What does it Really Mean at the end of the Day (PSA, JSA, ect..)

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Posted By: rand

so in a nut shell, last year JSA got duped by a fake autograph at a show, now PSA is on the hook with the fake T206.... what does it mean to YOU as a collector or submitter? is anything going to change?

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

No.

I still embrace the concept of grading and I trust my grading company. I get my key cards graded mostly because they're all different card types, so the holder ties them together for display purposes. I'm also a klutz, so the holder protects the cards from my clumsy, shaky hands.

I think you're MUCH more likely to be satisfied with the condition of cards you buy on the internet when you buy them graded than you are when you buy them raw, you're much less likely to have problems with sellers, and you're much less likely to get an altered card. If you want to buy cards on the internet, or from private auctions, I think grading gives you a level of confidence that's lacking when you buy raw cards.

To me, a bunch of baseball cards lined up on shelves in my card room look like tiny baseball cards. When they're in holders, they look like works of art, in tiny frames. To me, they look absolutely gorgeous that way.

That said, there's still no substitute for your own brain, and I would never recommend buying ANYTHING - a baseball card, a car, a house, groceries - without knowing what you're buying. Grading, to me, just helps fill in the knowledge gaps.

As far as autographs are concerned, when Jimmy Spence looked at a letter I was holding in my hand (the signature was on the back, so he couldn't see it) and recognized the handwriting as that of George Kelly, I was sold. Making the "mistake" of not properly identifying the forged signature of Sal Bando at a show where Sal Bando was actually present, signing autographs, does not constitute an error of significant magnitude, IMO. At the same time, just like every other company in every other industry, I expect that JSA will occasionally make an error or a misjudgement. In business, it's not whether or not you make mistakes, it's how you recover from them that counts.

IMO.

-Al

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Posted By: Doug

It definitely concerns me that this many errors are getting out there. If they are missing this bad on these high profile/high dollar cards you can only imagine how many lower end cards are slipping through. All I can say is to make sure you know what you are buying to the point where you are comfortable trusting your own eye and judgment before making a purchase.

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Posted By: marshall barkman

No one is really that concerned about lower end cards Doug because outside of set building they have no impact on the hobby. In regards to a Sal Bando autograph i'm sure Spence did not authenticate it and it was one of his employees. James is the best in the business and i mean who would authenticate a Sal Bando auto? Sal Bando? Was he like a mafia hitman or ballplayer? Just kidding of course. LOL

I won't even bring up last night's outcome.

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Posted By: Steve

In business, it's not whether or not you make mistakes, it's how you recover from them that counts.


Al just yesterday I was told that it was precisely that mentality that
has put this great nation of ours in the situation we know find it in.

Grading companies can not make mistakes, if they do then anarchy reins.


Steve

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Posted By: Anonymous

THIS IS WHAT TROUBLES ME ABOUT THIS GRADING SUBJECTIVITY THING!!THE QUESTION THAT SHOULD BE ASKED IS WHO SENT THE HIGH VALUE T206 CARD IN? IF WE KNOW THAT ANSWER, THEN WE KNOW WHY A TRIMMED (OR WHAT EVER WAS WRONG WITH IT) CARD GOT THROUGH THEIR SYSTEM. NOW THE REASON I'M SAYING THIS IS BECAUSE I HAVE A NICE FOLDER OF CARDS I PERSONALLY BOUGHT FROM THE "BIG DEALERS". NOW IF I SENT THOSE SAME CARDS IN,I KNOW BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT WHAT MY GRADES WOULD BE. I'M IN THE PROCESS OF WORKING WITH A LOCAL NEWS STATION ON THIS VERY THING. I'M NOT KNOCKING PSA, BUT I FEEL AS A HOBBYIST AND A LOYAL CUSTOMER, MY QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE SCANS BEFORE THE STORY AIRS, LET ME KNOW.

