Starting a Grading Company

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Posted By: steve k 

Any business people or want-to-be business people in this forum? It is said that "necessity is the mother of invention." With all the problems and complaints about PSA and other grading companies...can you imagine a grading company owned and operated by members of this forum? Who wouldn't use it at a reasonable, competitive price? Any thoughts or ideas about this? There are probably plenty of reasons why it couldn't be done, but it would be most interesting to hear the reasons how it could be done to everyone's benefit and profit. And NO - I have no interest in running it or being the caretaker - that would be the job for a known, trusted member of this forum. Besides, I already run my own company as well as other things that I stay busy with. But I definitely would invest in and take the time to contribute. If not having the desire to participate in and own a piece of a business, or fearing competition from PSA, GAI or others, then you need not read the rest of this thread.

Basic rough idea - The cards would be sent to one location. The person at the location would authenticate them. Then scan the card and list the details about it in reference to creases, indentations, etc., which a scan may not pickup, then e-mail the scans and details to a number of members who are experts in grading. I consider myself an expert on 50's and 60's cards - we would have to trust each other on their own evaluation of being an expert. The members would e-mail back their opinions of the grade and the average would be the grade. Maybe the few very high or low grades for the card would be thrown out for calculating the average. I am not familiar with thermoplastic molding processes for encapsulation but plastic molding companies are not hard to find. There would be no payroll expense. A corporation would be formed, the stockholders would share in the grading process work, startup and operating expenses - then the profits would be distributed as voted on. The whole basic idea is that we would design our own system of grading and work hard to strictly abide by our set rules. Word would spread rapidly about our company and then we would be the grading company that people would use to get top dollar for their cards on ebay. Be prepared to work or the business will not succeed - you may receive fifty or many more scans per day and the work not only has to get done, but must be done accurately. We could work on some sort of shift arrangement so the grading doesn't become a daily drudgery. If this idea is not worth pursuing or the obstacles are too great then so be it and we can all, myself included, just keep going on complaining about the grading companies.