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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>I believe there is an issue with the new poll. There is no way that it is correct. I need an email from everyone that has voted for a PSA 8 or better or this poll comes down tonight. You can remain anonymous but you have to email me. That is the only way I know to be fair on this subject. If there are 35% then I will say that too..I strongly feel it's being manipulated.....regards<br /><br />edited to be more specific

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Posted By: <b>Corey R. Shanus</b><p>Leon,<br /><br />I really think a very plausible explanation for at least some of the votes is that the wording is open for interpretation. As others have noted, most people if given a choice would prefer to have his/her cards be in as good a condition as possible. However, that is quite different from having the funds to do so, or indeed if the cards a person collects as a practical matter even exist in such grade. Perhaps a better wording would be words to the effect "Given the funds you have to spend on baseball cards and the condition availability of the cards that are the focus of your collecting interests, what is the typical condition of a card you are likely to add to your collection?"

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Posted By: <b>Trae R.</b><p>This also makes me wonder if any previous polls were manipulated, namely the last poll with regard to which grader you prefer.

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Posted By: <b>Cobby33</b><p>Good points. Perhaps it should read, "which grades are most prevalent in your collection?"

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Posted By: <b>Dave</b><p>I'm sure there is some doofus here that sits at work in a room with 30 computers and votes away.

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Posted By: <b>Max Weder</b><p>Dave<br /><br />I think we have over 400 computers, but people keep getting mad at me when I try and take over their keyboards... <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />Max

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Posted By: <b>Frank Wakefield</b><p>I really don't have any problem with the New Poll if the PSA 8 or better collectors have soaked their votes. I don't even mind gentle erasing. I do take exception to stretching, trimming, coloring, and the like. I can't tell for sure how many of the PSA 8+ votes are altered. It may well be porportionally related to the number of PSA 8+ cards that are altered. <br /><br />Leon, good luck with it all, Frank.

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Posted By: <b>Steve</b><p>I can't tell for sure how many of the PSA 8+ votes are altered. It may well be porportionally related to the number of PSA 8+ cards that are altered.<br /><br /><br />hehe good one <br /><br />Steve

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Posted By: <b>Frank Wakefield</b><p>Looks like the new poll was soaked so much that it fell apart, and has disintegrated.

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Posted By: <b>Jeff Prizner</b><p>Time for a new, new poll?

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>Yes, the other poll was so obviously soaked/tainted I had it taken down. I guess I will have to make a decision on when to do the poll at the top and when to do one as a thread. I can monitor the thread ones much better even with folks logging in anonymously to do it. There will be a new, very non-controversial thread put up early today. I am debating any others.....and will probably give it a rest for a while. best regards

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Posted By: <b>MVSNYC</b><p>Leon, i collect PSA 8 T206's...

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Posted By: <b>Wesley</b><p>There are a lot of people who collect PSA 8 cards. Why does anyone think that poll was tainted?

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>35% of the board doesn't collect PSA8 and above. That's what the poll was showing.

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Posted By: <b>Wesley</b><p>I marked the any grades to fill spots in my collection selection, but apparently more board users do collect PSA 8s than we thought.

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>Me too...and I think that's what the armpit of the hobby collects <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>.... In a few days or weeks I might start that poll in a thread to see what the real deal is..without it being able to be manipulated. For now the ugliest set is fine...

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Posted By: <b>Wesley</b><p>Maybe I will sell my entire collection to buy one or two PSA 8 cards. That seems to be the direction the forum is heading anyway.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Wesley- I made the observation yesterday that late in the afternoon we were getting a vote for PSA 8 collecting on average every ninety seconds, yet as I go through all the regular posters on the board I can count maybe four PSA 8 guys who I can identify. Those numbers were just too extreme to satisfy anyone as being accurate.

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Posted By: <b>JimCrandell</b><p>Weslry,<br /><br />Good move--you are a smart man.<br /><br />Another smart guy on this board is trading his 8s to upgrade to a few 9s.<br /><br />Barry,<br /><br />I think there is something to the scaring away the high grade graded card collector thing. <br /><br />Jim<br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Jim- could you rephrase that- I am missing something. Sorry.

