PWCC Eye Appeal Stickers

[raulus]

Agree with Peter. Except that the sticker might cause some buyers to take a closer look to try to identify why it got the sticker and whether it really deserves it.

So it’s probably not adding a whole lot of value, except to the extent that it might cause potential buyers to pay more attention to your listing.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I should add that I would scrutinize any stickered card very carefully, as knowing Brent, he was more likely to give the stickers to insiders and many of those insiders were probably doing stuff to cards. If anyone still cares, that is.

[iwantitiwinit]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I should add that I would scrutinize any stickered card very carefully, as knowing Brent, he was more likely to give the stickers to insiders and many of those insiders were probably doing stuff to cards. If anyone still cares, that is.

I agree with this 100pct. Especially the part about no one caring.

[Snowman]

Brent didn't do the stickers. That program was added a few years back, and it's been the same two guys awarding the stickers the entire time. The stickers have nothing to do with altered cards being sold on their platform and there has never been any evidence to suggest that certain consigners received stickers on cards when the eye appeal didn't warrant them. Those are just Blowhard Forum conspiracy theories.

As far as whether the stickers add value or not, I actually built a regression model to estimate the impact of the stickers on hammer prices and I controlled for eye appeal in the model. I'd have to dig through my computer to find the exact coefficients for each sticker, but I remember that the stickers definitely did add value in addition to just what the eye appeal of the cards would otherwise suggest they would sell for. The A stickers added a very marginal amount in addition to the eye appeal itself (I believe it was around 2% or so, definitely less than 5% though). So if an average PSA 4 of a card sells for $100 and a centered copy with good eye appeal usually sells for $150 without a sticker, then a centered PSA 4 PWCC-A would go for about $153. However, the E stickers added about 15% on top of what the eye appeal of the card itself was worth (so ~$173 in this PSA 4 example), and the S stickers added a shit load. The S stickers effectively guaranteed at least a full grade higher in hammer price PLUS the eye appeal in that grade. So if a card was a PSA 6 PWCC-S, it would sell for at least what you'd expect a centered PSA 7 to sell for, on average. It's worth noting that the S sticker is the only sticker where they expressly state that the card is, in their opinion, under graded in addition to it having good eye appeal. And to their credit, they're usually right. Every time I have cracked and resubmitted a PWCC-S card, I've gotten a bump. I've even gotten bumps from PSA 6s to PSA 9s on them.

Cliff Notes for those of you who aren't good at math or don't know what a regression model is (lawyers): the stickers definitely add value and I proved it using math (though I did not post my code here obviously). You'll just have to take my word for it. Or don't, I couldn't care less.

Should you remove the stickers? Sure, if you don't like them, why not? Are you throwing money away by doing so, if you're a seller though? Yes.

Why do they add value? That's easy. Because the market respects their opinion.

[Peter_Spaeth]

According to Betsy, Brent did the stickers. I think she posted it here, it's possible it was a personal conversation.

Looks like Brent said so as well, though not sure what John was referencing.

https://www.net54baseball.com/showpo...2&postcount=34

Maybe Baker started doing them at some point, but it was Brent in the first years of the program.

With everything else going on at PWCC, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce the sticker program was probably not entirely clean either.

[perezfan]

Those idiotic stickered cards are the last ones I’d ever bid on. All the sticker does is increase the odds that the card was “worked” on.

No thanks.

[Peter_Spaeth]

2019 email from Betsy Huigens.

From: PWCC Customer Service
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2019 9:20 PM
To: ----------
Subject: Re: HE and PQ Designation

Thanks for the feedback. It doesn't put us in an awkward spot at all; I'm glad you shared it. I'm sorry you and your colleagues have not been issued one of our eye appeal designations.

I can assure you that this process is completely unbiased; when Brent does his review he does so for the entire auction after the cards have been sorted by sport, year, and issue. This is after any affiliation with any particular submitter has been removed. So there is no way for Brent to know who the submitter is of any of the cards when he does his review. The unbiased nature of this process remains the most important part for us to ensure a quality, consistent outcome. For reference, we are only issuing designations on 30-50 items per auction so it is quite rare for these designations to be issued.

Does this help answer your questions?



Thank you!



Betsy Huigens

PWCC Marketplace

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

2019 email from Betsy Huigens.

From: PWCC Customer Service
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2019 9:20 PM
...
when Brent does his review he does so for the entire auction after the cards have been sorted by sport, year, and issue.
...

This is dated April 29, 2019. That's the week before their PWCC-A, PWCC-E, and PWCC-S sticker program went live. I believe the first sales were beginning of May 2019, if I recall correctly from my database. I'm sure Brent started the program. But you're a fool if you think he was the main guy sitting there examining every card that went through their doors for stickers for years on end. He taught a team of two guys what he wants them to look for and they've been doing it ever since (what their hire date was, I don't know. But they've been there for several years now. Brent had better things to do with his time than put stickers on cards all day. If you want their names, I'm sure I can get them for you. It's not exactly a secret. Plenty of people in the hobby know them. They are responsible for 99.9% of all the PWCC stickers out there.

Mike Baker never did the stickers for PWCC. His stickers are a completely separate company. He just leased an office in the same complex as PWCC so that he could run his business easier with access to their vault. But the stickers he put on the cards were still his MBA stickers for his customers with cards in the PWCC vault. He never put PWCC stickers on cards or evaluated cards for PWCC.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Cliff Notes for those of you who aren't good at math or don't know what a regression model is (lawyers): the stickers definitely add value and I proved it using math (though I did not post my code here obviously). You'll just have to take my word for it. Or don't, I couldn't care less.

If you do dig it out, I would be interested in what the regression showed, including the r-squared.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I should add that I would scrutinize any stickered card very carefully, as knowing Brent, he was more likely to give the stickers to insiders and many of those insiders were probably doing stuff to cards. If anyone still cares, that is.

+1. And the stickers mean absolutely nothing to me.
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