Gotta give you props man. I don't collect Pokémon in the least. But as a sports card collector, I always find myself watching your videos. They are extremely relevant to the collectibles market in general, well thought out, and informative. Thank you for your content.
“You are going to make a fortune on this kid” said the man in plaid jacket as he puffed his Marlboro red and made his fortune. I’m always torn when I hear things like this because I don’t ever want others to get hurt but at the same time I think some people just need to get slapped in the head until they start paying attention
Great video Rattle. I’ve said it before but honestly I don’t think PSA had a choice. If they certified Marx Cards as a PSA Dealer and promoted them on their website, I would think they would have some liability if something like this happened. Any lawsuit that would be filed would have their name on it as well and since Marx is bankrupt, they would be on the hook for some sort of compensation since it was one of “PSA’s Certified Dealers.” PSA isn’t doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, they are just putting a positive PR spin on a bad situation.
You mention at the start that you were unsure about covering this because it's not directly Pokemon-related. I'm a Magic player, not a Pokemon player, and I found your channel when I heard about Logan Paul's GI Joe collection and wanted to see what that was about. Since then I've watched nearly everything you've done in the area of grading and the shady side of TCGs. You do phenomenal stuff, relevant to any collector, and really well researched and presented.
Thanks for covering this. I'm not in Pokémon, but I still enjoy most of your content. BTW - you are so right about the "this will go up right away" nonsense. The market for all card collecting is still regulating from the insane 2020-21 card boom. We who have been around for a while knew this was going to happen. Cards were never going to keep going up ×5 every other month.
Why do people use a middle man? I get if its a buddy who submits often but i don't get shipping cards to be shipped again to the grading process just adds extra shipping and handling??
outside of lowering the cost of grading? GradedGem was a way to send cards from Europe to PSA in a much easier way and not to mention much cheaper. Overseas shipping are becoming more and more expensive since pandemic started and they weren't cheap before that. People could use local grading companies but those aren't pushed by major US youtubers, so the slabs don't fetch the premium PSA and Beckett ones do. This is the elephant in the room noone wants to talk about.
the thing with getting cards graded yourself is you need a minimum of 50 for bulk whereas with group submissions you can send just a few cards in the bulk grouping. plus you with some middlemen you get slightly better rates than going yourself
Yes, true. The small collectors didn't have the cash or volume to outlay. I was also going to go with a local store before I did my first order, but kept putting it off. When someone told me PSA was going to be in town to take the cards in-person, that was the deciding factor As a business consultant, I would tell PSA to establish official drop-off partners or hold drop-off events.
I understand that the administration of the per-shipment was probably high, but even as PSA was falling farther-and-farther behind in the grading, they kept requiring a high minimum submission. Now they are allocating only 5 submissions per person in their lottery. As someone who is still waiting on an order from a year ago, I don't understand why they couldn't have restricted orders way back then -- which would have helped the small collector while slowing the deluge of submissions? In fact, I wonder if the ridiculously long turn-around of PSA submissions along with the complete ban on low-end submissions contributed to the fall of these middlemen? I'm not using that as an excuse, since the customer's money should have been in a form of escrow.... but, most businesses are not prepared to have their business model change overnight -- just ask all those biz owners who were suddenly impacted in various ways due to covid.
I've been collecting as a hobby for about 8 years now, not including when I was a kid of course. When I first started grading, I did all of my own cards, researched it, and did it by myself. I work as a nurse now and work quite a bit of overtime so being able to just submit them to a 3rd party for the same price or even cheaper for a faster service is a great deal for me. I don't have to worry about all the hassle and when I did it through Ludkins it was literally the same price to go through them and for less work. It's all about time management, my time is worth way more than sitting there for an hour, or multiple hours, to fill that form out and ship them. However, I would agree with you that these people need to be using the older 3rd party sites and not the flashy new guys who are just in it for a quick buck.
I've heard nothing but good things about Ludkins. Even with alternate grading companies, there are some that have been around a long time which should make them more likely to stick around.
“If you don’t wanna take the time to learn how to submit your own cards, maybe you shouldn’t be grading them”…..Felt this. I had plenty of cards that I wanted to get graded but I hadn’t the slightest clue on how to submit on my own without potentially messing up and losing a valuable card. Well trust me when I say this, submitting cards to PSA on your own is actually very simple, and I’ve now submitted cards multiple times and I love it. Always appreciate the videos my dude! 🤘🏻
Hey Rattle, love your vids! Im still waiting on a massive PSA submission (370 cards) from July 2020. The middleman service is a UK based company called Super Retro Bros. All their email responses are just copy and paste… not sure what I should do… or what leg I have to stand on considering I sent in good faith… but 19 months seems like way too long even for PSA 2020 craziness
A quick look on FB shows a page with 1200 likes that deals almost completely in retro video games and doesn’t even have their own Email address (it’s a Gmail account) - I’d be very concerned that some small-time retro dealer has either lost, stolen or hasn’t paid for your PSA order. No idea why you’d opt for these guys when Graded Gem / Ludkins were the only 2 PSA authorised dealers in July 2020
@@KenDotCom what? You realize most money printed is based off tax calculation, correct? E.G, what they print they tax us for. A stimulus isn't money they just give out. It's basically your money being paid back to you although at the smallest of rates because they hate giving your money back.
