PWCC Statement on Recent Card Trimming Concerns

[bounce]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

David as you've likely seen, on the modern side there are similar threads on known trimmers and PWCC on BO.

Hi Peter - yes, I've seen those. I've pretty much read every post of every relevant thread. I contributed a very small amount of the research to find original sales of some of the cards. Big kudos to those other blowout guys, though - they deserve all the credit.

I'm highly skeptical that an entire list will ever be produced, and here are a couple reasons why.

#1 - Money. Neither PWCC or PSA is going to want to refund on these cards. I think PWCC will selectively try and take the hit, but there are very likely going to be thousands of cards just from Moser. Who knows what else is out there, but I think it's pretty safe to assume there is way more than we've seen. As good as those Blowout guys are, they just don't have enough info to find it all and the Moser relationship alone goes back 7-8 years AT LEAST. That's not the only one out there, we just don't have great proof of others yet but I would imagine they are out there. I just don't believe PWCC will be able to take the hit across all the cards by themselves, so a flip numbers release is a low probability event. I don't see any way PSA agrees to admit they missed anything. As a public company, their ONLY real course of action is to defend their graders. Any flip number release from them is a no probability event. Get used to these words - "within tolerance", as that will be the key phrase. So then, is PWCC going to sue PSA to force them to contribute? That to me is also a going out of business strategy.

#2 - The Set Registry. I know a lot of people think the Set Registry is one of the reasons we are in this mess, but can you imagine the upheaval there is all of a sudden PSA were to actually decertify a bunch of cards? That's basically an invitation to make the claim for market difference with them, which again I see is a no probability event.

#3 - Data. In order to cross reference anything that comes out, you'd need the consignor and sales data from PWCC, all the submission data from PSA (and/or other TPGs) and all the bidder/sale data from eBay so it could all be cross-checked. There is NO WAY eBay is going to release all that data to anyone, and I don't see PSA releasing submission owner data to anyone. Once again, the public companies aren't going to assist this effort unless they are compelled to do so by a government agency of some kind, which is a fight that could take years and even if they had to do it the public market would NEVER get to see any of it.

So with that as your backdrop, I think the easiest choice is that PSA fights everyone to the death over their grades and backs their graders 100%, PWCC tries to take the financial hit and hopes the weight of lost consignment revenue and refunds for questionable cards doesn't sink them. No way PSA contributes to this, otherwise they are just inviting the refunds to pass over to them. PWCC isn't likely to fight that if they ever want to be able to submit again, otherwise they'd have to sue PSA which is essentially a going out of business plan as well.

There's no clear path here, but ultimately the easiest path seems to be this is PWCCs problem, and everybody else just kind of walks away. That's my take anyway.