Grading Guarantees - Are They For Real???

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by BobC

John,

Please don't despair and put my thoughts and ideas down just because it is unlikely they will ever happen. We have to have hope, right?

I'm not putting your ideas down. I was explaining why things are the way they are, which it was not clear to me from your statements that you understood. If I offended you, my apologies; this is the problem with web forums over conversations and inflection of tones. I assure you that was not my intent.

But you saying that having a flat grading fee will inundate TPGs with fakes is just weird, because even with variable fees, they still got inundated during the pandemic.

They got inundated during the early pandemic with ultra modern, and cards currently worth less than most people deem reasonable to grade. I honestly don't think the fakes thing is a huge deal, I was just illustrating that as an example of why higher fees would make sense to them. I'll give you that. If SGC charges 30 bucks to grade everything from a 2022 Topps parallel to a scarce Ruth E card, then so be it. I'm sure they'd accept more of their fair share of badly faked '52 Mantles for at least a time before tiring of it.

And as for charging more fees for things like insurance and damage, my experience has always been that when someone goes up against someone with insurance, and wins, they end up getting a check from the insurance company. In all the cases I've ever heard about where someone has gone back against a TPG for an error or damage, etc., I've never heard anyone ever say they got a check from the TPG's insurance company to cover the loss/damage. Instead, they always seem to say it was the TPG that just sent them a check.

Semantics. I meant that someone, whether the insurance company or the TPG themselves - is liable for such payouts. If I'm the submitter requesting compensation for damage or something of that nature, I don't really care who is writing me the check. I don't know about fees having anything to do with double insurance or anything down to that level of detail. It plays into the justification for higher fees, but it's not the whole ball of wax. They are charging higher fees for higher valued items - as others have pointed out - because market forces allow them to.

Again, I'm on your side. And like you I wish many things were different and better.

Ok, so you are more of an idealist, and I am more of a realist at the bitter old age of 45. But yeah, I'm with you. Things as they are suck, and much professional grading anymore I think is a sham / ripoff for what it is, especially for true collectors who are keeping a majority of their submissions and not simply flipping them, or at least planning to sell more or less immediately. I learned how to grade in the early 1990's. Yes, standards fluctuate, but I'm more than capable of keeping up and knowing at least what "range" my cards are in. I guess I just have little hope that the current model will ever substantially change, because the powers that be have setup the financial model and cash flow for things to continue working as they are. To the idealist perspective, yes - we should demand better and force change. But who realistically is going to do that now? Who has the financial incentive to? What percentage of big wheel collectors with high valued vintage material are NOT already more or less in bed with PSA - if not because they want to, but because their financial interests in a pile of impressive slabs more or less demand it? We aren't covering new ground here. Many of these complaints, or at least the flavors of them have been around for 2 decades plus now. Yet PSA continues to be a cash gravy train with no end in sight, and their business forecasts all still proclaim the sky to be the limit. You'll forgive me for being less than an optimist. I'm happy sitting here with my raw, flawed cards for a fraction of the price.