). So if an average PSA 4 of a card sells for $100 and a centered copy with good eye appeal usually sells for $150 without a sticker, then a centered PSA 4 PWCC-A would go for about $153. However, the E stickers added about 15% on top of what the eye appeal of the card itself was worth (so ~$173 in this PSA 4 example), and the S stickers added a shit load. The S stickers effectively guaranteed at least a full grade higher in hammer price PLUS the eye appeal in that grade. So if a card was a PSA 6 PWCC-S, it would sell for at least what you'd expect a centered PSA 7 to sell for, on average. It's worth noting that the S sticker is the only sticker where they expressly state that the card is, in their opinion, under graded in addition to it having good eye appeal. And to their credit, they're usually right. Every time I have cracked and resubmitted a PWCC-S card, I've gotten a bump. I've even gotten bumps from PSA 6s to PSA 9s on them.

Cliff Notes for those of you who aren't good at math or don't know what a regression model is (lawyers): the stickers definitely add value and I proved it using math (though I did not post my code here obviously). You'll just have to take my word for it. Or don't, I couldn't care less.

Should you remove the stickers? Sure, if you don't like them, why not? Are you throwing money away by doing so, if you're a seller though? Yes.

Why do they add value? That's easy. Because the market respects their opinion.