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Posted By: Steve

No one is really that concerned about lower end cards Doug because outside of set building they have no impact on the hobby.



Really? I would think that more people collect lower end cards then hi end ones.

Then again I guess it depends on what your defination of lower end is.

Steve

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Posted By: keyway

I find autograph authentication to be an absolute joke. In one of the major auctions last year there were many Ruth auto's. They were so different that there was no way the same person signed them. All were deemed good by the same "so called" expert in auto's. I have watched some of these so called experts in action at shows. Seems the people they know get anything they want passed, while strangers to them always seem to have bad auto's. The major thing is it is only their oppinion, yet they are treated as though they are true experts and have some way to communicate with the dead to see if the item was signed by them. To me they are the lowest of the low in the hobby. Frank

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Posted By: Doug

"No one is really that concerned about lower end cards Doug because outside of set building they have no impact on the hobby."



By lower end I was referring to cards in the $500 or less range (I probably should have been more clear). I would imagine quite a few people collect those and if they stopped buying them I'm sure it would have quite an impact on the hobby as a whole.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

If you define low end as <$500 per card I believe that a relatively small % of collectors regularly buy "high end" cards. The vast majority of collectors, like the vast majority of people generally, don't have $500 in discretionary money available for single cards. Those of us that do should be happy we do. Regardless of how much a collector spends, to that collector his or her acquisitions are precious, and it is just wrong to denigrate the "low end" collectors on sheer economics. I know a lot of "low end" collectors who are passionate about the hobby and their collections and know far more about cards than some of the "high end" collectors. As far as economic impact, ask any dealer here and they will confirm that sales under $500 a card make up a large proportion of their businesses. <br>

As far as what it all means in the end, "nothing" is the answer. If you are purely doing this for money you are not a collector; if you are doing this out of a passion for the hobby, odds are your cards survive you anyway, regardless of whose plastic they are housed in.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Scott Mt. Joy

Well there are plenty of pros and cons with grading. For me I can say that I am back collecting because of it, because of grading my confort level buying cards online is totaly different. I no long feel like I am at the mercy of the dealers. I could not imagine buying $1000+ cards online without it. I will say that as I have gotten back and gotten to know certain issue I am now buy lots raw but I still slam them. Hey its how I like to collect.

On the con side I think the issue is much more related to high grade vintage and high profile cards like the Doyle. Hey whos going to waste the time to forge a $50 card, not many. But say the Doyle without error you have a $300 card, after adding the Nat'l you have a $50,000+ card now thats a crooks dream situation (a prefect storm), Ted's called it for a while. I do agree its a big shame on PSA for this (even more so them putting one in there new book) and hopefully they do the right thing (not holding my breath thou).

I am happy we have grading companies and while they can all get better, that can be said for every company in the world.

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Posted By: Doug

I didn't mean low end to be a derogatory term. If these 5-6 figure cards that are probably a slim minority of the submissions slip by there has to be a ton of the $500 or less cards (the standard PSA service level cutoff which was where I got the figure) that are getting holdered. Sorry if that came off the wrong way, I was just referring to the low and high ends of the PSA submission services not the value/quality of the cards.

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Posted By: rand

yes, we all make mistakes. yes, i rarely buy ungraded cards. what i want to know from my fellows 54 contributors is why PSA allowed to get away with this mistake. who will ask for their money back, who is responsible, who could take them to court and sue for the purchase price, and lastly who will be the witness to prove it is Fake?

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Posted By: dan mckee

Can someone post a link to the Nodgrass thread that Wonka wrote here? For Rand, I don't think he has seen it yet. Dan.

www.danmckee.com/pictures/types001.jpg>

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Scott,

Like you, I would not be collecting if it were not for grading. The high end of the hobby literally shut down in the late 80s and early 90s until PSA came and saved the hobby. Collectors regained confidence in legitimacy of the cards and the hobby took off.

Sure--PSA makes mistakes--so does SGC--hopefully those mistakes will be fewer over time.

