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CGC Grading Collectible/Trading Cards...?
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136 posts in this topic

PSA = 800 lb gorilla in the card grading racket, but a crack or 3 in their foundation has appeared in the last 18 months or so. Registry is the PSA cash cow.  There's opportunity to challenge them, but zero margin for error. There are certainly sports card collectors who wouldn't mind seeing another quality option. But, here's the thing. If BGS, Beckett Grading, can't put a significant dent into PSA with the resources and years Beckett has in the hobby, it's going to take something special to do it, barring total collapse from PSA. Good luck :preach:

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2 minutes ago, Red84 said:

Comics and cards are not comparable for signature series. Comics can be signed by the cover artist, interior artist, writer, creator, actor or actress that portrays one of the characters. Comics have blanks where artists and draw original works of art.

A card can be signed by the 1 and rarely 2 athletes on the card. That's it.

If CGC slabs it, they will come.

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4 minutes ago, valiantman said:

If CGC slabs it, they will come.

They won't because card collectors neither know nor care about CGC. They know PSA which has been around for decades and they know Beckett which has provided price guides and now grading for cards for decades. I was buying Becket price guides before CGC existed.

This new offering is tilting at windmills that will undoubtedly have little to no chance of being profitable. 

Good luck to them though.

 

Edited by Red84
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1 hour ago, Red84 said:

If you are talking about witnessed signatures, signed cards are not valuable enough to warrant the service.

The signed cards that are valuable are the ones that are signed during production and are limited editions. Those signatures already have the authentication on the card.

PSA does provide the equivalent of signature verification for authenticity. That goes along with their PSA/DNA business.

There is no market for a signature series witness signed baseball card.

While I’m willing to admit that I may be the only one who may be interested in this (though I find that hard to believe), I’m not sure how you can definitively state there’s no market for something like SS cards when nothing like that has yet been tried. 
 

I understand that as the market currently stands most are comfortable the “authentication” that’s on the back of the card.  Or the “verification” service that’s offered by PSA (which basically amounts to them looking at a signature and giving their opinion). 

But there’s been enough information about sercretarials and the fallibility of signature verification that I would think there would have to be at least some demand for something more. Plus the accessibility of having something you want signed as opposed to the luck and expense of pulling a limited from packs. 
 

“signed cards aren’t worth the service”? I’m sure a lot of people said the same thing about signed comics prior to Signature Series, especially since most signatures were being done for free. That turned out a bit different. 
 

It’s all speculation on my part, CGC may end up not even offer a SS card service.  But if they don’t offering something like this that’s different than what currently exists, I don’t really see the point of them getting into card grading. 

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People who say "it won't work" are hilarious to me.

All you really mean is, "I, personally, won't buy it".

I don't own a single Captain Marvel comic book - your avatar - but there's no way I'd say "there is little or no chance of Captain Marvel comics being profitable".  

"it won't work" means you know what EVERYONE ELSE will do.

You don't.

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5 minutes ago, valiantman said:

People who say "it won't work" are hilarious to me.

All you really mean is, "I, personally, won't buy it".

I don't own a single Captain Marvel comic book - your avatar - but there's no way I'd say "there is little or no chance of Captain Marvel comics being profitable".  

"it won't work" means you know what EVERYONE ELSE will do.

You don't.

(thumbsu

Given the state of the sports card market, I THINK there is almost zero chance of an in-person signature series type of service for cards being profitable.

Edited by Red84
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1 minute ago, Red84 said:
6 minutes ago, valiantman said:

People who say "it won't work" are hilarious to me.

All you really mean is, "I, personally, won't buy it".

I don't own a single Captain Marvel comic book - your avatar - but there's no way I'd say "there is little or no chance of Captain Marvel comics being profitable".  

"it won't work" means you know what EVERYONE ELSE will do.

You don't.

(thumbsu

Given the state of the sports card market, I THINK there is almost zero chance of an in-person signature series type of service for cards being profitable.

Given the state of the sports card market, I believe there is good chance that collectors could RETURN to collecting sports cards if the super-limited-ultra-premium-holo-prism-chromium-jersey-shoe-bat-signature cards weren't the focus.  Regular old baseball cards signed by retired players with a witnessed (authentic) signature would get my money.  I have 25,000 cards and I still haven't purchased a single lets-destroy-jersey-shoe-bat-and-pretend-purple-hologram-prism-is-better-than-green-hologram-prism card.

I'd be back in sports cards if they made it more "authentic" and less Franklin Mint. So, your "almost zero chance" can't possibly be zero.  I'll put my money where the CGC SS sportscards are.

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2 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Given the state of the sports card market, I believe there is good chance that collectors could RETURN to collecting sports cards if the super-limited-ultra-premium-holo-prism-chromium-jersey-shoe-bat-signature cards weren't the focus.  Regular old baseball cards signed by retired players with a witnessed (authentic) signature would get my money.  I have 25,000 cards and I still haven't purchased a single lets-destroy-jersey-shoe-bat-and-pretend-purple-hologram-prism-is-better-than-green-hologram-prism card.

I'd be back in sports cards if they made it more "authentic" and less Franklin Mint. So, your "almost zero chance" can't possibly be zero.  I'll put my money where the CGC SS sportscards are.

Please read my entire sentence. "I THINK there is almost zero chance of an in-person signature series type of service for cards being profitable." 

Some people will want the service. I don't THINK there are enough people to make it profitable to CGC to create the service.

 

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20 minutes ago, Red84 said:

Please read my entire sentence. "I THINK there is almost zero chance of an in-person signature series type of service for cards being profitable." 

Some people will want the service. I don't THINK there are enough people to make it profitable to CGC to create the service.

I did read your entire sentence:  "There is no market for a signature series witness signed baseball card."

