It is official: PSA has lost what little cred it had

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5196256833&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

This item is a complete misattribution. Not only is it NOT a W580 card, but any idiot with the ability to read the ACC would know that what the ACC lists as "W580-Boxer Photos...from same strips as W572" under the subheading "Unnumbered Black & White Cards" doesn't apply to these LINE DRAWING and PASTEL COLORED strips. The untrained baboons at PSA obviously followed whatever the submitter put down. So much for independent 3rd party judgment.

I am appalled.

[Archive]

Posted By: WP

Might as well as labled it a T206.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

to make up all sorts of wild crap and submit it, just to see what happens.

[Archive]

Posted By: PASJD

I guess I better sell my CLCT stock since the death knell of PSA has been pronounced.

[Archive]

Posted By: dan mckee

Adam, how do you really feel about PSA? Dan.

[Archive]

Posted By: steve k

The poster who is a lawyer, I would be certain turns down cases which are not his area of legal expertise - basically he could not properly service that particular situation. As a businessman, I turn down orders which for various reasons I cannot properly service. Sure there are times I could make a few extra dollars by taking certain types of orders, but among other reasons, credibility can be lost. The reputation of a company is built on credibility as well as other things.

So here's what I don't understand about PSA. Why would they do labels such as this in which they are not 100% sure about the item? This definitely affects their credibility. They would be much better off just authenticating the item and grading it, strictly using labeling information which was 100% accurate, rather than "taking a good guess at it."

They would be better off using some sort of "generic" type label rather than having an incorrect description. If I just took a good guess at the ink a customer used in their $100,000 printer which I was not totally and completely familiar with, and this ink caused damage to their machine, I lose credibility and rightly so. I'm never going to take a good guess at this - I only ship when I'm 100% sure the supplies will work properly, realizing of course that sometimes defective supplies can happen - but that is a different circumstance which customers of course don't like but they understand. Customers will not deal with and won't buy products from vendors who take good guesses. PSA should stop taking good guesses on their labels.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

I'm not an investment advisor and I don't play one on TV but even the most ardent PSA defender, such as yourself, has to admit that the sheer volume and variety of mistakes and blunders from PSA lately has to be cause for concern. Whether it is listing commons as the rarestcards in the hobby (T206 Wagner "Whoops"), grading cards that any collector would know are trimmed (OJ and Mayo), or stuff like this, doesn't that concern you? I know it worries me.

[Archive]

Posted By: dennis

what with all the new borderless, slick shiny cards that they now grade, it's a simple mistake. the grader forgot to remove the sunglasses that he was wearing and mis read the acc list.

[Archive]

Posted By: tbob

I recently submitted a shipment of cards which included a blank back T207 Laughing Larry Doyle card. The card has a great front, nice borders all the way around and clean blank back. The seller said he had had some of the blank backs sent in and they all graded. Soooo, of course MY card comes back, "REFUND DO NOT GRADE NOHOLDER." Huh? Then I see an auction on ebay where the same seller is selling a large lot of these T207 blank backs and BINGO there are a Livingston Large C and another card both nestled in PSA holders. I checked it out because I figured they would be graded "authentic" but sure enough they actually received numerical grades. By the way my "refund" was not monetary nor did they deduct the amount from the credit card bill, they sent me a free 1 card voucher last week. That's great since my PSA membership just ran out last week, now I have to re-up and pay $89 just to use the free voucher. Sheesh.
tbob
P.S. I sent scans, submission numbers, etc. to PSA of my card and the other 2 on ebay and although there have been promises to check it out...nothing. Surprised?

[Archive]

Posted By: Gene Palmer

I'm not even close to being knowledgeable on OJ's, but I'm pretty sure hips aren't this high lol...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=31718&item=5196027914&rd=1

[Archive]

Posted By: Paul

That's the famous "hands on cameraman's hips" pose.

[Archive]

Posted By: Mike P.

Is anyone documenting all these blunders?

[Archive]

Posted By: Peter Spaeth

I suspect Adam W. is keeping meticulous records.

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

Just throwing them up there as I see them.

[Archive]

Posted By: Peter Spaeth

Obviously noone can dispute that PSA makes mistakes, both substantive and clerical, but so does SGC. It wasn't so long ago I read about a major blunder on a T206 Doyle, if memory serves. And I have seen my share of questionable cuts, etc. in SGC holders as well. Noone is infallible.

[Archive]

Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

Oh my God. PSA made an error. Nothing new and it is not going to change anytime soon.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Well, a quick check on ebay finds that PSA graded cards outnumber SGC by a ratio of about 30 to 1. While this is a rough estimate PSA's dominance in the graded card market, does anyone think PSA makes 30x more mistakes than SGC?

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie Vognar

[Archive]

Posted By: Judge Dred

too much stuff to edit ... I just deleted the message... I'll just add the following...