The answer for the high end and for collectors who like to collect high-grade graded sets certainly is not no grading. Virtually all cards will ultimately graded--as old timers sell there collections and these hit the market they will become graded either because the seller gets a much higher value with them graded or that the collector wants the assuredness that the cards have not been tampered with.

Jim

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Posted By: Robert Dixon

I am new to the hobby. A couple of months ago I bought a couple of cards (off of this board) that were ungraded. Up to this point I was apprehensive about buying ungraded cards. The seller listed them to be in VG condition. I sent them in to SGC to get them graded, and they both came back as ungradeable because of "Color Added". I don't know how to get around that. I am not experienced enough to look at a scan and tell if a card is a reprint or altered. So I decided then that I wouldn't but any more ungraded cards. The way I see it, a card may slip by them from time to time, but not nearly as often as they will slip by me.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Robert,

You and hundreds if not thousands have had that happen to them which is why
many collectors are only going graded.

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Posted By: leon

I better get this in before I lock it, right Al?


The mistakes don't mean a lot to me.....I agree completely with what Al said.... Do your homework and know what you are buying. My grading company of choice still gives me some 3rd party comfort and they have saved me at least 5 figures last year on catching some stuff....take care

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Posted By: JimCrandell

The issue with that Leon is that most collectors do not have the ability or more importantly the desire to invest the time necessary to figure out if a card is legit.

As you say grading cos or Kevin can catch things many will miss--not perfect but a much better alternative.

Cheers,

Jim

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Leon, I wrote that only because I figured you were going to lock up that thread quick, because you locked the other one. Kudos for letting it go a while.

Jim, I wouldn't say "most" collectors, but I'd definitely say "many." In the case of someone like you, who collects 100 different sets, or someone like Leon or me, who collects multiple types, it's sometimes difficult to get to know everything about each issue in your collection. I know that I can easily spot problems with '38 Goudeys, and to a lesser extent Henry Johnsons, but when I start looking at issues where I only plan to own one or two examples of that card type, it doesn't make much sense to learn everything there is to know about the issue before buying that one card.

There are probably 15-20 million graded cards out there, most of which are accurately authenticated and graded within a reasonable range of their true condition (realizing that different card attributes are important to different people). I do think it's also important to recognize that many of the very best examples reside in people's collections - it's not uncommon to see overgraded cards or mistakes more frequently on the market, because collectors are generally unhappy with those cards. So they sell them. As such I would venture to guess that a greater percentage of the cards that are for sale at any given time are questionable in terms of the grade than the percentage of "bad" cards in the overall graded population.

For example, I've often "upgraded" my '38 Goudey cards by buying nicer examples within that same grade, or even occasionally a grade lower. As an illustration, I once sold a '38 HOFer with a grade of 8, and replaced it with a nicer-looking example that was graded 7. When I sold the 8, someone could easily have used it as an example of a card that was unworthy of the grade - and meanwhile the 7 remains tucked away in my collection, a gorgeous example that one might say is UNDERgraded.

I do think that's an important distinction. When I have a card I'm not happy with, it remains in my collection only temporarily, until I have the inclination to replace it with a better one or a different card altogether.

So we see mistakes on eBay every day. In a way, it's no different from buying used cars directly from the dealer - if you don't kick the tires and check under the hood before you buy it, at least a portion of the mistake is your own fault. You rely on the expertise of the dealer, but the reality is that a portion of the used cars out there are not sitting in people's driveways because the original owner didn't LIKE them.

-Al

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Posted By: boxingcardman

One thing that is apparent from doing business with both is that the grading arts at PSA and SGC are different in certain respects, primarily having to do with the primacy of centering versus sharpness and corners. IMO PSA emphasizes centering more than SGC and SGC emphasizes sharpness and corners more than PSA. Overall I happen to prefer SGC's approach to grading so the vast majority of my business will go there but I understand PSA's as well.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc