So it goes
We know that PSA cannot reliably detect trimming. The stories here and elsewhere demonstrate that beyond any real argument. Yet there is such a demand for PSA grading, despite its demonstrated unreliability, that they have to close their doors to new business.
SGC rolls out its "new" website, kills its Registry (such as it was, at least you could somewhat track your own inventory), and, after ceremoniously announcing it was largely caught up with demand, jacks its prices up 200% immediately after PSA announces its temporary shuttered doors.
Beckett seems to have no traction in the graded pre-war card market (not sure, I don't follow BVG or Beckett on eBay).
CSG is a new kid on the block with some pedigree, but seems not to be able yet to grade anything after 1980 all that well. Yet. Its prices fetched seem to reflect the market not the quality of their work, but we'll see.
Submitting anything but reliably high-value cards is now out of reach. People like me, who don't rip open boxes of shiny new basketball cards from boxes snuck out the back of WalMart are left pretty much with nowhere to turn.
COVID or none, the card collecting marketplace has now, I think, been irretrievably changed, and not for the better. On top of all the other losses and disappointments of the last year, the adverse changes to the hobby I've loved for over 50 years is truly disheartening.
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