Mr. X t-206's on ebay

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Posted By: pete ullman

Is it just me or do most of the t-206's being sold on ebay under the mr. x moniker seem TOTALLY overgraded. Gees...check out some of the psa 6's. They look like vg-ex's at best. And the Elberfield with totally soft corners and staining at vg. C'mon? Am I out of line here?

Pete in MN

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

That's because Mr. X has telepathic powers and can use mind-control to make the graders do as he wishes.

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Posted By: pete ullman

so he's like aqua man with a lamer name and has to deal with humans as opposed to aquatic beasts, huh? Poor guy?

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Posted By: Josh K.

I thought the same thing. Some of the 4's look ok, but all the 5's and 6's that I looked at looked generous.

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Posted By: jackgoodman

All of TJ's Mr. X auctions include this line in his resume/bio: "His authenticity is unquestioned..."

Was there a question as to TJ being authentic? I mean, I've never met him, but I believe he is a real person. Did someone question his authenticity?????

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Posted By: pete ullman

Hal told me he was like aquaman...so I guess the adult in me questioned his authenticity...but the kid in me wanted to believe!

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Posted By: jay behrens

Someone mentioned this last night to me, that they thought all these cards were over graded. Guess if PSA is gonna make a big deal out of a collection they need to try and make it look as good as possible

Jay

I like to sit outside drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home I would be arrested, so I go to baseball games and fit right in.

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Posted By: Robert

I went to TJ's to pick up a card I won from him on EBAY and he showed me some of the cards which I agree with the board got bumps in grades. The Magie card looked like a 2 maybe a 3 in front but half the paper was missing on the back so it got an authentic. The Demmit was very beat up and the Plank was a generous 4, the image itself was very blurry. I think he got generous grades from PSA becasue he is an authorized dealer and has been from the beginning.

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Posted By: tbob

We ought to have a contest to try and guess who Mr. X is. Let's see, who is in financial trouble or could use the money and is considered a "celebrity".... Hmmmm....
1) Michael Jackson
2) OJ
3) Tony Orlando
4) Jim Bakker
5) Chico "Baseball been berry, berry good to me" Asquela

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Posted By: Lee Behrens

I personally decided not to bid on the "Mr. X" cards for 2 reasons. The Mr. X thing to me is a joke and after looking at the cards I also felt they were overgraded. Nothing against you TJ's. but I personally think you went about it all the wrong way, but hey PSA thought it was great and was very generous to you.

This is another reason why I have little to no respect for PSA. Readers are always asking for reasons why the majority of us do not like PSA and this is just another example.

Lee

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Obviously, he is Rex Racer, retired from the circuit but still unwilling to let Speed know that he is his long-lost brother, hence the Mr. X designation.

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Posted By: DJ

I agree 100% with Lee. Couldn't have said it better.

I posted this on another thread and feel perhaps this is the place for it:

There is a T206 PSA4 of Jack Chesbro from the Mr. X Collection and the current bid is $114.95 with five days left. Another seller on eBay has one with two days left at $179.99 and there are no bids.

Something tells me the 'X' Chesbro is probably a 'generous 4' and the one with the starting bid at about retail will go for far less.

DJ

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

My guess as to Mr. X might be is R. Crumb.

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Posted By: quan

so u guys are convinced that PSA would intentionally overgrade the cards because they know there might be some buzz surrounding the whole Mr. X "find" that would bring some publicity to them??? The delusion and myopia on this board is scary sometimes....

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Posted By: Josh K.

Im not saying that its intentional or not. Its been well accepted around here that psa plays favorites with their big dealers. I have no idea if that is true or not. What I do know is that this card (the chesboro from the Mr. X collection) looks worse than many of my T206's graded as 40's by SGC (and equivilent to most of the PSA 3's that I have purchased):



Here is an SGC 40 that I own (a small wrinkle above the hands is all it took to get a 40):

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

the board, I can't imagine...

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I'm not maligning R. Crumb. I thought I read somewhere that Mr X was a cartoonist. I suppose the association of R. Crumb with TJ Schwartz could be looked upon as maligning him, but that was not my intention.

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Posted By: quan

it's very easy to just grab a random card and say it's undergraded/overgraded, here are a couple sgc examples i recently bought. 2 years ago i feel they would've been sgc40s:

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Posted By: Josh K.

Personally, I think the Phillippi looks better than the chesboro. The Wilste, is hard to say - both scans are a bit too small to really compare. The pics that I posted were representative of my collection only - I can say that I dont have an sgc 50 in my collection that looks as bad as the chesboro.

