[BobC]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Further to your point, Bob, there is a clear, public interest in having CPAs do their work free from conflict, or even the appearance of conflict. There is no such analogous interest in what third-party graders do. Third-party grading has been riddled with conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts of interest from day one in my opinion. And nobody is really up in arms about it. It just goes with the territory. PS if you want to read a great thread about another example of conflict of interest, look at the thread on blow out about Joe Clemons.

Hmmmm!

I fully understand the need for the strict rules and requirements for CPAs, as we are the ones that audit the companies that are then able to be traded on stock markets. The SEC and other government regulations require it. And the final undeniable truth behind that is one thing, and one thing only..... MONEY! Ours, and basically the entire world's economy, relies upon the major stock markets around the world to allow people/companies to invest and keep the globe's overall economy moving. The independence and lack of conflicts-of-interest and other biases of the CPAs/auditors that continually audit and report on these publicly traded companies is integral to allowing investors around the world to have some semblance of faith and trust in the numbers they receive and see for all these audited companies around the globe, being traded on the world's stock markets. We've all seen how the reported numbers for companies can have a very direct, and almost instantaneous effect on a publicly traded company's perceived value, as represented by their ever-changing stock prices. Those prices, and therefore the underlying values of these publicly traded companies, are based, in great part, on those numbers and figures reviewed, audited, and attested to by independent, outside CPAs/auditors.

Similarly, a pre-war (and other) baseball card's value, aside from who the player(s) that is shown on it is, is next most often determined by its condition, and is particularly important and integral to determining the different values of cards of the same player(s) from the same set. Those supposedly honest, independent, and unbiased opinions that TPGs give on those cards they grade are for the most part the sole, or at least likely the most important, factor used by dealers and collectors to determine what someone will sell or pay for a particular card. In other words, the TPG opinions basically comes down to the exact same thing as CPA opinions at the most basic level......MONEY, and how much someone will then pay/sell a particular card (or stock) for. The biggest difference between cards and publicly traded companies, on whom TPGS and CPAS/auditions, respectively, give their opinions, is that companies and their operations and financials are constantly changing, whereas a sports card shouldn't be changing their condition over time, and really should only require a single, one-time TPG opinion. But the basis of both CPA and TPG opinions still directly effects the value of the things they are giving their opinions on. At this most basic level, TPGs are really no different than CPAs, as both of their opinions directly affect the amount of money someone will pay for something. So really, why shouldn't we expect/hope that TPGs at some point start being held to more of the similar standards that CPAs are faced with? The opinions of both directly affect the perceived values of certain things, and as a result, what others will therefore pay for those things. And the integrity and trust of those giving such opinions are needed to keep the people in both those markets confident in their investments. And let's face it, we've talked about this as nauseum for a while now, whether we like it or not, most collectors are or have become more like investors than just collectors anymore. Values of cards over time have gone up so much, especially in the past few years, that even those that never considered themselves as anything other than a true collector can't ignore the dramatic increase in value their collections may have experienced, and have to at least start thinking a little bit more in terms of being an investor, again, whether they like it or not.

For now though, the biggest difference as to why TPGs have probably not been more aggressively held/pushed to more stringent independence and conflict-of-interest/bias rules like CPAs is, once again, likely all due to simply money. Or more specifically in this case, the AMOUNT of money involved. The stock market gets hit by fraudulent and biased, non-independent auditors, companies go bad, investors lose faith and the stock markets tank. People worldwide lose billions/trillions of dollars. Meanwhile, the entirety of the card hobby doesn't have overall value anywhere even in the same universe as that for all the publicly traded stocks in the world. Most all governments don't/won't give a shit about regulating cards and TPGs because first, you're supposedly talking about a hobby. Secondly, you're also not talking about enough potential money/value in all the cards in the hobby to likely disrupt any country's economy if something were to blow the hobby up, like a loss of faith in TPGs and the cards they've graded, due to all their current and prior biased, conflicted, non-independent work finally being found to not be trusted anymore by the hobby community.

We have to face it, that the card industry is becoming more like an investment industry, every single day. As such, shouldn't the parties that are supposed to be independently reviewing and grading the cards, that helps determine their value in the public's eyes, start being held to similar standards and rules as those who give opinions that help establish values in other investment markets, like CPAs do?

And for those that still say cards are not investments or potentially now making up at least an alternative investment industry, please explain how cards can now be held for owners by third parties in vaults like investment advisors hold securities for their clients, how you can buy fractional interests in cards just like you can buy shares of stock in a publicly traded company and own fractional shares of them, how you can then borrow against your cards just like investors can set up margin accounts and borrow against the value of their investments, and so on.

If it looks like duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck......it's a duck! If it is handled like an investment, speculated on like an investment, stored like an investment, borrowed against like an investment, flipped like an investment........................