@BackwardsHatTV Pranks nothing that you have said has made communism seem like a good idea, nor has it magically undone all of the damage that it has done to the world. every single place on earth that has ever tried it has produced the worst failure imaginable. stop shilling for commies, and go read
@@KenDotCom save the economy? Is that why we're spiraling into a record inflation and the mainstream propaganda outlets keep telling you that's a good thing? I can tell you're truly educated on the subject.
I love how Rattle is always exposing people! We the people are tired of PSA scams , resealing fraud and fake stampers!!!! I have learned an immense amount of information from you Rattle. I see my channel as being semi serious in this regard too. I like to show the community that there is lots of scams out there mainly resealed packs but now to hear it’s happening in the form of grading and 1st editions stamps just makes me so sick. Thankful for your channel !
I just wanted to mention that I’m getting prostate cancer ads asking about my PSA levels while watching this. Just more proof that TH-cam’s algorithm is dumb.
Think about what you are doing. You're trusting someone or multiple people you don't know to not swap your cards for one of their lesser quality cards is a joke.
Middle man is necessary for people in Europe. I do not understand why PSA does business with new stores that are not capitalized. Even distributors check you out before they send you stuff or they will loose their money
It's funny that PSA isn't making everyone pay when card collector 2 says he paid 120,000$ to get his customer's cards. Maybe they gave him some money back or could there be 120,000$ in upcharges?
Absolutely unfortunate. The reason people use a middle man is because they believe that 1. Their cards are safe, secured and insured. 2. They won't have to wait through the extended backlog that PSA has. Unfortunate that the scam took place and hopefully collectors will be more diligent in their research on a "company" going forward. Their bankruptcy was filed yesterday with a meeting date of 3/21. Hopefully there's restitution in the end for people who were victims of this situation.
@@No_Rmble historically you would get cheaper prices and faster return times through Group Submitters vs doing it on your own. Plus you didn't need 50-100 cards to make your own bulk sub. You could send in any number of cards to a group subber and still get bulk price.
I think a smaller company could probably do the same thing for their customers since the actual cost to the company to grade a card isn't *that* much and it would be a great PR move for them that they could just count as part of advertising budget. It's not like they have to pay back the cost of the cards themselves, they are just giving away their grading service, and they could easily spread out doing the free grading so that it isn't cutting into their profit too much.
Oh they are trying even in other collectible communities such as coin communities, which the largest grading services are also owned by collectors universe and it’s a complete Ish show ! For example psa is pcgs and CCG/CSG is NGC is also raising prices dramatically.
I detest the “hype boy” pitches you referenced and hope it gets corrected somehow. These guys watched Wolf of Wall Street one too many times and confused themselves with thinking they are critical to card collecting. At the end of the day this is a hobby; buy what you like and never buy hope. If seeking hope, scratch-offs are a cheaper alternative. When buying I need to also question why this individual is selling, especially if he’s telling me how much money he personally is leaving on the table by giving me such a great “deal”. I.e pump and dump This is why I rarely buy sealed product in the secondary market; it’s another method of people selling “hope” when it’s more unlikely than likely that you pull the card that justifies the price. These odds are worsened when you consider some of the recent innovation in fakes & resealing that have been coming to light. The seller didn’t open it for a reason, buyers should remember this! For Marx Cards specifically, I don’t see how this isn’t fraud with regards to the allegations. Given the turnaround with PSA, they would have been justified in putting the capital into an escrow or Money-market fund; but they took money and applied it for personal use.
Magic the Gathering booster boxes were able to be tracked and predicted based on the serial number with something like a 70% accuracy rate. I haven't bought sealed product since 2016 besides a few random packs for fun
I think your right in being hesitant with all these new company's. However PSA's business model and strategy promotes defaults, until it becomes a PR mess. If we keeping propping up PSA and crapping on smaller grading companys serving a real demand, maybe a PSA 10 will eventually sell 20X a BGS 9.5? Is that best for the hobby?
Great stuff as always Rattle. I know this may be a hot take, but this is why I feel like grading cards in general is a scam in itself. There is a big risk and little reward when it comes to spending large amounts of money to get these cards graded through these company who dont have 100% fail safe policies towards the customers, in case something goes wrong through these middleman companies. Even going though the actual main PSA like companies, you still have to worry about card backlogs, cards getting lost or stolen, improper grading of cards and so on. It seems to me like it's too much on a chance, and I would argue that, at least at this juncture, people should hold off on doing any sort of grading until these companies can get their own internal problems sorted out, as you already mentioned. Everyone is just out to make a quick buck, but doing none of the work to make people satisfied.
Maybe these grading services should just charge the fees upfront instead of tacking on vague and variable upcharges on after the fact based on perceived value to get an extra percentage. This sort of shit would still probably happen but it would be mitigated a lot and people need to not use middleman services for this kind of thing like you said.
not only are the prices very very high right now to grade a card, the sheer number of cards returning graded from PSA and ALL the other companies. are going to drive the value of "slabs" down. Im pretty sure i watched a video yesterday saying that something like 2M+ cards should be returning by the end of the summer 2022
All good information. Always a couple people that ruin it for everyone. There are plenty of great group submitters. If they’re on the PSA dealer list, then they’ve established themselves. I look at group submitters like a car wash. Yeah, I could do it myself but I value my time with family, work, and making content way more. Thanks for the episode. Take care! Eddie
Would love to see you research and cover the story of JC with "Kanto Investments". He popped up a business and Patreon during the height of the Pokemon boom, and charged (A TON of ) people monthly for purchasing rights to product at MSRP by way of a list of products that would be available for purchase at the beginning of each month, and a limit to how many each patreon member could purchase, based on tier. While he delivered on some of his promises/orders placed, most people ended up getting shafted. Some time last year, he pulled his patreon down and ghosted everyone. There's a singular post on reddit about it, but I haven't been able to find much more information on the details of what happened and would LOVE to know more because I'm sure that more went down behind the scenes before his accounts all disappeared that we don't know about.
If a group submitter is collecting fees up front, the only variance would come from up charge, very small variance. There are no viable reasons they wouldn’t have had the funds to pay for the sub. The idea that they can commit that level of fraud and be protected by bankruptcy is disgusting.
One reason I was being tempted to use a 3rd party was due to the problems of insuring raw cards when shipping. If the 3rd party is big enough and has been around long enough, it feels safer than taking a chance on a total unknown of shipping and hoping. And, this is why... Those of you ridiculing people for submitting to 3rd parties .. are you the ones who posted comments on the net about how PSA is not to be trusted to receive your cards? I saw those posts because I DID research the process in advance. and bc of those stories, was paranoid that PSA would "lose" my submission before logging it in. Our local shop seemed like they are pros, and would cover the declared value. I still was too wary to use the local shop, but being able to hand the cards off directly to ANYONE was a driving factor for me when I made my first submission for grading. I still might have tried middleman if I hadn't been able to hand the cards direct to PSA. Now, with more experience and additional safeguards, I I will ship on occasion, but I was right there at the National convention paying excruciating prices just for the peace of mind from being able to hand a few cords directly to them. Even now, I jump through hoops to ensure I am as covered as possible when shipping. Until PSA put in their internal tracking on packages Received, I was freaking out every time I had to ship cards. I would try to wait for in-person PSA events that I had the luxury to attend.
Maybe I'm a noob but whats the point of a middleman? Can't you just submit the cards yourself? Why would you trust someone else when you can just send the cards via mail yourself
I know graded cards are a huge market, but I personally don’t understand it. No idea why people pay some random person to look at your card and put it in plastic… and then just have it forever in plastic with some (at times random) 1-10 digit number assigned to it.
I like buying my chase cards on the cheap. Then I put them on display at my desk & wall shelves. I love looking at my nice cards like my modern chase cards and gold star cards.
Ratlle you forget to aske the most important question. I heared that Marx replaced the high end cards with cheap commons and sended those instead. He sold all the good stuff to some big internet/youtube pokemon sharks. And now PSA knows totally nothing or who to send those common cards. Oh sorry...was caried away in my fantasy.
I can understand why someone would want to go through a middle man. Sometimes if you don't want to deal with the hassle of sending it to get graded, go to the companies that send cards in bulk. Then there is the risk of losing cards, damaging, etc.
I guess i dont understand why people would send cards to a middle man regardless... it just sounds like a bad idea!! like you said "if you cant take the time to learn how to submit card's, maybe you shouldnt be" if it were me, id want as LITTLE steps in the process as pos.
Middle men = Card swappers. My uncle told me about a coin he had and he done this back in the 80s and he told they sent the wrong coin back and never "graded" again. I've never graded a card and I won't. I have no need to "Grade." Best content on TH-cam Rattle. Greetings from Scotland 🙏
I've never been a fan of middle men, nothing against them but I feel it just add more complications when there are many youtube channels on how to submit cards. Only time I would do group submissions is with friends since i know them.
I don't get why PSA wouldn't take payment before grading the cards. Its not like a retail shop where the supplier needs to give the shop time to turn over stock to get cash flow.
Yhe biggest reason I know people go through a middleman is the price. If you have a $50 to $100 raw card and wanted graded most of these groups get like $15 to $20 a card.
Middleman services make a lot of sense for non US residents lol Ofc if you're in the US, the only benefit you would even see yourself would be slightly lower prices....
I love how hindsight is always 20/20 and guys say, “you’re just looking to get in trouble” sending to a card submitter. No one said this before it happened…..everyone’s a fucking genius afterwards.
lol people don't care about consequences.. imo everyone but Psa should suffer some consequence, they wanted to learn the hard way. Lol!! also awesome content..
I believe this should be talked about just as you Are it's all about the $$$ to them. I watch this other TH-cam channel called Sports card investor he is NEW As well claims he's collected since a kid but stopped only to come back last year when the $ was flowing I'm just speaking on how it looks to me, but he just put out a video talking about how people who talk about the scammers & the negative issues basically are not valid because it's only 1% of the hobby I totally disagree with him I think it's a higher % than that especially since the pandemic, when the $ came in big. I believe a large part of him saying this is because it is hurting his money because when people learn about these things going on in the hobby it makes them weary to spend money on cards & apps such as the one he sells. So IMO he's saying this to save his money & there for shaming anyone that talks about the scammers that's far more than 1%. Would love your thoughts on this Subject?
I don’t get why you would use a middle man. If you don’t feel comfortable sending your cards in yourself, then maybe this isn’t the hobby for you. This is just the start of this. More will be exposed soon. Great video!!!
Love your videos but you can tell your lack of knowledge on grading and reasons for using a group subber, especially one that’s drops off in person. On average you get your cards back 2-3 months faster due to them being logged in as soon as dropped off. Also the bigger group subs get better grades overall on average. It’s sad to say but it’s true, the numbers are there to support this. The more someone subs, the higher grades they get in return. I do my own and use group subs. Against just pointing that you clearly didn’t know the advantages to group subs.
Gotta give you props man. I don't collect Pokémon in the least. But as a sports card collector, I always find myself watching your videos. They are extremely relevant to the collectibles market in general, well thought out, and informative. Thank you for your content.
this is a huge mess. 50,000 cards and trying to find the owners. what is the actual Hell. Bravo to PSA for handling this the way they are.
“You are going to make a fortune on this kid” said the man in plaid jacket as he puffed his Marlboro red and made his fortune. I’m always torn when I hear things like this because I don’t ever want others to get hurt but at the same time I think some people just need to get slapped in the head until they start paying attention
It is kind of funny
Great video Rattle. I’ve said it before but honestly I don’t think PSA had a choice. If they certified Marx Cards as a PSA Dealer and promoted them on their website, I would think they would have some liability if something like this happened. Any lawsuit that would be filed would have their name on it as well and since Marx is bankrupt, they would be on the hook for some sort of compensation since it was one of “PSA’s Certified Dealers.”
PSA isn’t doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, they are just putting a positive PR spin on a bad situation.
kind of crazy how easy it is to become a PSA partner.
Thanks for exposing Karl Marx and Group Submitters.
Awesome video man, love all your thoughts on collecting in general.
You mention at the start that you were unsure about covering this because it's not directly Pokemon-related. I'm a Magic player, not a Pokemon player, and I found your channel when I heard about Logan Paul's GI Joe collection and wanted to see what that was about. Since then I've watched nearly everything you've done in the area of grading and the shady side of TCGs. You do phenomenal stuff, relevant to any collector, and really well researched and presented.
Same here
I’m friends with some of the largest group submitters in the sports community.. word is, he gambled with most of the fronted money
With the amount the grading companies and MM are charging, you could fly someone with 1K cards in hand luggage to PSA personally...
Love the content, can't stop watching your videos , Thank you
Thanks for covering this. I'm not in Pokémon, but I still enjoy most of your content. BTW - you are so right about the "this will go up right away" nonsense. The market for all card collecting is still regulating from the insane 2020-21 card boom. We who have been around for a while knew this was going to happen. Cards were never going to keep going up ×5 every other month.
Why do people use a middle man? I get if its a buddy who submits often but i don't get shipping cards to be shipped again to the grading process just adds extra shipping and handling??