Quan, just curious, do you believe that the chesboro is fairly graded or is it that you just dont care for more psa bashing?

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Sort of.

I do not believe that PSA would overgrade the "Mr. X" cards intentionally. I do believe based on the cards I've seen lately that PSA's standards have slipped to the point where some really s***ty stuff is getting through as higher grades than merited. The red BG T206 Chance I got the other day is a good example; no way was that card a vg 3 even a year ago.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I'm sure a big problem with PSA is due to monkey grader turnover. You can't have any consistancy if you can't keep the same graders around. It's like any other business, you truly want top performance and wuality from your employees, then you need to pay for it. Sadly, most bsinesses today are worried more about the bottom line than the wuality of their product.

Jay

I like to sit outside drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home I would be arrested, so I go to baseball games and fit right in.

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Posted By: pete

I believe those 3 examples are overgraded compared to lots of graded cards I've seen. The grading thing really has become somewhat of a joke.

I believe Mr X is Jim Henson...creator of Garfield.

PEte in MN

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Posted By: Rick

I think that anything below a 5 from any company its a crapshot and it boils down to what a particular collector prefers.

I personaly dont mind corners too much but i am a little more picky about the colors and registration.

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Posted By: Glenn

Pete,

Jim Davis?

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Posted By: tbob

Jim Henson is the Muppet guy, Jim Davis the Garfield creator.
This whole "Mr. X" thing is silly to me, why not just tell who the heck Mr. X is? Unless the cards were the personal collection of Jeffrey Dahmer or stashed away to avoid Mrs. X from knowing about them during their divorce proceeding, I think it is inane.

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Posted By: pete in MN

oops...yea...jim davis...that's the ticket!!! I agree TBOB...ridiculous.

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Posted By: DJ

I saw the documentary 'Crumb' several years ago and I just don't see Crumb as a 'baseball' guy. There weren't stacks of T206's all over his place plus he moved to Paris a while back.

Would Jim Davis be a 'celebrity'? He's a cartoonist but when was the last time he was on 'Entertainment Tonight'? --as I say that, I'm proved wrong as for the last five days, they've shown coverage of the upcoming Mary Kay Letourneau marriage.

I honestly don't care about who 'Mr. X' is. When the Charlie Sheen collection came out, that was kind of cool and if there was a Mac Davis collection, I would think that is kind of cool too. The Sheen stuff was cool but Mr. X's stuff so far is...well not impressive at all. PSA2's and PSA3's don't cut it.

As far as grading this collection, I feel that the cards seem overgraded a tad but why would you grade an actual '2' a '3' on a common card? And I don't feel this Board is 'myopic' at all when it comes to PSA's possible 'bumping' of it's elite sellers.

Can I introduce you to way off back-centered Howie? Maybe a 9 1/2, 'PGM' (Possible Gem Mint Qualifer).for five figures?

DJ

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Posted By: warshawlaw

as he died some time ago. Flesh-eating bacteria---nasty.

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Posted By: Adam J. Moraine

I STILL believe Mr. X's true idenity is Billy Crystal.

Best Regards,

Adam J.Moraine

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Posted By: pete in MN

billy crystal is believable...I was kidding about jim davis...just a joke. But billy crystal is a huge baseball fan and I'm sure he doesn't need the money so why would he sell? maybe he's concentrating only on yankee cards in gem mint condition!!!

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Posted By: dan mckee

The Chesbro card looks like a 4 to me. No creases, soft corners. The Speaker in the SGC holder as a 3 is robbery! That card should be a 4. Dan

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Posted By: dennis

a showbiz personality who wants to remain anomymous...the only "showbiz personality" who i can think of who fits this discription is GARY COLEMAN...."what you talkin about willis"

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

This whole thing is stupid. It conceivably could mean something to someone if they knew whose collection it was, although even then, it sure wouldn't mean anything to me unless it was Elvis or somebody of that stature in which case it would be kinda cool. But the fact that the cards belonged to some ANONYMOUS celebrity? Give me a break.

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Posted By: qualitycards.com

It doesn't matter much to me, only 2 cards the Plank & Magee have the pedigree, all others say nothing about Mr X. And I doub't anyone will bid higher due to the Mr X affiliation. If a card is worth a $100 to you, then bid $100. Not $200 cause Mr X once held it in his hands.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Guys, with all respect to the famous Mr. X, while TJ claims he's a "well known celebrity," his cards are mostly low grade examples. He must be like Joey Buttafuco or something because if he had any kind of real cash he wouldn't be buying overgraded PSA 3s....