Yes - I believe PSA has made more blatant blunders than SGC (percentage wise)

[Archive]

Posted By: brian p

Being a BB card collector myself, Adam, how is this card classified? I have the W-Unc 'Big Head' baseball cards as well as an example of one of these boxers, and discovered that, while having very similiar designs and artwork, the boxer set is actually a larger card, with the black line framework extending at least 1/8" taller than the Baseball "Big Heads". Are these cards classified as part of the baseball series?

Just a question from someone who tries not to give a crap about grading companies,

Brian

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

PSA probabaly makes more errors on a per card basis, but it's not even close when it somes to the outright blunders that PSA makes that a novice should catch. The SGC Doyle flap was doctored card that got by them and SGC made good on it right away. When is that last time you ever saw PSA conduct themselves in this manner?

People keep claiming that SGC makes the same types of errors that PSA does. I ahve no doubt other doctored cards ahve slipped past them. I want to see the obvious mistakes. Please, post these gaffs such as the "hands on hips" and other obvious mistakes that PSA seems to make repeatedly.

Jay

I like to sit outside drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home I would be arrested, so I go to baseball games and fit right in.

[Archive]

Posted By: Harry_Pairatesties

has only graded 320,000 cards in 7 years of being in business?If the 30 to 1 ratio is correct.No wonder they get the label right more times than PSA.

Harry

[Archive]

Posted By: Rick

The ratio is somewhere around 25 to 1

1% of the population of sgc would be 3200 cards

1% of PSA would be 80,000 cards

[Archive]

Posted By: david

part of the blame for many labling errors lies with the person who submits the cards. i have had several cards come back from sgc with a wrong lable and i immediately asked for them to be corrected and they were in a matter of minutes without a problem or hassle.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

David, what sort of errors did they make? Is it on the order of the "hands on hips" or Hermanski misID, or is it simple typos? I've had to send one card back to SGC becuase of a typo and that's it.

Jay

I like to sit outside drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home I would be arrested, so I go to baseball games and fit right in.

[Archive]

Posted By: david

they were typos and incorrect labelings of the pose. ie browns champ, spotted tie, things of that nature. sgc was great about fixing them and collectors should be more aware of these sorts of mistakes and it would eliminate most of the problems

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

The card in question is a variation of W529. W529 consists of ten cards the images of which were taken from IFC-licensed photographs (W516-520-521 are analogous baseball issues). Burdick in his typically terse description created only one W529 category. Subsequent catalog editors subdivided the W529 group into 3 subclassifications. It has since become apparent to me that the ten images used in W529 were the basis for at least six distinct sets (plus color variations), some or all of which may be the work of the same company.

The first group of three subspecies of W529 all have hand-lettered legends beneath the images and are numbered. These groups can be distinguished based on flip-flopped numbering and image reversal. Burdick used one of these as the basic W529 set, so they are designated W529-1, for lack of any better place to start:

1.Johnny Dundee
2.Geo. Carpentier
3.Mike O’Dowd
4.Joe Beckett
5.Lou [sic] Tendler
6.Fred Fulton
7.Benny Leonard
8.Jack Britton
9.Jack Dempsey
10.Johnny Kilbane

The next subgroup (W529-2) has the same numbering but flips the images.

The final subgroup of these cards (W529-3) flips both the images and the numbering (e.g., #1 Dundee is #10 and is a reversed image, #2 is #9, etc.). Since all cards bear the IFC copyright, one way to tell the difference between series 1 and 2 if you don't know the sequence is to see if the IFC copyright and logo is reversed.

The next two subspecies of W529 were cards I identified as a different set that seemed to be based on W529 but had a typed legend below the images. I have now found enough of these cards to confirm that they match the sequence of W529 and should be classified as a W529 sub-set. They look like what is now W516-2-1 in the 2005 SCD. Once again, these cards can be found with the images flipped and I have again chosen to designate the issue with the IFC copyright facing the right way as the first, W529-4. The reversed series is W529-5.

The last subspecies of W529 is what we are dealing with here. This group has crude illustrations drawn from the IFC images. The fighter’s name is inside the image box rather than below the image and the cards are unnumbered. I have not seen reversed images of these cards. I am designating these as W529-6 in the 3rd edition of my boxing card book.

I wish this was the end of the W529 saga, but there is the pesky issue of color and shade variations to consider. I have seen multiple different colors of each issue. I can confirm that W529-4 and W529-5 are printed with blue legends (typical) and with black legends. I have also seen W529 cards of Tendler in blue background and red background, and very different shades of green backgrounds for Fulton. The set here has two major variations, one with pastel colors (as the card PSA misidentified does) and one with sharp primary colors.

[Archive]

Posted By: Peter Spaeth

"incorrect labelings of the pose"

I am shocked, shocked to hear SGC has made such mistakes as well. I thought they were infallible.

[Archive]

Posted By: will watson

wow. they made a mistake. funny how the only time someone mentions PSA is to point out a labelling or grading error. why not mention the thousands of cards on ebay that are labelled correctly?

if i joined this site and knew nothing about grading companies, i would start to think that PSA is always wrong. and that just isn't true whatsoever.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

As with anything in life, the bad things are always pointed out. And with a business, especially something that has the impact on the value of item, incorrectly labeling an item tends to be a serious issue. And mistakes like "hands on hips" shouldn't be made, period.