Because people are dumb and lazy lol
The typical reason for using a middle man for grading is to get a lower grading rate per each card.
@@No_Rmble oh LOL
outside of lowering the cost of grading? GradedGem was a way to send cards from Europe to PSA in a much easier way and not to mention much cheaper. Overseas shipping are becoming more and more expensive since pandemic started and they weren't cheap before that. People could use local grading companies but those aren't pushed by major US youtubers, so the slabs don't fetch the premium PSA and Beckett ones do. This is the elephant in the room noone wants to talk about.
You’re genuinely making some of the most interesting content on yt right now. Won’t be long until 100k
the thing with getting cards graded yourself is you need a minimum of 50 for bulk whereas with group submissions you can send just a few cards in the bulk grouping. plus you with some middlemen you get slightly better rates than going yourself
@@BringingTheHeat-VBC i dont know if people deserve to lose their cards because they used a middleman.
Not anymore
Yes, true. The small collectors didn't have the cash or volume to outlay. I was also going to go with a local store before I did my first order, but kept putting it off. When someone told me PSA was going to be in town to take the cards in-person, that was the deciding factor
As a business consultant, I would tell PSA to establish official drop-off partners or hold drop-off events.
I understand that the administration of the per-shipment was probably high, but even as PSA was falling farther-and-farther behind in the grading, they kept requiring a high minimum submission. Now they are allocating only 5 submissions per person in their lottery. As someone who is still waiting on an order from a year ago, I don't understand why they couldn't have restricted orders way back then -- which would have helped the small collector while slowing the deluge of submissions?
In fact, I wonder if the ridiculously long turn-around of PSA submissions along with the complete ban on low-end submissions contributed to the fall of these middlemen? I'm not using that as an excuse, since the customer's money should have been in a form of escrow.... but, most businesses are not prepared to have their business model change overnight -- just ask all those biz owners who were suddenly impacted in various ways due to covid.
@flychomperfly yea my next CGC sub is gonna be in person drop off. Being from Canada i hate dealing with customs
You ask your middleman "do you have insurance"? He replies " they insure sports cards"?
I've been collecting as a hobby for about 8 years now, not including when I was a kid of course. When I first started grading, I did all of my own cards, researched it, and did it by myself. I work as a nurse now and work quite a bit of overtime so being able to just submit them to a 3rd party for the same price or even cheaper for a faster service is a great deal for me. I don't have to worry about all the hassle and when I did it through Ludkins it was literally the same price to go through them and for less work. It's all about time management, my time is worth way more than sitting there for an hour, or multiple hours, to fill that form out and ship them.
However, I would agree with you that these people need to be using the older 3rd party sites and not the flashy new guys who are just in it for a quick buck.
I've heard nothing but good things about Ludkins. Even with alternate grading companies, there are some that have been around a long time which should make them more likely to stick around.
This is my opinion: I said this before about the sports card community…. Some of them are shady and have bad business practices…
lol a card shop named after karl cant run a business or manage money. imagine my shock
“If you don’t wanna take the time to learn how to submit your own cards, maybe you shouldn’t be grading them”…..Felt this. I had plenty of cards that I wanted to get graded but I hadn’t the slightest clue on how to submit on my own without potentially messing up and losing a valuable card. Well trust me when I say this, submitting cards to PSA on your own is actually very simple, and I’ve now submitted cards multiple times and I love it. Always appreciate the videos my dude! 🤘🏻
Thank you for making this video!!!!!
Another great vid BARNEY. Keep them coming.
Hey Rattle, love your vids! Im still waiting on a massive PSA submission (370 cards) from July 2020. The middleman service is a UK based company called Super Retro Bros. All their email responses are just copy and paste… not sure what I should do… or what leg I have to stand on considering I sent in good faith… but 19 months seems like way too long even for PSA 2020 craziness
14 months is the longest I've heard of. Maybe contact PSA by phone and tell them of your concerns?
A quick look on FB shows a page with 1200 likes that deals almost completely in retro video games and doesn’t even have their own Email address (it’s a Gmail account) - I’d be very concerned that some small-time retro dealer has either lost, stolen or hasn’t paid for your PSA order. No idea why you’d opt for these guys when Graded Gem / Ludkins were the only 2 PSA authorised dealers in July 2020
Avoiding anything with or related to the name “Marx” is generally a good idea 🤣😂
@@KenDotCom what? You realize most money printed is based off tax calculation, correct? E.G, what they print they tax us for. A stimulus isn't money they just give out. It's basically your money being paid back to you although at the smallest of rates because they hate giving your money back.
Rather, do you have a heart, or do you just choose not to use it?
