1969 Topps Alcindor PSA 10

[eomint]

It's even more unsettling, far more, when your next President is going to be either totally unpredictable or a proven corrupt pathological liar. And you're worried about the subjective nature of card grading lol...no system is perfect, there will always be a bell curve of talent and honesty in every industry, coin grading has withstood the test of time, I believe card grading, and PSA in particular, though not a pure science, is the best thing we have. PSA being a public company (CLCT) is also going to be subject to SEC regulations and I believe has superior corporate governance. That's about all you can ask for.

[sushihotwings]

Joe Orlando has it good at PSA. I am sure it is fun to be surrounded by the best memoriablia in existence day in and day out and I am sure he gets paid mega bucks for it. He is not going to do something illegal or unethical for any small amount of payoff and I suspect he runs a tight ship for his own job security. He would be foolish to risk what he has going for a few extra bucks to upgrade certain customers cards.
Dave Lamont

[BeanTown]

Originally Posted by sushihotwings

Joe Orlando has it good at PSA. I am sure it is fun to be surrounded by the best memoriablia in existence day in and day out and I am sure he gets paid mega bucks for it. He is not going to do something illegal or unethical for any small amount of payoff and I suspect he runs a tight ship for his own job security. He would be foolish to risk what he has going for a few extra bucks to upgrade certain customers cards.
Dave Lamont

Maybe he has a foundation!

[RichardSimon]

Originally Posted by sushihotwings

Joe Orlando has it good at PSA. I am sure it is fun to be surrounded by the best memoriablia in existence day in and day out and I am sure he gets paid mega bucks for it. He is not going to do something illegal or unethical for any small amount of payoff and I suspect he runs a tight ship for his own job security. He would be foolish to risk what he has going for a few extra bucks to upgrade certain customers cards.
Dave Lamont

Is this a tongue in cheek post?
I am not accusing Orlando of anything but multi millionaires steal money from their own companies.
Many people are capable of doing anything for lots of money or even a few bucks. And as this discussed auction shows it is not just a few extra bucks.

[sushihotwings]

It is not actually tongue in cheek. I am sure Joe gets paid very very well and he is surrounded by the coolest sports cards on earth traveling through his shop every day. If you have ever talked with him you can tell he really enjoys the hobby. Nobody is immune from temptation and scandals can and will happen at private and public companies. Having an independent board of directors is an extra layer I find somewhat comforting. They already had one big controversy with the Wagner and I am sure they put extra measures in place to prevent more. I am not naive, but I also won't lose sleep over endless possibilities of corruption. I also don't blame those who prefer to remain skeptics to the end, but that makes it hard to enjoy the hobby when you constantly feel the system is rigged.

Dave Lamont

[itjclarke]

I both love/enjoy the hobby, but also think there's plenty of potential for temptation to take hold of one or more people at a TPG who are regularly holding the key between a card being worth $10K or a $100K. I don't obsess over this at all, but think the circumstances are more prime now than ever given the growing gap in incremental value between 8 to 9 or 9 to 10. Again, I am not singling any person or company out, and do not know enough to think anything is happening. I just think that it very well could happen, and depending on their grading SOP, it may be pretty easy to do (hope it's not).

[Jdoggs]

Alcindor PSA 10 rookie currently at $382k heritage auctions with couple of days to go in auction. Currently the highest bid in heritage auctions is $717k for Ruth sporting news PSA 7 rookie!

[itjclarke]

IMO, even with any checks and balances, and regulation in place, or the best intentions of the company, it would just take one rogue grader/insider (or worse, more than one) to potentially really hurt, or destroy consumer confidence.

I'm not saying I think it is happening, nor that it will, simply that it could. Given the absolute explosion in price of PSA 10s, and the fact that there is such an incremental price disparity between each high grade, 8 to 9, 9 to 10, the ingredients are there. I think this is made much more difficult to enforce given the subjective nature of grading, and that just about any card graded in the 9-10 range could be reasonably assigned +/- its grade. See any "gem mint" card with an OC back btw. That card could be a 9, or a 10, and the price gap between those two could be tens, even hundreds of thousands. A person manipulating grades would only need do so a handful of times to make some huge money.

I agree with a previous poster that transparency is good. If the submitting parties are truly, beyond any doubt masked from the graders, that's a good start. Then perhaps every card that receives a 9 or 10 initially must be routed past several graders, each of whom have no idea other graders have already assigned it a 10. If say 5 of 5 senior graders independently give a card a 10, it actually receives that 10.

Again, I am not saying I think this is happening, nor am I speaking to PSA's (or any other TPG's) integrity. It just seems the potential for temptation is there, especially now with all the registry 1 of 1, gem mint fever. I don't typically get cards graded (submitted twice, total of 4-5 cards) and don't have a dog in the fight between the PSA's, BVG's, SGC's of the world, however like many collectors, I would be greatly impacted if any one of those companies were ever undone by a scandal, as I have dozens of cards graded by each.