New SGC grading fees

[CMIZ5290]

Originally Posted by BobC

Irv,

The CPA profession more or less self-regulates. Some CPAs take additional training and so on and become peer reviewers, along with everything else they normally do. A CPA firm can then engage any qualified, registered peer reviewer to come in and go over their work and practices and report the results to state accountancy boards for them every third year, as required by the profession. Oh, and the firm that hired the peer reviewer also has to pay them at their standard hourly rates for the work they do. Talk about adding insult to injury, huh?

I actually happen to be a registered CPA peer reviewer myself, which is probably another reason I may be a little more sensitive to the idea of peer review and adherence to standards and independence by someone giving their opinion on something, like TPG companies do. However, for the record, I am only qualified and registered to perform peer reviews on a particular type of specialized audit on Service Organization Controls (fka SAS-70 audits for anyone who may have a clue what I'm talking about.) When some CPA firm that performs one of these kinds of special audits hires a peer reviewer to come in and check them over, unless he/she has this specialized expertise, he/she ends up calling someone like me to join his peer review team and look over just that particular type of audit.

To put it into perspective, assuming TPG companies also had peer reviews performed, let's say you worked for PSA and were hired and asked to go in and perform a peer review on SGC. Well, SGC will review and grade S-74 silks, whereas PSA does not. So working at PSA you probably wouldn't know much about how the silks are graded and evaluated, so how could you be expected to review someone else grading them then? Answer, you'd call someone who is knowledgeable about S-74 silks and their grading and have them join your peer review team just to look at and report solely on the silk grading process of SGC. Makes sense, huh?

BobC

Bob- No offense, but at the risk of having to read an essay, what is your opinion? (abbreviated form)

[botn]

This is a primary example of why SGC raising the grading prices makes no sense. In August a PSA graded 5 sold for 143K by Heritage. Last night the SGC 60, which I think was slightly nicer, failed to make the reserve at 90K (108K out the door). If the PSA 5 was a real sale, this one certainly had no reason to under perform. Unfortunately this is not an isolated example.

[irv]

Originally Posted by botn

This is a primary example of why SGC raising the grading prices makes no sense. In August a PSA graded 5 sold for 143K by Heritage. Last night the SGC 60, which I think was slightly nicer, failed to make the reserve at 90K (108K out the door). If the PSA 5 was a real sale, this one certainly had no reason to under perform. Unfortunately this is not an isolated example.

I was unaware of the history but I personally thought the $90,000 Reserve, boldly displayed, might of had something to do with that?

Not that it's a given, but I have noticed that before. Cards with reserves or BINS sometimes get zero hits/bids, but once the reserve or BIN is removed, the cards sell for close or even over the bins and reserve.
Just a few of my observations anyways.

[botn]

Originally Posted by irv

I was unaware of the history but I personally thought the $90,000 Reserve, boldly displayed, might of had something to do with that?

Not that it's a given, but I have noticed that before. Cards with reserves or BINS sometimes get zero hits/bids, but once the reserve or BIN is removed, the cards sell for close or even over the bins and reserve.
Just a few of my observations anyways.

The PSA 5 had a reserve as well when it sold in Aug. Not uncommon for Heritage to use reserves. Reserves in their auctions are not displayed until a couple days before the closing night of the auction.

[irv]

Originally Posted by botn

The PSA 5 had a reserve as well when it sold in Aug. Not uncommon for Heritage to use reserves. Reserves in their auctions are not displayed until a couple days before the closing night of the auction.

I could be wrong, but when I was looking last night, I thought I noticed "0" bids?

Maybe, if there were any, they were removed once the reserve was posted up?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by CMIZ5290

Bob- No offense, but at the risk of having to read an essay, what is your opinion? (abbreviated form)

Sorry, tough day at work. The TPG companies should be more consistent and transparent, and all I really need to know is if it is fake or authentic, I can figure out the shape and condition of the card myself. And grading standards should be just that, standards, recognized and followed by everybody, that are set by the collecting community and what they want, not what the TPG companies set and want us to follow.

BobC

[Leon]

I will be sending them around 25-30 cards in the next day or two to get in on the older pricing. I had the rest of my collection graded by SGC when I sold it and had started using them from day one, for many reasons. Now they advertise here too so it's a double reason....but they are my grader of choice because of their consistency and the way their holders look. And since I have almost exclusively collected pre-war it has worked out nicely on the valuations too. I don't play in the stratosphere of the rich and famous and my cards have done nicely in their holders, overall.

[botn]

Posting more out of frustration as a holder of MANY SGC graded cards but here is another example of the disparity in value grade for grade between PSA and SGC when there is no justification for it based on the card's condition. Pretty clear that Dave Forman took SGC the wrong way as the difference in prices on like kind cards have never been greater.