@BackwardsHatTV Pranks nothing that you have said has made communism seem like a good idea, nor has it magically undone all of the damage that it has done to the world. every single place on earth that has ever tried it has produced the worst failure imaginable. stop shilling for commies, and go read
@@KenDotCom Defending the federal reserve and communism in the same sentence is not the flex you think it is.
@@KenDotCom save the economy? Is that why we're spiraling into a record inflation and the mainstream propaganda outlets keep telling you that's a good thing?
I can tell you're truly educated on the subject.
I love how Rattle is always exposing people! We the people are tired of PSA scams , resealing fraud and fake stampers!!!! I have learned an immense amount of information from you Rattle. I see my channel as being semi serious in this regard too. I like to show the community that there is lots of scams out there mainly resealed packs but now to hear it’s happening in the form of grading and 1st editions stamps just makes me so sick. Thankful for your channel !
I just wanted to mention that I’m getting prostate cancer ads asking about my PSA levels while watching this. Just more proof that TH-cam’s algorithm is dumb.
A company with the name "Marx" in it was bound to be sketchy
Rattle like a boss doing work!💪🏼💯
Think about what you are doing. You're trusting someone or multiple people you don't know to not swap your cards for one of their lesser quality cards is a joke.
Oh man I wouldn’t doubt Marx’s card pulled this off. Lawsuit is coming
Middle man is necessary for people in Europe. I do not understand why PSA does business with new stores that are not capitalized. Even distributors check you out before they send you stuff or they will loose their money
Can’t believe I live in the same town as these clowns and to think I was trying to go purchase Pokémon product from them 😓
It's funny that PSA isn't making everyone pay when card collector 2 says he paid 120,000$ to get his customer's cards. Maybe they gave him some money back or could there be 120,000$ in upcharges?
Absolutely unfortunate. The reason people use a middle man is because they believe that 1. Their cards are safe, secured and insured. 2. They won't have to wait through the extended backlog that PSA has.
Unfortunate that the scam took place and hopefully collectors will be more diligent in their research on a "company" going forward. Their bankruptcy was filed yesterday with a meeting date of 3/21. Hopefully there's restitution in the end for people who were victims of this situation.
Your cards can be safe, secured, and insured when you send them in as well. 🤷🏻♂️ the wait time isn’t a thing either.
@@No_Rmble historically you would get cheaper prices and faster return times through Group Submitters vs doing it on your own. Plus you didn't need 50-100 cards to make your own bulk sub. You could send in any number of cards to a group subber and still get bulk price.
I think a smaller company could probably do the same thing for their customers since the actual cost to the company to grade a card isn't *that* much and it would be a great PR move for them that they could just count as part of advertising budget. It's not like they have to pay back the cost of the cards themselves, they are just giving away their grading service, and they could easily spread out doing the free grading so that it isn't cutting into their profit too much.
Oh they are trying even in other collectible communities such as coin communities, which the largest grading services are also owned by collectors universe and it’s a complete Ish show ! For example psa is pcgs and CCG/CSG is NGC is also raising prices dramatically.
@@JusZard you mean shitshow and BTW nice name
I detest the “hype boy” pitches you referenced and hope it gets corrected somehow. These guys watched Wolf of Wall Street one too many times and confused themselves with thinking they are critical to card collecting. At the end of the day this is a hobby; buy what you like and never buy hope. If seeking hope, scratch-offs are a cheaper alternative. When buying I need to also question why this individual is selling, especially if he’s telling me how much money he personally is leaving on the table by giving me such a great “deal”. I.e pump and dump
This is why I rarely buy sealed product in the secondary market; it’s another method of people selling “hope” when it’s more unlikely than likely that you pull the card that justifies the price. These odds are worsened when you consider some of the recent innovation in fakes & resealing that have been coming to light. The seller didn’t open it for a reason, buyers should remember this!
For Marx Cards specifically, I don’t see how this isn’t fraud with regards to the allegations. Given the turnaround with PSA, they would have been justified in putting the capital into an escrow or Money-market fund; but they took money and applied it for personal use.
Magic the Gathering booster boxes were able to be tracked and predicted based on the serial number with something like a 70% accuracy rate. I haven't bought sealed product since 2016 besides a few random packs for fun
I think your right in being hesitant with all these new company's. However PSA's business model and strategy promotes defaults, until it becomes a PR mess. If we keeping propping up PSA and crapping on smaller grading companys serving a real demand, maybe a PSA 10 will eventually sell 20X a BGS 9.5? Is that best for the hobby?
