Nat Turner new CEO at CLCT

[Eric72]

Don’t know how to feel about this yet.

The devil you know…

[samosa4u]

Joe Orlando was the face of the brand for a long time. It's hard to picture a PSA without him. He received a lot of criticism during the Slabgate scandal, and people had the right to be upset, however, the way he behaved was the way any CEO would have behaved. He had to protect the brand, and he sure did a damn good job. How many people are talking about the scandal now?

Nat has many qualities most men only dream of having. I'm pretty sure he is going to do a fantastic job. He is getting praised a lot for responding quickly to others, but he just started, guys! Joe had to do this for twenty years! For twenty years he got angry phone calls, threatening emails, confronted by muscular American dudes who were angry because their buddies got good grades and they didn't. That's some pretty rough shit.

[Bobbycee]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Joe Orlando was the face of the brand for a long time. It's hard to picture a PSA without him. He received a lot of criticism during the Slabgate scandal, and people had the right to be upset, however, the way he behaved was the way any CEO would have behaved. He had to protect the brand, and he sure did a damn good job. How many people are talking about the scandal now?

Nat has many qualities most men only dream of having. I'm pretty sure he is going to do a fantastic job. He is getting praised a lot for responding quickly to others, but he just started, guys! Joe had to do this for twenty years! For twenty years he got angry phone calls, threatening emails, confronted by muscular American dudes who were angry because their buddies got good grades and they didn't. That's some pretty rough shit.

"That's some pretty rough shit" Really? Sounds like you were hired to do his Biography. Let's not pretend this guy isn't stained with all the bullshit PSA pulled over the years. Yeah, he did a good job spinning damage control. Not a quality I admire. Complicit in alot of garbage. Never get cheated!

[edhans]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Joe Orlando was the face of the brand for a long time. It's hard to picture a PSA without him. He received a lot of criticism during the Slabgate scandal, and people had the right to be upset, however, the way he behaved was the way any CEO would have behaved. He had to protect the brand, and he sure did a damn good job. How many people are talking about the scandal now?

Nat has many qualities most men only dream of having. I'm pretty sure he is going to do a fantastic job. He is getting praised a lot for responding quickly to others, but he just started, guys! Joe had to do this for twenty years! For twenty years he got angry phone calls, threatening emails, confronted by muscular American dudes who were angry because their buddies got good grades and they didn't. That's some pretty rough shit.

How about acknowledging the problem and doing something to fix it, instead of pretending it didn't exist.

[samosa4u]

Originally Posted by edhans

How about acknowledging the problem and doing something to fix it, instead of pretending it didn't exist.

Fix it? How? There are guys out there who are trimming over-sized cards down to the correct size. Small wrinkles are being pressed and stains are being soaked out. By the way, I know that soaking is totally acceptable on this forum and has been discussed very openly, although it's a big no-no on Blowout. Anyhow, some of this work is nearly impossible to catch. Sure, Joe could have discussed this issue instead of just saying "we aren't perfect," but otherwise I don't think he could have done much. What was he going to say to the big shareholders? Umm, guys, let's do a major recall and issue five billion in refunds, cool? They would have thrown him out of the window!

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Fix it? How? There are guys out there who are trimming over-sized cards down to the correct size. Small wrinkles are being pressed and stains are being soaked out. By the way, I know that soaking is totally acceptable on this forum and has been discussed very openly, although it's a big no-no on Blowout. Anyhow, some of this work is nearly impossible to catch. Sure, Joe could have discussed this issue instead of just saying "we aren't perfect," but otherwise I don't think he could have done much. What was he going to say to the big shareholders? Umm, guys, let's do a major recall and issue five billion in refunds, cool? They would have thrown him out of the window!

Once you get decades deep into this, it really is impossible to fix in any systematic way. This is why I think all these guys saying oh give Nat Turner a chance are just engaging in wishful thinking. I mean what's he going to do, pull a disco inferno and "burn that mother down"?

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Once you get decades deep into this, it really is impossible to fix in any systematic way. This is why I think all these guys saying oh give Nat Turner a chance are just engaging in wishful thinking. I mean what's he going to do, pull a disco inferno and "burn that mother down"?

A lot of things that people thought he might fix probably won't get addressed. He's on record as hating the resubmit game. Of course at some point he will have to realize what a huge portion of PSA's revenue comes from that game, then we'll see if he puts PSA's money where his mouth is.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

A lot of things that people thought he might fix probably won't get addressed. He's on record as hating the resubmit game. Of course at some point he will have to realize what a huge portion of PSA's revenue comes from that game, then we'll see if he puts PSA's money where his mouth is.

