Best Of

@JoeBanzai said:

@craig44 said:
when i start a thread like this, it is not necessarily to try and convince folks like Mintonlypls or Kendallcat about bad actors like brent or silly companies like MBA. it is more to present convincing arguments to all those who silently read these threads and either havent heard about outfits like MBA or havent made up their minds about them.

very similar to all the debate YouTube channels. the main goal is not to "win" the debate. it is to present your side so that the people listening/reading will see. while there may only be 40 or so of us actively participating on this board, there are no doubt many multiples of that number who only read or would arrive at a thread like this from a google search.

those are the people to reach. not necessarily those who already have their minds made up.

We agree on a lot of things, but this time I'm confused.

Your original post seemed to me to be an objection to stickers. You said;

"the SGC 9.5 Topps Mantle has a population of 1 in the SGC pop report. that being said, how can it be in the top 5% for the assigned grade when there is only one in the assigned grade? to extrapolate that further, how can any card technically receive a gold sticker unless there are a minimum of 100 in that assigned grade for that grading company? And to go even further, unless Mike has images of each of that minimum of 100 cards, how can he possibly rank each of them to arrive at an accurate "top 5%?"

I understand the math problem here, but every person who looks at a card has an opinion regardless if they have seen 1 baseball card or 10,000, No one has seen them all, so how can anyone have an opinion on a card based on math?

PSA's .5 addition to the grading scale (to me) is no different. I'm not a math whiz, but shouldn't there be a LOT more cards getting a .5 increase (or decrease)? I just looked up my last three larger submissions and out of 266 cards. I got .5 on 2 of them (both hand cut Post cereal cards) not one single .5 on any regular issue cards. That math don't math either.

Who cares? Anyone selling a card would rather have an 8.5 over an 8. Certainly would rather have an 8 over a 7.5!

Then, when nobody seemed to care about your math problem, you decided to bring in the "bad actor" argument and how MBA is a "silly company".

Brent Huegens is certainly an interesting fellow, and I don't care for some of his opinions on the hobby and grading. Does that mean he has been banned for the hobby? Does that mean every opinion he has on every card is wrong? I'm not sure he has ever been found guilty of altering cards, but I AM SURE that there are hundreds (probably thousands) of graded cards out there that have been cleaned, trimmed or pressed and reside in graded card holders, do the owners of these cards REALLY care? There's another thread going right now with a Mike Schmidt PSA 10 OPC rookie that looks trimmed. That card will probably sell for a record price.

You haven't educated anyone about these "bad actors" either. If you are actually trying to help novice collectors, present evidence of these guys' "bad actions" and let them decide for themselves.

Lastly, if MBA is a "silly company" then so is EVERY third party grading "service". These companies came into existence (in my opinion) because card sellers blatantly lied about the condition of their cards. Heck, the first graded card I bought (Accucard, Alan Hager) was overgraded by at least 3 grades!

PSA "came to the rescue" and did a very nice job.

The very bottom line here is;

If I can come up with an idea to make money and make money for my customers, we are all going to be happy.

For me, I don't need a sticker to evaluate a card, BUT if i saw a card with a sticker on it, I might take a closer look. As an ex sales person, that's half the battle. I also have no illusions that some of the graded cards in my collection have been altered. No company gets it right all the time.

let me try to clarify.

the sticker thing is silly for a few reasons:
1. the math that Baker is claiming doesnt math. it is a standard that he cannot possibly hope to ever actually meet.
2. everyone who has ever submitted or purchased a graded card has already paid for a second opinion (the first opinion is, of course, your own) if you do not value that grading companies opinion to the point that you want mike baker to "review" it for you, why not just submit to MBA grading in the first place?
3. third party graders who use half grades already in effect have an eye appeal "marker" for each card. if a card earns a half grade, it is already deemed "high eye appeal" no need for an extra sticker.

the "bad actors" crib notes:

Mike Baker. one of or maybe the first grader at psa. remember, the very first card psa graded was the sheet cut wagner. amongst those with inner hobby knowledge, i have read that it was known that mastro had that card cut. after his psa career, baker founded GAI grading. they holdered known trimmed cards, had poor quality control and had an unopened pack division that holdered lots of bad packs. GAI ended up failing.

Brent Huigens. owner of PWCC. one of the worst hobby actors in recent years. pwcc consigned with many known card trimmers. burge, mosier, block, jaimet etc. submitting and selling MANY trimmed cards. a leaked text exchange between brent and a pwcc consigner showed brent instructing the consigner to schill his own card as brent knew the max bids of other bidders.

Brent/pwcc initiated pwcc's "marketplace tenets" which included accepting and encouraging altering cards under the auspice that said alteration was now to be referred to as "conservation" he went on multiple hobby podcasts at the time touting this "conservation"

I believe it was this last abomination combined with pwcc offering loans on consigned cards that took pwcc belly up.

as far as brent huigens goes, yes to both. i think he should both be banned from the hobby and his opinions should hold no authority at all. same for him as for bill mastro. huigens is as bad as it gets

that mike baker would not only associate with such a known bad actor, but to bring him into his company shows us the state of his hobby ethics.

i hope this helps. it is not just one thing, it is the combination of sticker silliness and bad actors in the hobby. there is tons further reading on the blowout forums. thousands of posts about pwcc over there.