Great stuff as always Rattle. I know this may be a hot take, but this is why I feel like grading cards in general is a scam in itself. There is a big risk and little reward when it comes to spending large amounts of money to get these cards graded through these company who dont have 100% fail safe policies towards the customers, in case something goes wrong through these middleman companies.
Even going though the actual main PSA like companies, you still have to worry about card backlogs, cards getting lost or stolen, improper grading of cards and so on. It seems to me like it's too much on a chance, and I would argue that, at least at this juncture, people should hold off on doing any sort of grading until these companies can get their own internal problems sorted out, as you already mentioned. Everyone is just out to make a quick buck, but doing none of the work to make people satisfied.
This is increasingly looking like a speculative bubble. These thing alwata end badly.
Maybe these grading services should just charge the fees upfront instead of tacking on vague and variable upcharges on after the fact based on perceived value to get an extra percentage. This sort of shit would still probably happen but it would be mitigated a lot and people need to not use middleman services for this kind of thing like you said.
When they find a better way to ripe customers off then to charge an upcharge fee, what's when they'll start letting customers pay up front.
not only are the prices very very high right now to grade a card, the sheer number of cards returning graded from PSA and ALL the other companies. are going to drive the value of "slabs" down. Im pretty sure i watched a video yesterday saying that something like 2M+ cards should be returning by the end of the summer 2022
All good information. Always a couple people that ruin it for everyone. There are plenty of great group submitters. If they’re on the PSA dealer list, then they’ve established themselves. I look at group submitters like a car wash. Yeah, I could do it myself but I value my time with family, work, and making content way more. Thanks for the episode. Take care! Eddie
I wouldn't trust any grading company, middleman, card game, etc... that has opened in 2020 or 2021.
@@RattlePokemon agreed! Guy I’ve been using has been doing it for a while.
I personally won’t use a middleman but a well established trusted one would be got baseball cards in Atlanta. Use them.
First! Nice Video Rattle! 👍 🔥
Sounds like the grading companies should just not accept submissions from middleman services.
Thanks for the content rattle, you the man.
Would love to see you research and cover the story of JC with "Kanto Investments". He popped up a business and Patreon during the height of the Pokemon boom, and charged (A TON of ) people monthly for purchasing rights to product at MSRP by way of a list of products that would be available for purchase at the beginning of each month, and a limit to how many each patreon member could purchase, based on tier. While he delivered on some of his promises/orders placed, most people ended up getting shafted. Some time last year, he pulled his patreon down and ghosted everyone. There's a singular post on reddit about it, but I haven't been able to find much more information on the details of what happened and would LOVE to know more because I'm sure that more went down behind the scenes before his accounts all disappeared that we don't know about.
I'll take a look.
@@RattlePokemon Yesss I can't wait! Great content man! :)
If a group submitter is collecting fees up front, the only variance would come from up charge, very small variance. There are no viable reasons they wouldn’t have had the funds to pay for the sub. The idea that they can commit that level of fraud and be protected by bankruptcy is disgusting.
Marx very likely spent it on opening that new shop in Camarillo.
One reason I was being tempted to use a 3rd party was due to the problems of insuring raw cards when shipping. If the 3rd party is big enough and has been around long enough, it feels safer than taking a chance on a total unknown of shipping and hoping. And, this is why...
Those of you ridiculing people for submitting to 3rd parties .. are you the ones who posted comments on the net about how PSA is not to be trusted to receive your cards?
I saw those posts because I DID research the process in advance. and bc of those stories, was paranoid that PSA would "lose" my submission before logging it in. Our local shop seemed like they are pros, and would cover the declared value. I still was too wary to use the local shop, but being able to hand the cards off directly to ANYONE was a driving factor for me when I made my first submission for grading.
I still might have tried middleman if I hadn't been able to hand the cards direct to PSA. Now, with more experience and additional safeguards, I I will ship on occasion, but I was right there at the National convention paying excruciating prices just for the peace of mind from being able to hand a few cords directly to them.
Even now, I jump through hoops to ensure I am as covered as possible when shipping. Until PSA put in their internal tracking on packages Received, I was freaking out every time I had to ship cards. I would try to wait for in-person PSA events that I had the luxury to attend.
Maybe I'm a noob but whats the point of a middleman? Can't you just submit the cards yourself? Why would you trust someone else when you can just send the cards via mail yourself
I know graded cards are a huge market, but I personally don’t understand it. No idea why people pay some random person to look at your card and put it in plastic… and then just have it forever in plastic with some (at times random) 1-10 digit number assigned to it.
I like buying my chase cards on the cheap. Then I put them on display at my desk & wall shelves. I love looking at my nice cards like my modern chase cards and gold star cards.