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Posted By: <b>Dave</b><p>I've made quite a few transactions lately trading my PSA 1's for 2's....maybe I should slow down.

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Posted By: <b>JimCrandell</b><p>Barry,<br /><br />I have said this before but I think high grade graded card collectors are reluctant to post here given the feelings of some(many) posters to graded or high-grade cards.<br /><br />Jim

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Posted By: <b>Richard Masson</b><p>So enough about cards and grades. Let's move on to politics, religion and other non-controversial topics...

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Posted By: <b>Rich Klein</b><p>Where in New York should card collectors congregate for dinner. I'd love to hear everyone's views <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />Rich

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Posted By: <b>Corey R. Shanus</b><p>Leon,<br /><br />Is there a way to set up a poll whereby to cast a vote a person must log in and in addition have had a network54 account for a certain period of time (e.g., 60 days)? That way each account name will get only one vote, and creating an account for the sole purpose of voting will not work because the poll will be over before the waiting period will have expired.

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Posted By: <b>Brian</b><p>Seems to be alot of passion to get data to disprove Jim's thesis. Perhaps we have a silent majority? If she floats, she's a witch.

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Posted By: <b>JimCrandell</b><p>How about this question--do you think card alteration is most widespread in<br /><br />1)Ungraded Cards--after all there is a reason they are ungraded<br />2)Low-mid grade graded PSA/SGC cards<br />3)PSA 8/SGC 88 and better<br /><br />Jim<br /><br /><br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>Yes, there is a way to do a poll operationally different although I am not sure it's exactly as you are saying. On the next poll that there might be controversy with I am going to do it in a thread. Anyone can register and login and vote. I have no idea who anyone is except I see an IP address. They remain anonymous. If they don't want to login then they don't get to vote. Again, it's still anonymous so no one that is legitimate should care. It will be much, much harder to manipulate. If I think it's still being manipulated, as in someone going to each office computer, I can track IP addresses and if all are the same area and carrier I will know what's going on. In the end I agree with the few that have said it's quite a bit to do about nothing. Most on this board are armpit collectors, like myself, except for the backbones. I do "think" the backbones might represent 3%-5% or so, which is more than I thought before. I would prefer to discuss esoteric sets, T206's and Zeenuts etc...so have put this off for now... regards

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Posted By: <b>Brian</b><p>Why does it matter?

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Posted By: <b>JimCrandell</b><p>Brian,<br /><br />You know why this matters to some people--read your earlier post and you will discover the answer.<br /><br />Jim

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Posted By: <b>Brian</b><p>I am building my Obak sets in VG to ExMt, but I voted for 8s in the poll. If I could, I would... Didn't mean to ruffle feathers, didn't have time to call Leon last night either.

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Posted By: <b>John S</b><p>Leon,<br /><br />I am worse than an armpit....probably better categorized as a buttcrack level collector.

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Posted By: <b>JimCrandell</b><p>Brian,<br /><br />I don't see why anyone wouldn't prefer 8s if given the choice.<br /><br />Heck, if 10s were a category I would have done that.<br /><br />I love my prewar 10s--Dave Forman sold them to me.<br /><br />Jim

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>The wording of the original poll was flawed. It was my fault. I don't care to revisit it right now and would prefer to talk about other stuff....I think this is the majority opinion of the board too.

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Posted By: <b>Brian</b><p>"I think this is the majority opinion of the board too"<br /><br />We could have a poll to prove it <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />Where did all the humor go?

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Jim- much clearer. Yes, the board is not a friendly place to post for a PSA-8 collector, but I think it was the "backbone" comment that started a conflagration. I guess it touched a chord in people who don't have the means to buy high grade cards. And it is silly to think that the poll question was "who would want to own PSA-8 if they could?" We could start a poll which asks: if someone were giving out free T206 Wagners, would anyone want one? That would be greatly different than a poll which asked: would you pay the current market price and buy a T206 Wagner if one became available? Of course everybody would like all their cards in perfect condition, but in the real world very few can afford it. I don't believe that 35% of the people on this board could afford to collect in PSA 8. But I bet close to 100% of the board would like to own them if money were no object.