His objective, I can only presume given the BIG money guys like Steve Cohen who are in this with him, is to make PSA even more profitable and sell it or go public again, not scale it back into a collector-friendly company with integrity that would earn substantially less money. I think people are dreaming. Hope I'm wrong. Do people REALLY think he's going to cut off all the card doctors, and buy back the millions of dollars of altered cards, and put the brakes on all the hugely profitable 10s?

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Once you get decades deep into this, it really is impossible to fix in any systematic way. This is why I think all these guys saying oh give Nat Turner a chance are just engaging in wishful thinking. I mean what's he going to do, pull a disco inferno and "burn that mother down"?

Yeah I think this is right.

Nat does not strike me as a person who bought PSA to fix it. He saw opportunity to take the brand to another level but I am sure it did not include cleaning up decades of alleged grading scandals. He bought it to make it better by some other standard that may or may not be great for the hobby.

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Once you get decades deep into this, it really is impossible to fix in any systematic way. This is why I think all these guys saying oh give Nat Turner a chance are just engaging in wishful thinking. I mean what's he going to do, pull a disco inferno and "burn that mother down"?

Hmm...Let's see how this adds up.

1. PSA's business model is based in large measure on the volume of cards graded.

2. For PSA to grade a large volume of cards, they need both enough graders and a high rate of cards graded per hour.

3. The value of a card increases significantly with each bump up in grade, which at the higher end of the grading spectrum amounts to huge dollar increases.

4. For a card worked on by a skilled card doctor, there is little chance the alteration will be detected unless the grader is knowledgeable about the manufacturing process associated with that particular issue and has sufficient time to examine the card.

Question:

Do 1, 2, 3, and 4 add up to:

5. So therefore it is likely the card will be accurately graded and any alteration detected, or 10. There is little possibility the grader will detect the alteration.


I do not profess to be an expert in securities law, but it seems to me that now that graded cards routinely sell in 7 figures and are being marketed in ways that cross into public oversight with attendant fiduciary obligation on the part of people promoting these investments, these people are taking a significant legal risk if the economic consequences of what IMO is the fraud of PSA's business model ever comes to fruition.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by benjulmag

Hmm...Let's see how this adds up.

1. PSA's business model is based in large measure on the volume of cards graded.

2. For PSA to grade a large volume of cards, they need both enough graders and a high rate of cards graded per hour.

3. The value of a card increases significantly with each bump up in grade, which at the higher end of the grading spectrum amounts to huge dollar increases.

4. For a card worked on by a skilled card doctor, there is little chance the alteration will be detected unless the grader is knowledgeable about the manufacturing process associated with that particular issue and has sufficient time to examine the card.

Question:

Do 1, 2, 3, and 4 add up to:

5. So therefore it is likely the card will be accurately graded and any alteration detected, or 10. There is little possibility the grader will detect the alteration.


I do not profess to be an expert in securities law, but it seems to me that now that graded cards routinely sell in 7 figures and are being marketed in ways that cross into public oversight with attendant fiduciary obligation on the part of people promoting these investments, these people are taking a significant legal risk if the economic consequences of what IMO is the fraud of PSA's business model ever comes to fruition.

I disagree.....PSA is only rendering an opinion.

[perezfan]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Fix it? How? There are guys out there who are trimming over-sized cards down to the correct size. Small wrinkles are being pressed and stains are being soaked out. By the way, I know that soaking is totally acceptable on this forum and has been discussed very openly, although it's a big no-no on Blowout. Anyhow, some of this work is nearly impossible to catch. Sure, Joe could have discussed this issue instead of just saying "we aren't perfect," but otherwise I don't think he could have done much. What was he going to say to the big shareholders? Umm, guys, let's do a major recall and issue five billion in refunds, cool? They would have thrown him out of the window!

Yeah, some of the work is near-impossible to catch. But if you spent any time at all going over the many BO threads exposing this garbage, you'd see that most of these alterations could have been caught with a simple blacklight and/or ruler. Many could've been spotted by a complete novice.

Then there's the issue of PSA continually accepting submissions from known card doctors (for years).

Then there's the favorable treatment for "preferred" submitters.

Then there's that pesky so-called guarantee that PSA seemed to have an aversion to honoring.

Then there's the PSA Chat Forum, who bans and/or censors you for having a dissenting opinion or simply for trying to raise an honest discussion.

All of this happened under Joe's watch. I could go on, but I'm sure the PSA Apologists would find a way to dispute all of these matters, as would a good chunk of the Flippers who are consumed with protecting their investments.

That said.... I hope Nat is successful, and able to clean things up at PSA. He seems like a good guy, and (judging by his first big move) it appears he's off to a good start!