Would anyone like to talk about the effect of "Pro" Grading services on the collectables hobbies
Would anyone like to talk about the effect of "Pro" Grading services on the collectables hobbies at the current time and into the future.Â
First of all, I am not trying to start a complaining thread. I have no problem with grading services, I use them, however, the trends are interesting and I'd like to talk with other collectors and dealers/sellers about it.Â
This may not be the right forum to do that on, but I'm taking a chance.Â
10 comments
chris13
·3 years agoWhen I decided to sell my comics I had roughly 8 long boxes, mostly mid-grade (VG-F). I dreaded the idea of dealing with grading, selling individual books or listing as lots. I chose my favorite 10 issues, put them in the safe and called my local Comic Shop. The owner came over a week later, viewed the collection as a whole and wrote me a business check for $4800 then loaded it all himself into his car. It was maybe a little over what I paid, maybe a little under. Certainly less than retail value. What I got however was a Comic store that survived to this day, and I run into the owner spending his earnings in local resturants, shops, etc. I used the money to buy my kid her first car and it was a win-win-win for all concerned. I feel lucky that younger generations have any interest at all in something I collected in the 90s!Â
sailinship
OP3 years agoI know nothing about cards anymore. I never got into sports cards, and I'm a person who went through the 90's crash and said "Never Again". Plus, I just see no value in them. It's a picture on cardboard. Worthless imo. Comics I can read, records I can listen to, pocket knives I can use.Â
I'm curious what did you mean by this "...mainly from what I understand those "authenticators" end up doing."
I also wanted to mention that lots of comics still sell, but in general, ebay is making it more difficult to sell lots, in particular mixed lots IMO.Â
2013grotz
·3 years agoPeople that collected sports cards definitely liked looking at them every once in a while. I spent a lot of time doing that as a kid, especially sorting them out into my card boxes. But they started becoming valuable and people got more and more sticklers on condition as time went on - basically people stopped expecting others to look at their cards and enjoy them as condition became more paramount - you tear up cards pretty readily as you look at them. It's a very similar dynamic I understand in comic books. You end up with something considered "valuable", you slab it and you can't look at it and enjoy it lest the valuable stops via damage. It's definitely an effect of the item being seen as an "investment" as opposed to just something that people enjoy. People seeing sports cards or comic books as "investments" directly led into "Pro grading services" as your topic indicates.  So really, I would say the topic at issue is more the effect of people seeing them as investment vehicles rather than hobby items to be enjoyed.
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For trading cards and a few other items, ebay has a requirement that anything over a certain value be sent off to their authenticator services in process of being shipped to a buyer. If you follow this forum, you will note several problems/complaints that have been made as to how these have been handled.
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2013grotz
·3 years agoFirst off, I'll say I'm feeling quite fortunate that I dealt with my baseball card collection long ago between what I see on this trend and ebay's "authentication"...
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I noticed the two or three years ago when I finally purged all of this that listing slabbed stuff (PSA) worked out well enough for me on ebay, but given all of ebay's conditions, MBG, and all that, it seemed counterproductive for the prices that non-slabbed stuff were being put up for. Course the problem is, you really can't slab anything and everything because the fees eat it all up. So I really got ate up by those fees in the end for doing it to all the cards I thought would have real explosive value - not few of them in the end when I finally decided to sell them.
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Past that, all I had was boxed stuff (non-sealed stuff I gathered up of a local team) and an album of stars mostly from 1988 to 1992 about 3 inches thick.  Like with my desire to batch up my media (books, CDs, DVDs) into boxes to sell them now, I didn't see that as a real good option because it really doesn't suit the ebay market and how listings are categorized. So I ended up putting the album and the box of cards up for auction at a local consigner and they both went well enough for what they are but probably nowhere near to what they were fully worth. Course can't do that with the media because it has so little value in that realm.
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But yeah, I'm glad I'm out of all my ball card (and mostly) any other collectibles. It'd be a super-nightmare now to try to move any of it on ebay, mainly from what I understand those "authenticators" end up doing.
sailinship
OP3 years ago"Like with my desire to batch up my media (books, CDs, DVDs) into boxes to sell them now, I didn't see that as a real good option because it really doesn't suit the ebay market and how listings are categorized. "
Selling batches of anything these days is very difficult. I guess ebay just doesn't like that anymore, and frankly, it's kind of annoying. I would love to give someone a bulk deal on CD's or DVD's or mixed book lots, but I am slowly taking all those listings down because they never get seen.Â
2013grotz
·3 years agoI just notice when I've tried lots of these items (or variation ads for that matter) that they don't get seen on the search engine and largely get dismissed. Basically put, if the item a buyer is looking for is not on the Title line, the item won't be found. But the problem with these kinds of items is that there's certain actors that have acted on this site, along with shipping costs, to depress the sales price on them to the point they are near unsellable as single items. To wit, I had to pass on listing a couple of items because my shipping costs were above what several pages of sellers were asking for the items. Just no way I can make it work as a private individual that doesn't move 1000's of items a month.
chris13
·3 years agoI used to collect comics so I have some exposure to the CGC grading system and 'slabbing' comics.
Buying a graded/slabbed item accomplishes a few things. It means that a non-expert can easily resell an item 'guaranteed' by a true expert. The slab is the way you keep an item from being further degraded after the grading occurs and so preserves the valuation and 'locks' the grade given to that item ONLY.
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But its worth noting that the reason services like the CGC came about it because they were both experts and were trusted by that specific collecting audience. I wouldnt trust a pair of Nike shoes graded by CGC.
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Some collectors HATED slabbing since the complaint was often 'how can I enjoy a comic that I can never even look at, and what if page 12 has a coupon cut out?'Â
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IMHO, grading & slabbing served the needs of the investor-collectors who planned on reselling items. It became pretty expensive to have a comic submitted, exposed to risk in shipping...only to come back graded much lower than expected. I was told once that if you think it's VF or above, grade it. Anything below that, enjoy it.
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Every collectible has it's own nuance. I can enjoy a stamp/coin without holding it. Could I enjoy shoes without wearing them? I dunno. I'm a bit old school. An interesting topic.
sailinship
OP3 years agoSlabs are called slabs because the books became dead. They were meant to be opened and read. If you go on ebay, 90% of the people talking about comics barely ever mention the story or art, except for the cover art. It's really weird IMO, but I also get it. For instance, I have a very low grade Speed Comics #33, and it should never probably be touched again, so I'll get it slabbed. But 9.8 dead modern comics.... I dunno, I'll say more soon, but I want to hear other's opinions first.
simba6
·3 years agoOver 12 years ago I purchased a Pokemon Houndoom plush on eBay. When it arrived it was a strange blue/gray color not black. Had no tags. I kept it since it was a neat color. I had the worlds first alolan Pokemon long before they were invented.   A grading service would have returned it to the seller as a fake.
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That would have been a loss for me as It's still a real neat item and one of a kind.
sailinship
OP3 years agoI know nothing about Pokemon, what's an "alolan" and is it a fake?