Posted By:
Mark AndersonBeckett Select Auctions and Beckett Grading are separate and distinct, but I will answer to the best of my knowledge:
* The cards for sale on our website are from dealers. Some members of this board may be some of these dealers. We are simply a portal through which we link you up with hundreds of dealers, and help oversee each transaction so it is not every man for himself like ebay.
* These cards are consignments for our auction service, which is part of Marketplace. Beckett Select is a service to help people sell their cards, and the placement of them can be in a major auction house (such as the Wagner), eBay, etc., based on where they should garner the most interest and money for the consignor. I will mention to the auction department that they might want to state up front that the cards are on consignment. I just figured that was assumed as it is the way we have done things since first starting Beckett.com's marketplace over a decade ago.
* As with the Wagner collection, it is a case where people came to us and requested Beckett's help in selling off a collection that was inherited. Interestingly, the entire collection consists of Polar Bear backs. With the interested generated by the Wagner collection, we now have people contacting us on a regular basis with collections and finds that are new to the hobby. Let's be honest - no matter what your feelings on grading in general, or BVG specifically, no one can argue that the BVG 1 Wagner sale through REA was shocking. It didn't just eclipse the previous record - it destroyed all previous sales in that grade, as well as the SGC 10 example sold about the same time. This was not random - we marketed the card extremely well. If you were an owner of a collection, would that not get your attention?
* No, neither card is trimmed and if nothing else, this thread has taught me to be less quick to judge a card based on a scan in the future. You cannot grade or detect all tampering on a card based on a picture.
* I have put great effort the past year into building the BVG brand. I'm not the brightest bulb in the lamp, but why would I risk destroying that so our auction department can make a couple hundred dollars? The feedback we received on the Wagner collection (550 cards, not just Wagner) was that we were conservative, if anything, on both the grades and the authentication. Several cards were obviously cut from sheets, and while some in the hobby are fine with those cards receiving grades, we actually slabbed all of those cards as Authentic-Altered. The fact is, if we are asked to authenticate and help facilitate a sale on a collection, we will be extremely sensitive to the extra scrutiny that those cards will receive.
I'm always willing to respond to questions if people just ask.