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Will there be a new TPG?
Zoins
Posts: 33,910 ✭✭✭✭✭
EBay has their own expanding authentication service. Should this expand into coins? How can PCGS take advantage of this?
https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-expands-luxury-authentication-service-to-jewelry/
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Perhaps eBay might acquire an already existing coin grading service, but I doubt even that.
EBay is evolving away from auctions and collectibles. EBay is evolving towards solely supporting volume sellers of new junque at slightly less than retail.
EBay wants you to think they are always adding new 'protections', but they really aren't doing anything new or extra.
I bought a slabbed AGE off of eBay last week that was eBay "Authenticted".
Nobody from eBay ever ever ever ever ever saw that coin to pass judgment on it. Never.
I bought it from a highly reputable seller whom I had done business with before. I knew there would be no problem, and there wasn't.
I always believed that Amazon would be first to do that, since they seem to be involved in everything else. Maybe Tencent? Seems like either our hosts or ATS would be a great, relatively inexpensive strategic acquisition for one of these.
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1
The bay will need to pull the experienced graders from the TPGS or outsource to them for it to matter. IMO.
If anything, the already existing ones are under pressure to survive in this economic environment.
CAC could easily put one together, perhaps with a more refined grading scale. However, I suspect that their current business model generates a better bottom line at present.
Employees cost the real money. CAC, in its present format, must have very few.
I strongly doubt that ebay would get into the grading/authenticating business... too much cost involved. And the investment required to buy a reputable established business would be far too expensive to justify. Cheers, RickO
id like to see ebay do more on getting rid of the carp and all the bogus coins in its system. maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a tpg system in place for them.
It would be really funny if ebay got into grading coins. They would not even be one of their own approved grading services based on their requirements today!!!!
bob
You better bleeve it! Sheer genius! No liability for what your service does.
Carte blanche to knock ANY other grading company.
I can't see CAC abandoning that gravy train as long as there are turkeys.
Oh, and I'll go WAY out on a limb and submit the opinion that .... eBay.... doesn't much give a carp about coins at all.
The likelihood of another worthwhile TPG is virtually nil - the startup costs and risks involved make it unattractive to anyone who understands the business well enough to actually do the job right. I'm reasonably certain that CAC would have done it by now if there was any interest on their part.
What is now proved was once only imagined. - William Blake
Sounds like a job for** Walmart**!
I think chances about zero.
Not needed nor supportable with established existing competition, market conditions.
Many already failed.
More feasible: Rare Coin Brokerage IPO where buy certified coins at blue sheet sell at blue plus 10 pct. Sight unseen / no return or restock fee. Names like Columbia Coin Clearinghouse, Professional Numismatic Sales Company (PNSC) would seem to fit. Promotional Strategy - low prices, certified coins are fungible items, large website, phone app.
Ebay would offer bonus grades days. An extra two points on XF 45 and better.
Coins aren't 'fungible' like a share of stock, or a bond, or a barrel of oil, because coins are more like artwork or antiques than like intangibles or simple consumable commodities. Coin buyers (consumers) care very much about how coins look; someone doesn't really care about how a barrel of oil or a bushel of corn 'looks'. This argues that 'sight unseen' coin brokerage will never be truly sustainable.
Alibaba is hiring authenticators. (NOT)
Am I the only one that sees conflict of interest here; dealers as grading consultants. We call them 3rd party grading companies and they should be neutral in every way. Of course Ebay would have to HANDLE the coins in order to grade them.
I would personally like to see a third company enter the top tier and have there be a big three rather than just the top two. Whether it is a brand new company or CAC begins a grading service or maybe even ANACS does something to launch themselves into that upper echelon. I think it would force more accountability onto the current big guys.
Is there enough business to even keep the current ones afloat?
I have no doubt there will be, probably with some sort of new angle. Will they succeed?...now that's a good question. Probably not.
Dave
I think big two are only current TPG's with acceptable standards. Other TPG's have too many coins in the wrong holders to gain trust or market share.