SGC ending tonight in Heritage (not my card) and is sitting at 50K out the door.
PSA example is in Mile High and sitting at 102K out the door with 11 plus days to go. No insult intended to the consignor or bidders but the 7 is not as nice as the 84.

Maybe focusing on increasing the value of the brand name would make more sense than increasing the cost of grading.

[1952boyntoncollector]

Originally Posted by botn

Posting more out of frustration as a holder of MANY SGC graded cards but here is another example of the disparity in value grade for grade between PSA and SGC when there is no justification for it based on the card's condition. Pretty clear that Dave Forman took SGC the wrong way as the difference in prices on like kind cards have never been greater.

SGC ending tonight in Heritage (not my card) and is sitting at 50K out the door.
PSA example is in Mile High and sitting at 102K out the door with 11 plus days to go. No insult intended to the consignor or bidders but the 7 is not as nice as the 84.

Maybe focusing on increasing the value of the brand name would make more sense than increasing the cost of grading.

I think everyone pretty much values SGC 8s close to a PSA 7.5 on equal type cards. The issue would be if you knew you could submit a card to SGC and get an 8 versus a psa 7 then submitting the card would make sense to SGC in the resell market

i

[Dpeck100]

Originally Posted by botn

Posting more out of frustration as a holder of MANY SGC graded cards but here is another example of the disparity in value grade for grade between PSA and SGC when there is no justification for it based on the card's condition. Pretty clear that Dave Forman took SGC the wrong way as the difference in prices on like kind cards have never been greater.

SGC ending tonight in Heritage (not my card) and is sitting at 50K out the door.
PSA example is in Mile High and sitting at 102K out the door with 11 plus days to go. No insult intended to the consignor or bidders but the 7 is not as nice as the 84.

Maybe focusing on increasing the value of the brand name would make more sense than increasing the cost of grading.

The writing has been on the wall for years that the price differential was just going to keep widening. Obviously there is a ton of hate on this board for PSA but lets face it they have done a tremendous job of building their brand. They constantly come out with new features and upgrades to their process. The online submission form is a tremendous improvement. The new holder is the toughest holder to crack of any of the big three. You constantly see them cited when sports memorabilia is mentioned. The holding company has done extremely well and they are in a great financial position. They don't snub their nose at non sports cards as inferior and instead embrace them and capture new markets. When I started looking into getting cards graded myself in 2010 I did a lot of research and it was clear then and obviously even more clear now that PSA was dominating. They are the leader and it isn't even debatable. Almost all of the highest priced cards have sold in PSA holders. This alone is something that is virtually impossible to compete with. The fact that they aren't standing still a top of the mountain and instead are working hard to keep climbing makes it impossible for another grader to catch them. SGC has somewhere between 1.5% to 3% of the market share for new cards being graded. If you remove personal preference and just look at the data no one would be surprised by what has happened. Instead because of position bias some are left scratching their heads. This trend is not over and if anything will continue. I went to the National in 2013 and the line was very long to get in to see PSA. There were two guys sitting twiddling their thumbs at the SGC booth where you could literally approach them. Do you think when you walk into the Apple store and you have to wait to get service this turns away customers? Of course not it makes them want the product more. The same is true here. Over the years I have read about many of the top collections in cards and you guessed it they are in PSA holders. There is heard mentality in life and just reading the message boards online you can see it with your own two eyes. The number of cards trying to be crossed over to PSA is off the charts. As I have said so many times, as the spread widened in price it would naturally attract more business and continue to diminish the other brands. The influx of money that has come into cards in the past five years are business people. If they spoke to anyone about the third party authentication market the conservation would be brief as the choice would be so clear. It is was it is.

[1952boyntoncollector]

I agree. Not sure why there is even any debate. I know its a hobby but as i said before you will see many people in the hobby eventually sell their cards for 'medication, new improvement on house, college' etc. So if you were going to sell your cards, would you rather sell a same graded card thats PSA to get more medication or sell the SGC same graded card and with that money get less medication. I dont care how pretty the holder is.

However, as stated, if you have the chance to get a grade higher on your submission with SGC that would increase interest at least in the short term

[Dpeck100]

Originally Posted by 1952boyntoncollector

I agree. Not sure why there is even any debate. I know its a hobby but as i said before you will see many people in the hobby eventually sell their cards for 'medication, new improvement on house, college' etc. So if you were going to sell your cards, would you rather sell a same graded card thats PSA to get more medication or sell the SGC same graded card and with that money get less medication. I dont care how pretty the holder is.

However, as stated, if you have the chance to get a grade higher on your submission with SGC that would increase interest at least in the short term

At the same National an advanced collector I met through the CU board happened to be at the PSA booth trying to get a card from the Black Swamp find bumped from an 8.5 to a 9. No luck so he went back to SGC whom he had discussed it with prior and they did the honors. You are correct that they do get business in this fashion as the person knew that it would garner a higher selling price in the SGC slab as Mint.