Quote:
Originally Posted by barrysloate
Here's another reason David the prices of these cards will come down. In the battle between the card doctors who are trying to get their work past the graders, and the graders whose job it is to reject this garbage, the card doctors have just been given a rousing victory. They're popping the champagne, because if the TPG's refuse to acknowledge and fix this mess, they've given the card doctors the green light to continue doing what they've been doing. In fact, many will ramp up production. Heck, some might even hire a few trainees and teach them the tricks of the trade (when business is good you expand).
As a result, the number of altered cards in circulation will increase dramatically. Soon, there will be so many available they won't even be that hard to find. And if you increase the supply, prices will go down.
This is not a good look for the future of this industry. Nobody is listening to me, but I suggest TPG's take a really hard look at this problem before the hobby is ruined altogether.
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Barry,
I'm listening and agree with you. The whole crux of this problem started back when the hobby community more or less let the TPGs take over as the sole arbiters of what is and is not authentic and what the grading system is and so on. We now have multiple TPGs with no single, clear set of standards or rules as to grades and yet, they have become the self-annointed, so-called experts of our hobby. To remove and replace them, especially because of things like the Registry, is virtually impossible to do now without severely disrupting the current status quo of the hobby and damaging so many innocent collectors and dealers. And quite frankly, because of the financial aspects of what they do, the TPGs are not able to operate and perform their supposed independent, third-party services without an eye towards their own bottom lines. In other words, they are in it for the money and not completely independent. Especially a TPG that is a publicly traded company. They are responsible and answer to their shareholders, not the collecting community to whom they have promised to provide fair, consistent and unbiased opinions and grading services. As it is, the TPGs have virtually no transparency as to what they do, no specific and consistent grading standards and methods among themselves, or even let us know the specific training their so-called experts go through to become graders, or so I've been led to believe over the years. And if someone wants to dispute me on that point I've heard put forth by others, let me know what would happen if I walked into a TPG's offices and asked to sit in while they graded my cards and see exactly what they did do. Would they let me observe?
What should have been done (or maybe should now be done) is to have set up or established some type of national collecting group or organization (preferably a non-profit type of entity) and have the people/collectors involved in the hobby become members and possibly pay annual dues to help raise some funds to oversee and handle aspects of the hobby on behalf of all collectors. This would be an organization for collectors, not auction houses, dealers, TPGs, or others that make their money and living off the hobby. As a national organization it could, for example, poll and find out from the members what the exact, consistent grading standards and measures should be for the grading of cards. Granted, everyone still won't always agree what would make a card worthy of a 3 grade as opposed to a 4 grade, and so on, but they would know that regardless of who was doing the grading that the grade would be consistent and in compliance and agreement with the overall standards set be the collecting community as a whole, not just the whim or opinion of a single TPG. Especially a publicly traded TPG that is in the business for profit alone (as are the other TPGs as well) and not really concerned about the collecting community other than how to best use them to make even more money. Besides setting uniform standards for grading and authenticating items, such an organization could also take on and set curriculum for training and the determination of what would qualify someone as an expert authenticator or grader, and not leave that solely up to each different TPG to decide for themselves and on behalf of all of us collectors either. And that way, any TPG that wanted to be approved and authorized by the collecting organization as a TPG would have to submit to review and oversight of their services to insure they are in compliance with what standards and measures the hobby organization chose, not what they wanted. And you could also establish divisions, groups in the organization to separately cover dealers, auction houses and so on. That way the various dealers, auction houses and other related groups and entities could also be subject to hobby organization review and oversight to insure that they confirm and meet hobby standards set by the hobby community, not the dealers and auction houses themselves. Of course to start out, you wouldn't necessarily have a large enough number of members to get anyone to agree to listen to you, but over time, if you could get enough people to understand and join in for the good of the hobby, TPGs, dealers and auction houses would have no choice but to listen. A TPG (or other groups/entities) could initially tell the hobby organization and its members to go to hell and not bother listening to them at all, but hopefully over time a national hobby organization could get eventually enough members who would then refuse to do business and use that TPG or other entities services anymore until they agreed to the unified standards and oversight of such national hobby organization.
Wouldn't be easy to start something like this and you certainly wouldn't get overnight approval or commitment from enough collectors to sway and coerce the current main players and participants who are more or less controlling and calling the shots in our hobby right away. But over time and with an ever growing member base you could slowly begin to force and make positive changes to get the TPGs, dealers, auction houses and others to finally agree to confirm and begin applying set, consistent standards, or force them to be ostracized by the collecting community going forward and damage their businesses, possibly irreparably. Sort of like the Better Business Bureau or the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval organizations. And this current scandal that is coming out may just be the big, all-encompassing issue that could possibly act as the spark to set off such a wave of change in this hobby and at least start to put some of the control and decision making back in the hands of the collectors and not in the hands of those that make their money off the collectors.
I know, I know, possibly a far-fetched dream and thoughts, but you have to have dreams and hopes that start somewhere, right?