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hey- I think R. Crumb is a really neat guess. Did you know he designed a few sets of trading cards in the style of 1933 Goudeys? One was a set of blues singers, with their biographies on the back; I forget the other but I have both sets at home. I think they are from the 1980's. And the way the collection was described recently in an SCD article, with all the cards thrown into a paper bag, that sure sounds like a way Crumb might save them. I have an affinity for him anyway; loved the movie about him, have several of his books signed by him and have an extensive underground comic collection with early printings of all the Zaps. I say excellent guess (but could be wrong).

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Posted By: Robert

I personally think its noteworthy that someone was able to complete the monster minus the wagner and congratulations to Mr. X whoever he is on this accomplishment. Maybe I am way off here and if so, I am sure fellow members will let me know but it appears that there is some underlying resentment as to how TJ went about things with his initial posts about the collection as well as the content of the listings. I think its a bit far fetched to say or insinuate that PSA was overly nice on the grading of the Mr. X collection with some underlying motive or reason behind it. I do agree that from looking at the scans alone that some of the card grades appear to be borderline grades but at the same time I will say that the Mr. X collection isnt the first time that this "appears" to have happened whether you are talking about an entire set being submitted for grading or single cards from collectors like us. I dont think SGC or GAI is or has been any different. Each one of the grading companies have made mistakes in grading from our viewpoints and I think its a bit much to expect to be perfect all the time in grading.
I personally could care less if the cards are from the Mr. X collection or not. If a person looks at a card whether its TJ selling it or someone else and they are happy with the looks of the card and they arent just buying the card solely because it has a numeric grade associated with it then that is what matters. As has been said more than once on the board, one should buy the card and not the grade itself. If the Mr. X collection had not be as "hyped" as it had been and it was a fellow member of the board who was selling off the 206 collection, would the same kind of remarks as to the persons validity be made as well as the judgement on each and every card? TJ is a collector as well as a businessman and he is obviously making money off these cards and that is fine. When it all comes down to it, Mr. X was a collector of the set and accomplished something that many are still striving to do. Maybe the problem is in the fact that people had preconceived expectations as to the quality of the cards from this set just because Mr. X is a celebrity when in actuality, TJ never made any claims that the collection was of high grade quality in the first place. Slabbed or not, these cards still have merit on their own whether they are from Mr.X or from one of us. Maybe you dont agree with how TJ went about things or how the set has received the "hype" it has but that doesnt change the fact that a lot of us would be proud to have some of the cards in our collection and appreciate them just as much as Mr.X has. Instead of mocking what has been going on, lets try and be mindful that there are other 206 collectors who will have an opportunity to add to their personal collection. Even with all the "hype" this set is getting, the bigger issue is that people who are thinking about getting into the vintage side of collecting are being exposed to such and given a chance to do so and to me that is a good thing even if I may not agree with every little thing.

basicgreatguy@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Wesley

Good points Bob.

I want to remind all of you who are purchasing these cards to print out a hardcopy of the ebay listings. The hardcopy will serve as a letter of authenticity for the Mr. X cards, the majority of which are not identified on the label. So when it comes time to resell the cards, that will be your proof that your card did indeed come from the Mr. X collection.

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Posted By: Bob Marquette

Wesley- although your intentions are noteworthy, I don't think 3 years from now a guy buying a PSA 3 or 4 T206 Devlin on ebay will have a frigging concern if it came from Mr. X or Paris Hilton.
tbob

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Posted By: Wesley

I was just kidding Tbob.

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Posted By: DJ

I agree Bob.

If the slab said "THE EDWARD JAMES OLMOS COLLECTION", I would actually think 'Neat! Escalante collected!' and I would perhaps bid on something small to add to my unique T206 collection (it's a mutt with many variations, signed cards etc.) but how can anyone get excited about something 'so ordinary'?

(yawn)

When I think of a celebrity, I think of a quality lifestyle (as do many I believe--ever see MTV Cribs?) and it was 'hyped up so' with T.J's swarmy entrance that we were all let down. PSA2's?

I expected Harris Quality stuff as did many.

DJ

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Posted By: Don Poley

While I agree that the whole "Mr. X collection" struck me as goofy I recently won two the cards (T202 Cobb and T202 Mathewson). Both were legit 6s. TJ was great to deal with.

As with purchasing any card on ebay it's up to the buyer to do as much research as possible beforehand by requesting more scans and asking questions. I don't think that TJ would hesitate to tell you if he thought something was overgraded, if there was paperloss, etc.

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Posted By: Max Weder

I just want to state that I am not Mr. X.

Regards,

MR maX weder