Not the sellers fault, POP 1 of 1

carkim

I was scrolling eBay today and noticed this auction 1972 TOPPS ISIAH ROBERTSON 215 PSA 9 RAMS 1/1.
As soon as I saw it I knew that I already had this card in a PSA 9. So I double checked and yep...






...here is my card.

I thought maybe this seller is trying to get one over on us. So I checked the POP report and it says that this card is a POP 1 of 1.

So here is my question, (If it is ok with PSATAN ), for you computer guys.

What would it that to make the POP report Real Time? Once a card is graded is is automatically listed in the pop report.

I know PSA has done this in the past with the registry. A couple of years ago, we had to wait a week for our recently graded cards to be available so we could enter them into our set. Now as soon as our grades post, we can add them to our set (Real Time).

I wonder if this can be done. I think we all would like to see this change, (or maybe not).

Let me know what you think.

Carlos

GoSoxBoSox

It really doesn't matter if you make the POP report real time. So many people crack holders, cross-over, etc. that the POP reports are wrong no matter what.

Wayne8348

Gosoxbosox,

I would expect that not too many people are busting out low pop 9's in hopes of getting 10's.

I would think that for the most part the pop reports are pretty accurate in the 9's and 10's but are probably overstated especially in the 7's and probably in the 8's.

Wayne

jvineyard

Resubmissions wouldn't explain this situation anyway. There are clearly at least two 9s of this card while the pop report says there is only 1.

thefootballcardstore

I've noticed a disturbing trend to list cards before the pop report has been updated - making 1/2s look like 1/1s.

While listing things right away is fine, claiming that it is a 1/1 when they no that their update hasn't hit yet is just, um, wrong.

Jeremy

packCollector

agree with the football card store, I have lsited a lot of low pop phillys over the last month and always account for my submission manually. maybe I should have tried list ing a 1/0

GoSoxBoSox

<< <i>I would expect that not too many people are busting out low pop 9's in hopes of getting 10's.

I would think that for the most part the pop reports are pretty accurate in the 9's and 10's but are probably overstated especially in the 7's and probably in the 8's. >>



Wayne,

I certainly agree with both of your points, and that real-time updates may help for the case carkim stated. I just don't think real-time updates would matter for anything else...and should've stated it that way. My bad.

RobE

One of my fellow set collectors noticed a seller selling 1/1 cards and he thought someone was selling my cards or whatever.He emailed me concerned,I told the seller and provided cert#s but he kept selling as 1/1s.

Life went on but it's still misleading.

Wayne8348

I think that Jeremy is correct in that ebayers are listing the cards right after receiving them from psa so that lower pops can be advertised. I see it all of the time in the 74's.

wayne

carkim

Wayne,

So that leads me back to my original question...What would it take to make the POP report real time?

I think it would benefit us all in the long (and short) run.

Any thoughts?

Carlos

FB

Carlos,

That wouldn't be a question for here on the boards. That would be one for PSA.

Depending on the system that they're running and whether they're running batch jobs or real time messaging it would be handled differently. Besides, with the way that the pop report sometimes takes a couple of days to catch up, I would be very surprised if the whole process was automated.

So, not sure if it would be cost effective for the Pop report to ever be "real time", but they should be able to run a nightly batch to update everything graded as of that day which should be close enough... But, how much time and effort that would take to make it happen... thats a PSA question...

PSAtan

I caught a hard one in my lower backside on this. An Ebay seller listed a PSA 10 card as 1/2. However, when the pop report was updated just after the end of the auction, there were four. I honored my bid, but I always suspected some kind of nonsense. This guy listed a few days before the new report came out. This wasn't a card in huge abundance. It was fairly odd. I wonder if there are insiders that tip off friends when low Pops are about to open up. With the time delay in the updates, it gives a window for selling while the card appears to be rarer than it really is.

Any thoughts?

S.

SKINSFAN

There may be a few shaddy dealers or collectors out there that know a card is not a 1 of 1 or even 1 of 2 but for the most part i think it falls in psa lap for a lack of keeping pop report current. example dsl just listed some 68 football that say 1 of 1. I collect that set so took a peek i already have the cards in a nine so there is at least 2 now.But with that said i dont fault dsl they grade so many cards no way they looked ahead of time to see if there card got a nine it would be the first,hence when they check pop report they assume that it is what it says a 1 of 1. back to psa,s lap.I feel the same way about pop report as i do about smr do it right or dont do it at all. If it cost to much drop it or charge extra,false info worse then no info at all in my book.

Skycap

Last year I had a 50's card graded that came back as a PSA 9 Pop 1 of 1. The next day -- just before their deadline -- I consigned it to a Superior auction, whose description both in the catalog and on-line mentioned that it was a Pop 1 of 1. During the course of the auction, I checked with the population report and noticed that a second copy of this same card had been graded a PSA 9. I netted over $1,000 for my card. The other PSA 9 went on eBay within a week after the Superior auction closed, and I recall the winning bid was about $250. Timing is everything.

