Fanatics buys PWCC

[BobC]

Originally Posted by raulus

Bob: While you might pooh-pooh the notion that it's meaningful, PSA does offer faster turnaround time at the higher grading price points. So the upcharge also delivers faster service. And for a TPG with turnaround measured in multiple months at the lower price points, faster service isn't nothing.

Of course, there's room to debate whether that faster service is really commensurate with the upcharge.

As an added bonus, many of the service level price points cover value ranges, so if you happen to be right on the cusp of bumping into the next highest range, then your grading costs could double, for example, simply by going from $24,999 to $25,001 in value. I guess the good news from my perspective is that I've yet to see PSA attempt to get cute with it by bumping me up if I'm just a little over the limit.

Nic,

Are you kidding me?

How long have you been a CPA now? You know as well as I that the ONLY thing that a CPA license allows you and I to do, that no one else can, is give our OPINION on a company's financial statements and how good they are. Not really much different than a TPG giving their OPINION on the condition of a card they grade. Both CPAs and TPGs are paid to give their honest, UNBIASED, and INDEPENDENT opinions on certain things they are looking at.

And as a CPA, you know we are supposed to be independent of the parties we give our opinions on, in both fact AND appearance. You also know as well as I do that as a CPA, if you go and charge any clients/customers a contingent fee, they will take our CPA license away as that is not allowed, as it may be deemed or viewed as a type of bias, conflict-of-interest, or lack of independence. (Fact AND appearance, remember!?!?!?)

TPGs charge contingent fees based on the value of a card they grade, correct? And I'm not talking about different service levels. In fact, I don't know where (or even how) you got the idea I was making any reference to service or service levels at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I submit a '52 Topps Mantle card to a TPG for grading in what turns out to be say a 5 grade, along with a low series, '52 Topps common card that also ends up grading a similar 5, and ask for the exact same service level for both cards, I'm guessing I'm going to pay a hell of a lot more money in grading fees for my '52 Mantle because they charge more for grading it simply because it has a higher value. And this is even though they are supposedly providing the exact same services, work and effort as they are putting forth to opine on, grade, and slab my '52 Topps common card as they are for my '52 Topps Mantle, right? That is a contingent grading fee.......PERIOD!!! They are charging based solely on the value of the card they are giving nothing more than their opinion on when they are grading it. And in the case of that '52 Mantle card, even a slight change in the grade given can significantly increase (or decrease) the value of that card dramatically, which can also then impact what the TPG can then charge me for grading and giving their opinion on it. So, tell me, and everyone here on the forum, what is there really to stop a TPG grader from maybe bumping up the grade they give a card so that it results in a higher value, that they can then charge you more for grading? And before you even dare to say that no TPG would ever do that, fact AND appearance, remember!!! That contingent fee charge by TPGs is such a blatant, unquestionable conflict-of-interest and bias that it is truly laughable that apparently almost no one in the hobby calls them out for it, and we just blindly continue to let them get away with it and accept all their potentially tainted opinions on virtually every graded card that exists!!!

And if the TPGs have no problem giving their supposedly honest and unbiased opinions when such blatant bias and conflicts-of interest so clearly exist in what they do, it can only make one wonder what other areas of conflict or bias might they also be ignoring. For another example, I seem to remember that David Hall was known to have one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) T206 collections ever assembled. And if memory also serves, wasn't he also a major owner/officer of Collector's Universe for quite a few years, the same corporation that also just happens to own PSA? I'll give you three guesses as to which TPG Hall likely had all his T206 cards graded by, and the first two guesses don't count.

As a fellow CPA, you know as well as I do that if you, or the firm you work for, audits a company to opine on its financial statements, you and the people working on the audit can't also own a piece of the company that is being audited. That is a totally unallowable, biased, conflict-of-interest, and could potentially result in the loss of one's CPA license once again. I know in all my years working in public accounting, at least once every year I had to go through the checklist and let whoever I was working with/for know what stock holdings/business interests I, or my close family members, owned or had, so they could make sure they weren't doing any audit work requiring the giving of an opinion on a business/firm for which there was a conflict-of-interest because I or someone else at the firm owned or was otherwise somehow directly associated with a company we were hired and paid to audit and opine on. Once again, a CPA/CPA firm has to have and maintain a totally independent and unbiased relationship with any company/client they provide their audit/opinion servicers for, in both fact AND appearance. So, what does that say about people like David Hall, Nat Turner, James Beckett, or David Forman, if they ever went and had cards they, or family members, owned, and had them graded by the TPG companies they owned/operated at the same time?

This is what I'm talking about. Not faster services or different service levels.

And your last comment about you personally not seeing PSA ever getting "cute" with you and their valuation/grading process, potentially resulting in you being charged a higher grading fee, doesn't mean the potential still doesn't exist. Independent and unbiased in fact AND appearance, remember that from your own profession. And since TPGs do nothing but give their opinions, similar to what CPAs do, I would hope that one day they start to be held to similar, honorable standards, like CPAs as well. The fact that the hobby community has let TPGs, and the rest of the major players in the hobby industry, get away with this continuing non-independent, biased, and completely filled with conflicts-of-interest crap for decades now, is truly sad, and in my opinion, almost downright criminal on so many levels.