PSA vs GAI

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Posted By: MW

Slacks writes:

<< I don't see the correlation. My point is that we're a tiny part of PSA's market - they don't cater to us. This lets them continue their poor customer service and allows them to never have fullt addresed the WIWAG affair. If we all go away thet'd be fine grading 2001 LeBron cards (or whatever). But that doesn't take away from the fact that their holders help cards sell. >>


Your original statement was that the members of this board were a tiny part of the market. My impression is that you meant the vintage baseball card market -- which is what we were discussing -- not the PSA market. If you had meant the PSA market, you would have not have used the word "but" contrasting the first and second parts of your original sentence.

Curious. I'm just not buying (or understanding) your argument that "casual collectors" instinctively put more trust in PSA because they're the largest. A cursory look at the business world will clue you in to the reality that the largest businesses do not always have the best reputations nor do they inspire the greatest confidence in consumers.

Take a look at CU's quarterly SEC filings and where the greatest source of revenue is from. Guess what? It's higher ticket submissions -- vintage coins and vintage sports cards. You might enjoy in indulging in wishful thinking while convincing yourself that PSA maintains its optimal profit margins with modern grading submissions, but this just isn't the case. Besides the fact that PSA has lost a substantial market share in modern cards to Beckett, their per-card profit is substantially smaller with this type of service. The greatest revenues are from vintage baseball card submissions. And this means that sooner or later, PSA is going to have to face the reality that there are at least three or four companies that are better at grading vintage cards than they are.

Already we've seen PSA 8s and PSA 9s selling for below SMR prices while SGC graded cards continue to gain in value. Just look at the last Mastro auction. Many over-graded PSA cards did poorly while SGC did quite well. I would look for this trend to continue. Any perception that VINTAGE cards in PSA holders consistently sell for more is a mistaken perception based on spacious reasoning, flawed analysis and a general disregard for reality.