Skycap

schr1st

It would indeed depend on how the "submissions database" and the "population report" database interface. Any DBA worth their weight in microwave popcorn could set up a system that would update the population report as soon as a cert # is assigned a grade. My guess is that they'd have to start from scratch since they don't have such a system in place now, and I doubt they'd want to spend time and $ for it.

carkim

POP Report has been updated to show that this card has a POP of 2 in PSA 9 NQ. However the seller relists this card as a POP 1 of 1.

1972 TOPPS ISIAH ROBERTSON 215 PSA 9 RAMS 1/1

Carlos

mcastaldi

I don't think the POP report would need to be real-time. Considering one doesn't usually receive their cards until nearly a week after the grades are posted, if PSA would be consistent about updating every 2 to 3 days this would be a non-issue. I have to believe that consistently updating the pop report every 2 to 3 days could hardly be an unreasonable request. After all, the pop report is not free so you'd think those revenues would go back into maintenance of the pop report at least on some level.

Mike

minibeers

To automate the pop reports, in theory, is not a big deal. They would just need to have their master SQL database do a massive file dump every night. The big deal is the magnitude of the job. It would take several hundred hours to prodcuce. Time = money

While we are on the subject, I think there are so many issues with the PSA web site that could be upgraded. I think what is there now is just a hint of how cool it could be. Here are some features that would kick ass:

1. Being able to link from the SMR to the POP report and visa versa. It seems silly that you can't do this.
2. The navigation changes order from the home page to deeper sections. Confusing.
3. Doing the drill down to find the year you're looking for in the SMR is not user friendly at all.
4. The pop report is a better interface for drilling down. Why is the SMR different? They should act the same and be differentiated through having a different color for the respective sections.

I think the site is a technical masterpiece. However, as is usually the case, when you hire technical people to create a web site, the user experience/interface sucks and is treated as an afterthought.

I think making the pop report real time is a no brainer and should be done.

my $0.02
Scott

SportsCardMan

To answer the original question.

If PSA uses their own server to host their sites and depending on their database setup, I (or my wife) could have it done in 4 to 6 hours.

Updating and Quering Databases is about the easiest thing you can do in programing.

carkim

know PSA has done this in the past with the registry. A couple of years ago, we had to wait a week for our recently graded cards to be available so we could enter them into our sets. Now as soon as our grades post, we can add them to our sets (Real Time).

Are the programs/systems (Not sure about the database lingo) that different?

Carlos

helionaut

Building dynamic, database-driven websites is pretty much what I do for a living, so I feel at least somewhat qualified to comment here. To make it really real-time, that is, as soon as a card is slabbed, would probably take a significant overhaul to their database system as I imagine it, not to mention an alteration in the way people perform their jobs. Their database probably pre-dates the internet, at least as it's used today, so it wasn't designed to be real-time from the start. The delay in updating what's available to customers online probably comes from the process in reconciling what has been graded in the past week with what is already in the database.

This might be off, but making and educated guess from what I've gathered about PSA's grading process, there's a computer system where each submission is tracked internally through the grading process, then a paper system for each submission in the grading room. The grades are then entered in a separate db and the flips are printed, the slabs sealed, etc. This data entry stuff is probably done by hand in some way, which not only takes time, but leads to errors on the flips with incorrect card numbers, grades like "Mint 7", etc. Then there is a weekly batch job to extract data from the "flip db" and upload it into the online pop report db. Why weekly and not daily or hourly? I don't know, maybe it's just a programming situation that's never been addressed, maybe it's a labor intensive process that requires more effort than they can spare on a more frequent basis. There is a Scheduled Task timer function in the Cold Fusion Administrator (CF is what they use on the public site so I'm guessing they use it for this stuff, too) that could run the updates automatically if a CF page was properly written to handle it, which is pretty simple if everything is laid correctly between the 2 systems.

Of course, it could be that the "flip db" isn't using a system that is compatible with CF's built-in communication methods, or it might not be on the network, or any number of other issues, so a two-step process is required (one to extract the data from one db and the second to upload it into the other) and that might not be able to be made automatic without some other alterations. If it has to be done through human intervention it would require reconfiguring whatever routines they have now. Certainly, though, this would be an extremely desirable issue to resolve for customer relations, especially given that it's now public knowledge that there can be a significant lag time. Unscuprulous individuals will undoubtedly figure out how to exploit this delay if they haven't already.

carkim

helionaut,

Well said, and I understood every word (which is amazing for me, seeings how I have very little computer knowledge).

If what you say is true, then I doubt we will see any chages in the near future.

Carlos

GoSoxBoSox

It's a pretty difficult question to answer without knowing PSA's existing architecture and software sweet. If the db that captures the grades is fully integrated with the web software then it's simply a query and nightly batch routine.

My guess is that the answer isn't that simple for PSA or they would've done it by now. I for one would rather have a delay in POP reporting if it means the grading price won't go up .

curmudgeon

helionaut,

Great post, but you need to update your sig line to get the proper quote from Strange Brew--it's not Frank Mohammad, but Frank Mahovlich

Todd

boggs301012

Dont hold your breath for a live system , I was told 2 years ago it was in the works.



James

helionaut

I got out Strange Brew this morning and curmudgeon's right, it's Mahovlich. Whew, twenty years of wondering who this Frank Mohammad guy was cleared up all of a sudden. Doug couldn't enunciate around his sneer so I walk around for years confused.