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Posted By: <b>JimCrandell</b><p>Barry,<br /><br />Understood. To all I offended with my backbone comment I apologize.<br /><br />What I should have said is that I believe that transactions in nrmt-mt or better cards(mostly graded) now make up over half of the dollar volume in vintage card sales today(defined as 1887-1969), have steadily grown as a percentage of transactions and are likely to continue to grow from here.<br /><br />Jim

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>In dollar volume I agree with you 100%. I used the example of the high grade E93 set that sold recently in a Mastro auction for over 300K. How many good and very good E93's would have to be transacted to add up to that amount? It might take 50-100 collectors to reach that total, while only a single collector bought that set. I guess we have to define mean, median, average, etc. when we have these discussions...and apology accepted.

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Posted By: <b>JimCrandell</b><p>Barry--glad you agree 100%.<br /><br />Others on the board called it possibly the dumbest comment ever made on Net54--I never claimed this was true in terms of number of cards--but if measured by dollar volume which I think it is the proper way to measure it I think it is.<br /><br />Jim

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>I still politely disagree about the dollar volume but the new way you presented it is much less offensive and appreciated. Us armpit collectors stick together just like the backbones <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>.....take care

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>What skews these numbers so drastically is the enormous gap between say PSA 3 and PSA 8. If the gap were smaller, there would be more high grade collectors. But with a PSA 8 selling for perhaps 100x a PSA 3, it's going to decrease the pool of PSA 8 collectors. The reason that this tiny group spends so much money is: A)they have it, and B)that's what it will cost them to gain membership into the club. Again, if one guy spends $1 million and a thousand collectors spend $1000 each, each group is spending the same but the thousand collectors make up the backbone. That's how I see it.

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Posted By: <b>JimCrandell</b><p>Barry,<br /><br />The number is probably well above 50%. I know a couple of graded card collectors that In think spent $3-$5mm last year on cards. Take the midpt and thats $8mm. Some 800 lower grade collectors would have to spend $10,000 apiece to match this. But what you may be missing is that I think there hundreds of collectors who spend $25,000 or more on high grade cards--and I think I am being conservative by setting the bar low--thus my point is that there is a large mass of collectors who collect high grade only, perhaps not as many as low-to-mid grade but a lot in numbers.<br /><br />Jim

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Assuming your numbers are correct, and I am not disputing them, how many of those collectors read this board, and how many of them would have participated in yesterday's poll? It doesn't appear to me that all those big spenders are hanging around Net54.

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Posted By: <b>Jeff Lichtman</b><p>I seem to have forgotten: what is the point of this argument again?

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>I don't remember either. I was going to ask you that... oh yeah, invest in U.S. Savings Bonds!

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Posted By: <b>quan</b><p>is this a vintage card forum, or a vintage card grading forum? i could do with less psa8 threads or psa/sgc threads, that's not what this board is about or why i'm here. the drama at first was mildly entertaining, now it's just the same ole rhetorics being drivel back and forth. for what it's worth i did partake in the old poll (about the 3rd time i've actually voted) and chose any grade was fine as long as it filled a void...brian's new poll about ugliest set is much better and represent what this board was meant to be when it was started by elliot.<br /><br />edited to add: yes, i do skip the psa/sgc/grading threads but lately it seems like you ignore one and 3 more pop up!

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Posted By: <b>chris bland</b><p>Amen Quan - I agree 100%

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Posted By: <b>JimCrandell</b><p>Barry,<br /><br />I think a few read but are reluctant to post--do not believe that many voted in the poll.<br /><br />Always is interesting to me why prople cannot ignore the threads they don't like--I don't look at a fair number of them but I never jump on them to gripe about them.<br />Jim

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Griping is a birthright on this chatboard.

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>You are my hero...can I call you uncle?