PSA has eliminated their "Monthly Specials"

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by whitehse

Honestly, I dont think they would lose tons of business but rather their business would improve as many fence sitters like me, who refuse to give up our cards for an indefinite period of time, perhaps even up to a full year would submit to them if their service improved. I have tried SGC and no matter how badly I wanted them to succeed, I have my doubts if they will ever find a foothold in this hobby that even approaches PSA's level.

As to your comment about cutting down on the crack and resubmit process, I believe there will still be those out there who no matter how the cards are being graded.

Speeding up the efficiency and accuracy of the grading process would find PSA with even more submissions than they ever imagined they could have.

Originally Posted by bnorth

Maybe I should have worded my post better. My whole post was just about the business they would lose from the crack and resubmit game. Between this forum and BO I have seen hundreds of posts about doing it. I have also seen advertising from businesses/people that specialize in it.

When someone does get a computer program that will give the same grade to the same card every time they will lose that whole section of submitters.

I personally would welcome the change to computer grading.

Please do not misconstrue my remarks either. I do not wish for PSA's unfettered success at the expense of SGC, Beckett, GEM or PRO. If the TPG business becomes more of a monopoly, how can customer service be expected to improve. They already have a stranglehold on the Registry crowd, despite oft cited inconsistency and customer service that leaves much to be desired. If the Registry was amenable to an antitrust action to loosen their stranglehold, perhaps we could enter an age of true competition in the TPG market with jousting robots competing for market share.

[tribefan]

Psa switched the monthly specials to quarterly specials beginning January 2019.

[Ronnie73]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

Please do not misconstrue my remarks either. I do not wish for PSA's unfettered success at the expense of SGC, Beckett, GEM or PRO. If the TPG business becomes more of a monopoly, how can customer service be expected to improve. They already have a stranglehold on the Registry crowd, despite oft cited inconsistency and customer service that leaves much to be desired. If the Registry was amenable to an antitrust action to loosen their stranglehold, perhaps we could enter an age of true competition in the TPG market with jousting robots competing for market share.

Personally I think Frank is right on the money with these points. Competition is always good for the "Good" business. As far as SGC's Registry, I feel it's a mess and should be scrapped and restarted correctly. SGC should hire the true set experts to make checklists and rates the cards & variations in the set. I'm not saying PSA is perfect with their Registry but feel it's better than SGC's. I've even told PSA I'd spend time helping with their T205 and T206 portion of the sets for free. Got no response and still no updates on the requests I've sent them for over a year now.

[swarmee]

SGC's set registry is going to get even worse before it gets better, because they've told one of the board members here that his pre-2018 flips with the original submission number-card submitted certification are no longer acceptable in the future SGC set registry. It was already awful, now it's lost almost all utility unless they can merge both databases.
SGC's plan to computer grade and then provide scans of all cards they grade in the future could be a game changer, but if they can't integrate 20+ years of previously graded cards into it (unless their owners reholder all of them?), sounds like a waste.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by swarmee

SGC's set registry is going to get even worse before it gets better, because they've told one of the board members here that his pre-2018 flips with the original submission number-card submitted certification are no longer acceptable in the future SGC set registry. It was already awful, now it's lost almost all utility unless they can merge both databases.
SGC's plan to computer grade and then provide scans of all cards they grade in the future could be a game changer, but if they can't integrate 20+ years of previously graded cards into it (unless their owners reholder all of them?), sounds like a waste.

And why would anyone pay to reholder something that could be made obsolete on another whim 5 years from now.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by steve B

And why would anyone pay to reholder something that could be made obsolete on another whim 5 years from now.

IIRC -- Jim Crandell threw a major fit and rightfully so when PSA went to .5 grading. They worked out something with him and I'm surprised SGC, providing the board member is one of their big collectors, did not work out something for their leading collectors

Regards
Rich

[OLDBILL]

Steve Sloan emailed this out today:
Dear PSA Collector,

I am writing you today to address the frustrations that PSA customers are experiencing as we scale up our business to meet the demand for our services. I completely understand your disappointment with PSA’s longer-than-expected turnaround times. As a collector and customer, it is painful to have to wait for your prized collectibles without a clear picture of when the order is expected to be completed.

I want to share updates on our progress, and two key areas where we are still working to improve.

It’s been just over a year since PSA moved into our new, expanded location. At the end of 2018, we saw a 25% growth in our capacity, compared to the year prior, due to our move and the addition of new staff. Still, during that same timeframe, we experienced a 165% surge in the number of collectibles received by PSA. We believed that expanded physical space and additional staff in grading, customer service, research, receiving, sealing, quality assurance and shipping would help us keep up with demand. But as you can see, the surge in submissions deems our efforts insufficient.

So, our work continues at an even more urgent pace. But even with urgency, we must be measured. Let me explain.

The card market has experienced incredible growth that I think we can all agree is a good thing. In PSA’s case, our great strength of expertise also represents a challenge as it relates to ramping up our business. The role that expertise plays in our process is paramount. We must first find qualified grading candidates and then ensure they are properly trained to our standards. As you can imagine, this takes time, as PSA’s brand has been built upon specialized skills that require experience, repetition and focus. It would be easy to hire unqualified graders and rush product out the door. We will not do that.

In addition to growing our capacity, we can do a better job at communication. We recently needed to extend turnaround times for our services. While our goal is to beat our posted times and deliver sooner, this extension is part of an effort to communicate more appropriate timelines for our services given the sheer volume of cards at our facility. Further efforts will be made by myself and PSA’s staff to communicate our progress more frequently.

Whether you are a longtime supporter of PSA, or a new collector, I want you to know that we take our commitment to the hobby seriously. Our purpose here at PSA is to grow the hobby by providing impartial, expert authentication and grading, and a consistent, quality product. My commitment to you, as a customer of PSA and a member of our hobby, is twofold: 1) grow PSA’s capacity without sacrificing quality; and 2) improve our communication to our customers.

I am open to your feedback and encourage you to reach out to me – good, bad or ugly – at either steve@collectors.com or on Twitter at @collectorsloan. I will do my best to respond to each inquiry in a timely manner.

Thank you for your business, your patience and your understanding.



Steve Sloan
President, PSA

[Snapolit1]

See you in a few years when the backlog is cleared.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

IIRC -- Jim Crandell threw a major fit and rightfully so when PSA went to .5 grading. They worked out something with him and I'm surprised SGC, providing the board member is one of their big collectors, did not work out something for their leading collectors

Regards
Rich

All the cards I've had graded have been by SGC. Not a ton of them, just a few. I have them on the old registry. Whatever "deal" they've offered the big graders is exactly no help to me, as it appears they're saying the grades before whatever random new system they have aren't valid anymore.


I have seen other collectibles with certs dating back to the 60's at least, and the assessment is still valid. since there's no guarantee than stuff hasn't happened to a non- slabbed item in the last 40 + years getting a new one is recommended. The groups just haven't abandoned their expertising wholesale.


I was becoming sort of ok with grading. Not so much anymore. So many bad cards get through, the companies don't stand behind the grade, repair cards damaged in slabbing, won't slab anything that isn't easy for anyone to figure out it's real.... Just wasted money. Wasting more would be pretty stupid.

[Republicaninmass]

Collectors Universe (NASDAQ:CLCT): Q2 GAAP EPS of $0.17.

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Not quite the 165%