How about a Bronze membership

marsfan

Don't want to sound to cheap but wish they'd consider this.

Maybe leave out the 1 year Sports market report and the edition of the Cardboard Gems and go with 3 or 4 free submissions instead of 6.

I'm a small time collector of Mars Attacks cards and am mostly interested in the grading specials and population reports. There forum and Resistry forum is very nice of them! and much appreciated was just thinking it would be nice to get to there grading specials and population reports a little cheaper. Show me mercy, A poor man am I. LOL

frankhardy

I like the idea, myself.

TheVon

I like that idea too . . . especially the part about leaving out the SMR (which, as a price guide, is almost worthless). Don't get me wrong though, the SMR has articles in it and once in a while the articles are helpful.

strohman

I could do without the SMR magazine, especially since it's online. They could also leave out the Smithsonian book that dealt with all baseball. (I'm only a hockey collector.)

I would love to be able to renew for $50, without all the extras! Or be more like SGC, and don't charge an annual fee. Just allow us to submit our cards with the same grading fees.

yawie99

Yeah, how 'bout no membership?

diamondman

<< <i>Yeah, how 'bout no membership? >>



HE double L make them pay us to be members!

Stingray

Nice avatar!!

gfb

exactly, how about something more reasonable, like $19.99 per year, with no benefits other than pop report online, smr online and submitting privileges. Don't really need the coupon for the 6 or 12 grades, the smr magazine doesn't show up half the time anyway and its mostly ads, so $79 for the honor of sending psa more money to grade the cards kinda bites it

paigowmichael

I know you're listening PSA.

Why not offer a la carte for those who don't care about the incidentals you throw in to make it look like we're getting all these great "extras"? The one thing I buy a membership for is for submitting cards. So the free submission vouchers are the only things I use.

One reason I let my membership lapse was that the membership fee isn't a good value. I don't submit enough cards to justify it.

But if for $40 I could get the 'right' to submit cards and get a voucher for 3 grades, I would think about it.

Or maybe sell a one-month membership for $10 that allows me to submit cards without any of the other benefits.

Personally, I think it's absurd that I even have to pay for the privilege to buy your basic services.

Let's say that I paid $10 for a one-month membership and submitted 10 cards on a $10 special. That's $110 of revenue you'd get. Right now you're getting $0.

Or make that one-month membership a "special" during your slowest month (if there is one). I'd find that much more worthwhile than specials for grading tickets, packs, etc.

My 2 cents worth.

qmayer

<< <i>One reason I let my membership lapse was that the membership fee isn't a good value. I don't submit enough cards to justify it. >>



Same here. I've been a member 2 different times in the past 8 or so years. Sure, getting all the "free" stuff is cool, but all I really need is to submit cards and get access to pop reports. I don't need the SMR or need to know the what cards are Cardboard Gems. I track my own prices and all the cards I own are cardboard gems.

I am *very* interested in a "bronze" or scaled-down version of membership. Is another $100 that important when there are a lot of people holding out because they don't want to pay the membership fee?

Then again, maybe the membership fee is a way to keep the turnarounds somewhat reasonable....?

WinPitcher

I like it the way it is, keeps the riff raff out.


Steve

hill33

For my international membership, it costs PSA almost $9 a pop to send me the magazine. Do that 12 times a year, and they almost blow my entire membership for one year.

I think it's not entirely a bad idea to give an option without the magazine, and throw in more subs or make the membership a little cheaper (especially for international members who pay more than US members because of the higher postage costs). If you didnt post the magazine then you wouldnt have to make the costs higher.

I wouldnt have a problem with being sent an email once a month and downloading a PDF of the SMR to save the shipping costs.

MeteoriteGuy

I also like the ideal of a Bronze membership. I am not a member now, but would if such a tier was offered.

Mark

JMS318

Dare I say thats why I sometimes use Beckett b/c they don't charge to send cards into them and if you have a friend that get a subscription to one of their publications it has a little discount code you put on your submission form to get the special of the month another thing that doesn't cost you a dime if you got the right buddy. So yeah I'm for the 19.95 or even the $40 a year. I never use SMR only the pop report. I do most of my price search on ebay history. So lets all keep making some noise about this and maybe will one day get what we wish for.
Just my opinion.
Joe

JMS318

oops Beckett does charge for the grading not the right to send in. Just didn't want to start another conspiracy theory. LOL

ChicagoGlen

Same boat. I let my account lapse because I just can't justify paying additional money for the right to pay more money to grade my cards.

I truely believe that PSA is the best grading company out there. I will however sit on my raw until psa adapts new policy.

Thanks,

Glen

marsfan

Wanted to keep this alive and thank you guys for the replys.

Am hoping a few more of us will sign on to the idea and at least get PSA thinking about it.

MeteoriteGuy

Helping Marsfan keep this on top.

Clear Skies,
Mark

PS: Just traded for a piece of the LA Mars meteorite.

jeffcbay

I think it's worth it *shrugs*. I sell my SMR magazines on ebay every month and make a minimum of $3 for each one, and sometimes I get the $6 Buy It Now for them. So for my $179 Platinum Membership, if I sell all 24 mags for a minimum of $3 each, that's $72, plus the $105 worth of free submissions, that gives me a $177 value. So I only spend $2 every two years to have the ability to send in PSA Submissions, plus the ability to use the online SMR and Pop Report. I can dig that! To each their own.

Let me add that it is a very good idea for them to add the Bronze Membership for the ones who would rather not get all of the extras, and just want to submit cards. That would save me from having to sell my mags on ebay!

skilow

Great idea. I could finally quit sending my money to Beckett. I love PSA cards but will never pay $99 for the right to submit my cards.

Onlypsahockey

I'm in the minority here with Jeff I guess. I actually renewed my Platinum membership today.

At a little over $7.00 a month I feel its well worth it.

I also agree that a Bronze membership plan would work well for both PSA and their customers who submit less frequently.

Maybe Bronze could be 6 months for $49.

Couldn't hurt.

JMO, Bob C.

Boopotts

<< <i>I'm in the minority here with Jeff I guess. I actually renewed my Platinum membership today.

At a little over $7.00 a month I feel its well worth it.

I also agree that a Bronze membership plan would work well for both PSA and their customers who submit less frequently.

Maybe Bronze could be 6 months for $49.

Couldn't hurt.

JMO, Bob C. >>



I think the larger problem with a system like this is that much of the cost to PSA for grading comes in the form of processing orders-- not grading them. I don't know this for sure, so it's all speculation, but as we all know they tried the 'no membership' thing for a while and for whatever reason decided that didn't work; and I'm guessing the reason was because they got a ton of orders in that they couldn't really make any money on. The OP mentioned that he's mostly interested in the grading specials, and I think therein lies the problem. PSA probably got tons of 12 cards subs at $5 per when they didn't have the membership dues, and those kinds of orders probably aren't really even worth their time. They'll grade them, but only if you've already made it worth their while via the membership fee.

In either event I'm with you-- I think the $99 is fair enough. I can't imagine a scenerio where I couldn't find enough cards in the course of year that I could flip for $100 after they were graded (after the cost of grading and the cards themselves) so the membership fee seems like kind of a wash. For anyone who doesn't want to join I'd recommend getting with someone on the boards and piggybacking on an order. Guy here constantly have cards shipping to Newport Beach, and virtually everyone is happy to add on a few cards for a non member.

skilow

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