For my next vacation trip I aspire to go on "a seamless, end to end journey".

:D

If EBay can improve the Goldin search engine that would be a welcome first step.

Typing in "w514" gives such great returns as a Bob Gibson RC, an autograph Mantle baseball, and a Renaldo soccer jersey.

Fine tuning the search for "1919 w514" gives such great returns as a Bob Gibson RC, an Eric Clapton autograph, and various comic books.

Getting exact with "1919-1921 w514" gets you nothing...but figuring out the puzzle and entering "1919-21 w514" gets you a w514 card.

I do not buy much on ebay these days but when I do a search in completed or live listings, the results are not much better than your experience with Goldin. Might be why they will now be one.

Having a search return the exact info that we want is clearly not what they want us to have.

I just loathe that BS feel good corporate speak. Just an insult.

But can't you understand that this merger empowers the customer and creates new synergies between selling venue and hobbyist that will result in a win-win scenario?

This gets the hobby all the way to bright. Come on... get with it!

The below snippet from the Ebay statement confirms what I always believed about the three outfits involved:


The newly established partnership will combine complementary service offerings from each brand to remove friction from The Hobby and power a sophisticated, integrated program to buy, sell, grade, and store trading cards and collectible card games. The companies remain focused on enabling The Hobby while unlocking economic opportunity for all collectors to enhance their experiences along their collecting journey.


Indeed, what 'The Hobby' needs is integrated friction removal by a newly consolidated group of these hobby enablers. Ick. I wish "The Hobby" would revert to being just a hobby and be scrubbed clean of the corporate ooze that has crept in, but I'm afraid that's just wishful thinking on my part.


brianp(arker)-beme

As I was reading that my only thought was "Who brings the K-Y?"

The most interesting component of this deal to me is that PSA is taking the vaults. Obviously, I get eBay buying Goldin (hence I predicted it when seemingly no one else did), but eBay & Goldin wanting out of the vault game is interesting. The primary reason PWCC's vault works so well, other than the fact that they were the first to do it in this hobby, is that it gives them a portal through which sellers can easily list their cards on their marketplace and thus brings in revenue. But if they didn't have a marketplace, it wouldn't be very cost effective. I can't imagine a scenario where a vault that isn't tethered to a marketplace survives long term. Obviously, PSA has some sort of agreement with ebay here which covers the cost of operating the vault, but it sure is interesting to see ebay aborting their vault project so quickly and effectively contracting it out to PSA. But what does PSA get out of it? Surely, PSA can operate it cheaper than ebay could, just by the nature of their businesses, but it's still a fascinating strategic component of the deal.

This video is pretty funny in light of the news about ebay buying out Goldin. It's a video where Ken goes on a rant about how bad ebay is for selling cards lol

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CMDPijN...Q1ZGUxMzBkMA==

In the King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch | Official Trailer | Netflix, Ken stated he is motivated by three things: Competition, Ego, and Money.

The main/primary reason PWCC’s vault works is state sales tax avoidance. Plain and simple. Take the tax savings out of the equation and I doubt vaults gain traction

For a truly seamless end to end experience, they should just buy the Psychic Friends Network and use it to determine what we want to collect and remove the troublesome, fickle hobbyist from The Hobby.


PROFIT!

Avoidance of sales tax, seems like a win. Another huge sign we've entered a frothy top of the market.

Avoidance or evasion?

The vault has appeal to most due to the ability to avoid paying sales tax. Most of us will become sellers at some point but until then I think most collectors prefer to have their cards in their possession and not located in a vault.

And maybe I did not read the wordsmith release closely enough but is PSA getting two vaults out of this? I understood they were simply keeping theirs that they had with Goldin. Did not see that eBay was giving up theirs too.

And maybe I am in the minority here but what is so obvious about why eBay would want Goldin or any brick and mortar house?

The first that I ever heard of this vault tax “avoidance” concept was on the show Billions. The lead character used a vault and eventually an actual apartment to avoid a multi-million dollar use tax bill on some pieces of art. Then I start collecting again, and lo and behold, it’s now big business in the hobby.