I think that there would be less chance that slabbing comic books so that no one can read them would be profitable than slabbing a witnessed signature on a sportscard where the front and back are completely visible in the slab.

CGC is a very, very bad idea.  Slabbing comics so they can't be read?  Bad idea.  Here we are, 5,000,000+ profitable slabs later.

Slabbed signed cards are a no brainer easy profitable idea compared to slabbed comics.

You don't have to buy them.

But people will... I personally don't care if you don't like them.  But your comments have all been "It won't work" "it won't be profitable" "No one wants that" as if you speak for anyone but yourself. 

You need to be broken of that habit.  Speak for yourself.  Don't tell a group of collectors that an idea for collectors won't work because you're a collector.  You're one collector.  We're many.

We are Venom.

Edited by valiantman
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19 minutes ago, valiantman said:

I think that there would be less chance that slabbing comic books so that no one can read them would be profitable than slabbing a witnessed signature on a sportscard where the front and back are completely visible in the slab.

CGC is a very, very bad idea.  Slabbing comics so they can't be read?  Bad idea.  Here we are, 5,000,000+ profitable slabs later.

Slabbed signed cards are a no brainer easy profitable idea compared to slabbed comics.

You don't have to buy them.

But people will... I personally don't care if you don't like them.  But your comments have all been "It won't work" "it won't be profitable" "No one wants that" as if you speak for anyone but yourself. 

You need to be broken of that habit.  Speak for yourself.  Don't tell a group of collectors that an idea for collectors won't work because you're a collector.  You're one collector.  We're many.

We are Venom.

You are taking my statements way too personally. I like signed cards. I'm just saying that I don't think CGC can do a signature series style service for sports cards profitably.

If they can, good for them. If you want signed cards authenticated by CGC in person, good for you.

I'm giving my opinion. :foryou:

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Just now, Red84 said:
2 minutes ago, valiantman said:

 

It's best to leave Don Quixote out of it altogether. :kidaround:

No! :preach:

I didn't realize you knew Cervantes personally.  Did he sign any of your conquistador collector cards? hm

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2 hours ago, valiantman said:

The video shows the graded card with "center" (centering, centered, a separate subscore?) - bringing CGC to the concept of "centering" as a stand-alone factor in grading.  Could CGC graded comics with subscores for centering, corners, surface (the standard BGS subscores) be the next innovation?  If so, what happens to all those high grade comics with bad centering?  Value plunge?

This touches on one of two thoughts that occurred to me today while discussing this with a co-worker. CGC almost completely ignores centering, yet it's incredibly crucial for achieving high grades with PSA/BGS (or get the OC qualifier if it's way off). I wish CGC would adopt this, but, like many things, they're set in their ways as is the hobby. If nothing else, it's amusing to think the card graders are grading under a different set of criteria than the comic graders, yet under the same banner.

7 hours ago, Lest 2 Art said:

Why is the card grading scale so much different than the comic grading scale? 

It copies the sports card graders' scales. The other thing that occurred to me is that this would've been one area where CGC could've brought a real advantage to the table: More increments at the high end of the scale. While PSA continues to stay with their troglodytish 9 or 10 for the high end, CGC could've brought over the 9.0/.2/.4/.6/.8/10 differentiators. BGS has a 9.5 in between and you even get a side of sub grades with that to help identify whether it is a strong or weak overall grade (which I prefer and would put me firmly in their corner if I were actively collecting), but CGC just seems to have copied the BGS scale (ironic, since Beckett owns their chief competitor) rather than try something that would make them stand out. Missed opportunity if they go that route and really a bit timid if I'm being honest. 

And my opinion on the sig series is that it would be great if they do go into sports cards. I have plenty of signed cards from when I went to BB card shows as a kid that I probably can't sell for Jack as there's no authentication to go with them. I think it would be a big asset for them to do this at a player signing (do they still do conventions? I'm assuming so) and might be enough to get sports card collectors to try them out. It's a moot point if their intention is just going after the CCG stuff primarily (CCGGC?) as I don't think Charizard signs much these days.

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1 minute ago, Martin Sinescu said:

And my opinion on the sig series is that it would be great if they do go into sports cards. I have plenty of signed cards from when I went to BB card shows as a kid that I probably can't sell for Jack as there's no authentication to go with them. I think it would be a big asset for them to do this at a player signing (do they still do conventions? I'm assuming so) and might be enough to get sports card collectors to try them out. It's a moot point if their intention is just going after the CCG stuff primarily (CCGGC?) as I don't think Charizard signs much these days.

Somewhere between sportscards and Charizard there are tons of actors who have cards in sets for their TV/movies and artists who can easily sign a Marvel card as they've been signing Marvel comics.  CGC would need to attend sportcard shows for athletes, but the actors/artists are already there at conventions where they're witnessing signed comics/magazines.

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6 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Somewhere between sportscards and Charizard there are tons of actors who have cards in sets for their TV/movies and artists who can easily sign a Marvel card as they've been signing Marvel comics.  CGC would need to attend sportcard shows for athletes, but the actors/artists are already there at conventions where they're witnessing signed comics/magazines.

Very good point, I hadn't considered that. Could possibly also keep people from getting ridiculous sigs on comics that have tenuous connections to the autographer just because they had to take advantage of CGC and Celebrity X being in the same building at the same time.

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I think a big part of their potential success with getting started will come down to price.  PSA is really expensive so if they price their grading right they may be able to gain some traction but if they are "me too" no hope.  Why would you go to a no-name card grading house to pay the same as the market leader charges.  And they need to be cheaper in a meaningful way.

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I'm sure that there will be some promotional discount if this card grading thing gets started with CGC.  Like with anything new on the block, it's the best way to attract prospective customers.

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