This is the difference between set collectors and players, I love putting my cards on display when I use them against my friends 😂😂
@@v3ck1n 😝
When i want to learn something i watch you sir. 💯💥
50,000 cards. I hope all those cards go back to the right people.
I promise you, I appreciate what you do.
Ratlle you forget to aske the most important question. I heared that Marx replaced the high end cards with cheap commons and sended those instead. He sold all the good stuff to some big internet/youtube pokemon sharks. And now PSA knows totally nothing or who to send those common cards. Oh sorry...was caried away in my fantasy.
PSA- An absolute unit
Thanks!!!
I can understand why someone would want to go through a middle man. Sometimes if you don't want to deal with the hassle of sending it to get graded, go to the companies that send cards in bulk. Then there is the risk of losing cards, damaging, etc.
Did you send cards direct to PSA?
I guess i dont understand why people would send cards to a middle man regardless... it just sounds like a bad idea!! like you said "if you cant take the time to learn how to submit card's, maybe you shouldnt be"
if it were me, id want as LITTLE steps in the process as pos.
Middle men = Card swappers. My uncle told me about a coin he had and he done this back in the 80s and he told they sent the wrong coin back and never "graded" again. I've never graded a card and I won't. I have no need to "Grade."
Best content on TH-cam Rattle. Greetings from Scotland 🙏
What a blanket statement lmao
@@nolan8859 grab your ankles.
How did people find out that the company is a middle man for PSA? Public business records? Something different?
It's all over their website, instagram, etc... and they were officially for PSA so I would imagine there was some mention of it on the PSA website.
i think middle men get cheaper rates from psa. thats why people use them
I've never been a fan of middle men, nothing against them but I feel it just add more complications when there are many youtube channels on how to submit cards. Only time I would do group submissions is with friends since i know them.
I don't get why PSA wouldn't take payment before grading the cards. Its not like a retail shop where the supplier needs to give the shop time to turn over stock to get cash flow.
They don't take payment before grading so they can up charge customers on cards that will dramatically increase in value after grading.
Yhe biggest reason I know people go through a middleman is the price. If you have a $50 to $100 raw card and wanted graded most of these groups get like $15 to $20 a card.
Another rattle masterpiece
Middleman services make a lot of sense for non US residents lol Ofc if you're in the US, the only benefit you would even see yourself would be slightly lower prices....
I love how hindsight is always 20/20 and guys say, “you’re just looking to get in trouble” sending to a card submitter. No one said this before it happened…..everyone’s a fucking genius afterwards.
Watch, more will almost certainly happen with some of the new grading companies.
@@RattlePokemon I agree,
How many cards did submitters stael..swith out and sell..that's. ..next
I have always sent my cards personally, who the hell are sending random strangers their cards and money.
Keep it up.
Marx Cards? Seriously? 🤣🤣🤣 "Your money? Our money!"
🔥🔥
lol people don't care about consequences.. imo everyone but Psa should suffer some consequence, they wanted to learn the hard way. Lol!!
also awesome content..
PSA going after Marx Cards?? lol. Can you squeeze juice from a turnip?
I believe this should be talked about just as you Are it's all about the $$$ to them. I watch this other TH-cam channel called Sports card investor he is NEW As well claims he's collected since a kid but stopped only to come back last year when the $ was flowing I'm just speaking on how it looks to me, but he just put out a video talking about how people who talk about the scammers & the negative issues basically are not valid because it's only 1% of the hobby I totally disagree with him I think it's a higher % than that especially since the pandemic, when the $ came in big. I believe a large part of him saying this is because it is hurting his money because when people learn about these things going on in the hobby it makes them weary to spend money on cards & apps such as the one he sells. So IMO he's saying this to save his money & there for shaming anyone that talks about the scammers that's far more than 1%. Would love your thoughts on this Subject?
That meely scammer seems to be involved in so many bs deals and manipulation of other peoples money. He’s a thief!!!
Yikes!!
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I don’t get why you would use a middle man. If you don’t feel comfortable sending your cards in yourself, then maybe this isn’t the hobby for you. This is just the start of this. More will be exposed soon. Great video!!!
Love your videos but you can tell your lack of knowledge on grading and reasons for using a group subber, especially one that’s drops off in person. On average you get your cards back 2-3 months faster due to them being logged in as soon as dropped off. Also the bigger group subs get better grades overall on average. It’s sad to say but it’s true, the numbers are there to support this. The more someone subs, the higher grades they get in return. I do my own and use group subs. Against just pointing that you clearly didn’t know the advantages to group subs.
The grade differences between self and group subs sounds like confirmation bias. Regardless, you do you and whatever helps you enjoy the hobby.
TheyAREspacePSA,orShellCompanyForGemMint, or sue guys in chat