But "investors" don't need to see their cards.

I need to adapt to the new industry where card altering is a very good thing and the term collector is now synonymous with investor.

Avoidance. There is nothing illegal (evasion) about buying an asset in a sales/use tax free state and leaving it in that state long enough. If you buy a card, have it sent to Oregon to avoid taxes, and remove it to NY a few days, weeks, months later, that is evasion. Sending it to Oregon, to reside permanently until sold, or for a substantial period (usually a year to be "old and cold"), even if done to save taxes, is avoidance and good business/tax planning.

I think my favorite take so far in this thread is the, "aha! See! eBay didn't buy Goldin. Really, it's more like a merger."

:facepalm:

I would bet a lot more people are evading than avoiding.

And I know my favorite post on this thread will always be "hence I predicted it when seemingly no one else did" from Net54's Miss Cleo. :D

Moi?


Just commenting on the article. Don't think I ever expressed an opinion one way or another on your "scoop". ;)

I thought Travis just reported a rumor. Not the same as predicting anything.

Depends which post you are referring to. The one I am referring to and absolutely the best post he has ever made here, was his saying that he knows how eBay operates and where their interests lie, when referring to the rumor.

All I know is that he is an expert in every industry and every field or at least he thinks he is. He knows the law better than certainly any lawyer who posts here. He knew before SA Brosokas knew, that PWCC case would be shelved, he is apparently a prostate cancer specialist, he is an autograph authentication expert with a specialty in Shoeless Joe Jackson autos, he is a world class card grader and card doctor (not his admission but by his not disputing it), he knows more about eBay than the top paid execs and at any time knows the finances and business dealings of PWCC, eBay and Collectors (maybe just the PSA division) and he can profile your personality without knowing you, never having met you and simply seeing images of you on TV.

I sense a tad bit of envy underneath your sarcasm.

Oh shucks! Was it THAT obvious?

End game?
 

Why would I not be surprised that somewhere soon down the road that it becomes a requirement in order to list a sports or non-sports card on eBay that it must be graded by PSA or SGC....


Patrick

The rumor was that PSA and Goldin weren't getting along and that Collectors was looking to offload Goldin. The only thing I predicted was that ebay would be the buyer. I don't know of anyone else that was also predicting it would be ebay, though surely I couldn't have been alone on that prediction. But I was certainly laughed at for voicing it at the time.

With any luck, their narrow definition of "card" will exclude most of what we collect.

Would this not result in a lawsuit that ebay would surely lose? As I've stated many times, I don't know s#!t about the law, but I suspect this wouldn't be a wise decision on their part?

Not sure when you got the vision which permitted you to predict such a far fetched thing but I spoke with someone yesterday, who is a pretty big deal in the hobby (who is not a party to the partnership), and they had known about it for several months. Maybe they knew about it from you!:D

The legality of "tying" arrangements (very broadly speaking, if you want A, you must also buy B) and similar "restraints of trade" typically depends on how one defines the relevant market and what the defendant's market share is. Here, I would think ebay has a large share however you plausibly define the relevant market -- if I'm looking to self-list a card, where else do I go? I suppose one could argue there are lots of venues to sell if you count consigning as an option, but even taking them all into account I would think ebay's share is quite substantial.

My blather on the deal:

https://open.substack.com/pub/adamst...meOnShare=true

I see no mention of dealers at fanfest and can find no information about purchasing space, so I don't think it's a show in the traditional sense and people looking to buy something other than brand new product might be in for a bit of a disappointment.

I don't expect to buy there. I am trying to get press credentials and cover the show as a reporter instead. As a collector, I'll head to White Plains instead on Friday for the East Coast National.

Anyone I hear that this will be good for the hobby I see higher prices of something for somebody…

As for tax avoidances/evasion with the vaults, that can all go away if Biden is re-elected and he gets his wish of taxing unrealized capital gains on personal property.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Surely another factor in providing a vault is to take advantage/possession of abandoned cards. Sort of like abandoned storage units, which we see all the time. Most certainly the percentage of such cards is not 0%.