That is the real key to a new grading company entering the market and displacing any of the others. How they will handle already graded cards. All other innovations will be secondary to this (IMO).

Sam/PowderedH20 said: "Why should I be in competition? I am a school teacher. I have maybe $3-5k a year that I can sink into cards, and sometimes less than that. There are guys making $250k a year that can wake up tomorrow and decide they want to start a card collection and have a better collection than me in less than 48 hours. When I see the Donald Spences of the world, I am happy for them, but they and I are not in competition. My Roberto Clemente rookie would look silly in Spence's 1955 set. Same with my Aaron rookie and my Rose rookie. I am only in competition with myself to see what I can do with my own collection. You realize that with the right amount of money, a wealthy person could go onto ebay and nearly complete full runs of Topps and Bowman in high grade in less than a month, right? So, why sweat it? Just enjoy what you can afford and don't worry about what others get."

I don't think I could have said it any better. Thanks for this post, Sam.

grading
 

another player will come into the arena soon I would guess -- the space is growing and other than PSA 2nd place is up for grabs. when SGC or beckett starts TRADING ON THE NASDAQ the conversation can begin but for now PSA is obvi #1 and should remain there; the re-sale numbers SCREAM that PSA > SGC

there will always be movement within the grades and people will complain about 'under-graded' etc but as we know this happens with all companies anyway right? no one complains about SGC ? beckett (BVG) holders can cross up or down 3-4 points ! a PSA 8 can be broken out and come back a 9 or a 6 from PSA again ! --- subjective nature will always make this an open topic hence the very reason third party graders will survive; traders need a dis-interested third party to 'broker' the deal/help establish value. the graders have made the collectors more wealthy; the graded holders have also brought in a whole new wave of people liken it to the poker boom ?

who is next?

No fear here in my narrow collection or poker. I'll raise my hand.

PSA themselves probably wouldn't be big enough to go public, it would be interesting to see what the split is between the cards and coins. Since PCGS is international, I'd be the coin division brings in way more.

Overall, a company going public isn't all that impressive.

Steve B

According to the 2015 financial report for Collector's Universe (parent company of PSA), the coin division accounts for about 70% of revenue, cards and autographs about 24%

The problem isn't the grading companies. The problem is the buyers.

Huggins & Scott sells this 1929 Kashin Seibold AND Todt raw for $220 (in November 2015):

http://nov15.hugginsandscott.com/cgi...m.pl?lotno=362

Now look at Ebay today. That same exact Seibold (we can tell from the stamp on the back) is being offered for $500 (and with 2 people watching there's a good bet it sells):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1929-Kashin-...gAAOSw9NdXtfDN

So someone bought the Seibold for $110, put it in a piece of plastic (we'll call the costs $45 for shipping and grading) and is going to sell the exact same card for a 200% profit in 8 months (and it got the second lowest grade you can get!).

When in reality, graded or not, it's the same damn card.

So, some buyer just made some seller rich because they didn't do their homework.

Until buyer's wise up, you're going to see a huge increase in the fraud for graded cards (for all grades). Because as this legitimate example shows, the profit margin is there. The margin for high grade stuff (cough "fake" cough) is astronomically. I'd be sacred to death right now if I owned any high grade cards. (Fortunately I don't!)

Patrick

But buyers will not wise up because it is easier to let some third party do all the legwork for them instead of a buyer educating themselves on what a raw example of a card they desire should look, feel and smell like. Many buyers want to rest and relax on the slabs of plastic that they perceive to be correct without doing any such homework because the TPG did that all that for them. They are willing to pay the premium because of perceived scarcity.

We have seen too many cases of fraud, both on small scales and large to put any kind of faith and real money into something that the buyer just has zero clue on. As for owning high grade cards right now.......I personally would sell off everything I have and reap the profits while coming back in three years and buying the same cards at a much smaller price.

The future of grading will never change, it is a non regulated service based soley on an opinion by a person who grades the card that may, or may not be an expert understanding the different aspects/quality of the issues through the years, unfortunately the buyers trust them and pay the price for NM M Gem.

Grading is a crap shoot , depending on what type of day a grader is having and what type of mood they in.

The biggest thing for me would be the look of the flips. The flips they have now are so crappy looking.

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