Jay

I like to sit outside drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home I would be arrested, so I go to baseball games and fit right in.

[Archive]

Posted By: Brian Weisner

Hi guys, and Julie

I think we've been through this enough; ALL Grading companies, and ALL companies in general make mistakes, and most of them are big. My company runs 3500-4000 service calls per month, and 95% of the time we have little or no problems, but when we do they are major screwups. If I've learned anything in life or work, is that if something starts off wrong it almost always ends wrong, no matter how many layers of checks you have. We are Human, and very fallable, so the more business we do, the more chances we have to make mistakes. Does PSA make more mistakes than SGC? YES! But, they also deal with a lot more submissions.

I will continue to deal with both companies, and trust that most of the time they will make the right decisions. Do I always agree? No, but I don't expect perfection in an imperfect world. Be well Brian

[Archive]

Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Well said Brian, I agree with you 100 percent. But nothing anyone can say is going to change the minds of those who think SGC is god and PSA is scum, and certainly not reality or common sense.

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

The reason for many people thinking PSA scum and thus prefering GAI or SGC is the manner in which PSA handles their mistakes. They are not a customer friendly company, especially when it comes to their average customer. They ahve repeatedly shown that they will deny any wrong doing and will do nothing about their mistakes problems until they are hauled into court. This is not a good way to run a company and is the reason they ahve alienated many on this board. If SGC or GAI acted the way PSA does, they would suffer the same slings and arrows.

Jay

I like to sit outside drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home I would be arrested, so I go to baseball games and fit right in.

[Archive]

Posted By: JimCrandell

Jay,

You are correct. While I think it is true that PSA makes more mistakes per card graded than GAI and SGC, this is not a customer-friendly management.
For those who disagree, send an e-mail to Joe Orlando about something that PSA does not do well and your suggestions and watch the response you get.

Dav

[Archive]

Posted By: Hal Lewis

Glad that earnings season is over and Jim (Dav) can spend more time with us!!

[Archive]

Posted By: T206Collector

...has been that when I buy graded T206 cards on ebay, the SGC and GAI cards are more consistently graded than the PSA cards. I have come across way too many examples of PSA 5 T206 cards with creases getting slabbed. That has never happened to me with SGC or GAI. I prefer SGC to GAI, however, because of the sturdiness of the SGC holder and the insert, which does not leave room for GAI slippage.

Those of you who collect PSA graded vintage cards are all too aware of the inconsistencies in their grading -- PSA 4's that should've been 5's and PSA 5's that should've been 3's. I know this because I was once a PSA collector, too. I have no such inconsisteny in my SGC collection and that is the reason I stick with SGC.

Unfortunately PSA has an enormous market share, especially in the modern card market. And since there are only so many vintage cards that can actually be slabbed, I hope SGC makes some inroads there as well in order to keep competitive with PSA. If PSA is Coke, then I hope SGC will one day be Pepsi. If PSA is Hertz, then I hope SGC will one day be AVIS.

[Archive]

Posted By: Josh K.

I agree - the cards that I have had graded by SGC tend to be much more consistent than those graded by PSA. I collect, among other things, T206 HOFers - the only two that I have ever bought that were misgraded were by psa (a psa 4 Young and a psa 4 Jennings - both had creasing and were downgraded to 40's by SGC). To add fuel to the fire how many of you saw this Lemon (no pun intended) on ebay a few days ago:

[Archive]

Posted By: JimCrandell

Hal,

Partly true--hard to get away from all these earnings calls.

Soon my business winds down for the summer and I can start to plan for fun things like this golf/gambling shindig down to Biloxi.

Dav

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

happen. I have a few SGC cards that they switched during the encapsulation process (I know they are switched because I have both cards from the switch; I am going to have them fix them at the National). The Lemon is likely a switched label during encapsulation. I don't get all torqued over that sort of stuff and that's not why I started this post. I started it because the nature of the mistakes coming out of PSA recently are not quality control processing mistakes, they are core identification and authentication mistakes that undermine the reason why people send in cards in the first place, which is authentication.

Rather than justifying PSA's incompetence by stating that others err too (didn't your mothers ever teach you that two wrongs don't make a right?) minimizing it with a "so, PSA made a mistake", or saying they are too busy to do a good job, I think we as collectors should be concerned with why there is a spike in the number of these kinds of core mistakes at PSA. Show me the OJ and Mayo cards with missing ads, the T206 Wagners and the obviously misidentified cards from SGC and GAI. I don't seem to recall any. Volume is no excuse; if PSA cannot keep up the quality of work as it grows, don't friggin' grow, but don't build an organization at the cost of doing a half-assed job for your customers.

[Archive]

Posted By: steve k

<<< To add fuel to the fire how many of you saw this Lemon (no pun intended) on ebay a few days ago: >>>

Maybe that's just the way pitchers dressed and threw back then. Wonder what Yogi might say about this labeling error?