THWC 442: Why PSA? Why?

What is up, everybody? Hi with Cage episode 442. We're here on a Monday, August 24th. Oh, why PSA? Why? Today's episode brought to you by Arena Club by card ladder, Use code Cage. Save yourself a couple bucks and buy the Philly show, which I will be at soon. So that'll be a lot of fun, right? Yu-Gi-Oh All right, well, I'll try to keep it quick. Nobody likes to be bothered on a Monday morning. But here we are, it's Monday, and I've been thinking something, and it's funny because I've had this thought before, but I'm going to verbalize it for you. Anyone who you listen to, anyone who you talk to, any content creator who you consume their content, any hobby, friend, confidant, you name it, who tells you or gives you the advice to grade with somebody else besides PSA is someone you should immediately stop listening to. Any content creator who you see putting out content, saying, you know, you should grade with this company. While PSA is too expensive right now, and, you know, while PSA has their grade level shut down and, you know, the. The cost to grade is so high, you know, just get your cards. Get. Just send your card over to this company instead and, you know, send your card here instead. You. If you know this person and you see them in person, you should kick them in the balls. If it's a hobby content creator, you should really think twice about continuing to listen to that person. And I'll tell you why. Now, let's get this out of the way. One of the sponsors of the show is Card Ladder. That is a collector's company. Collectors purchase them. Obviously, PSA is a collector's company. So I have to get that, you know, ethically out of the way, make sure there's no conflict of interest. And just to make sure, you know, that I'm not being paid by PSA to say this, anyone who's listened to my show knows I've taken shots at PSA where they deserve it. I'll do it right now. Their vault intake process sucks. They need to do that a lot better. They are the worst at it. You buy a card, send it to their vault, and it takes weeks for it to show up in their vault. It is awful. It is something that they need to fix. It is something they do worse than everyone. See that. If I was being paid, I wouldn't be doing that. But they'll probably listen to this. I know people from PSA who listen to the show. Maybe they'll help. Maybe they'll fix it. Who the hell knows? But I got to get that out of the way because I don't want the trolls telling me I'm only talking about how great PSA is because Card Ladder pays me. The hell with you. So one-of-one here's the truth. You have to use PSA for grading, right? And they will open up and they need to do better. And you know, when Covid happened, they did the same crap and they, you know, they are not doing a good job of fixing this backlog. The fact that the backlog goes up, that's just awful. I mean, I don't know how the hell that happens. I don't know how they're not planning for that. But anyone who is out there telling you, hey, look at this other company, hey, look at how much ags graded this month, or hey, you should go to cgc. They are being paid. There is no other explanation. And if they're not being paid, they should be being paid by that other company, right? And I mean, I don't know if they're being paid. You. You get it. But there'd be no other reason why anybody would be out there touting someone else. And let me explain this to you, right? I mean, it's something you already know, but maybe it has to be spelled out and, and, and, and done clearly. All right, sorry to hit you with this over the head on a Monday morning, but this hobby is basically house of cards. That's pretty funny. It's like a pyramid, right? And what's propping up all of these sales? If you're somebody who's got the benefit of those LeBron sales or Brady sales or Kobe sales, or all the crazy Jordan sales, it's because of the amount of money coming into the space, the amount of money coming into the space and the new blood in the space. And we saw this last time, we saw the Sasha Cheese and we saw all the people doing the flippy game, right? The Roth cards. It's the same person with a different Instagram name. It's the same thing being done with a different character leading it, right? There are new kids doing it now, but what are they doing? What at base is that bottom of the pyramid? What is it that is, you know the, the food chart, right? The grains from when we were kids. The thing that is the, that that bulky bottom that's holding up the whole top. It's easy. It's this day to day buy and sell. It's the card shows have exploded. The national had a whole Fleer added on and Every table was exactly the same with a humongous buying banner. It's repacks. It's young kids buying cards at 90, 95% and selling them at 95 or 100%, doing volume business. They're buying liquid cards. We've talked about this. I've talked last week, you know, in several episodes, about how there is money to be made in buying the cards that don't sell all the time. Because that's not what these kids are doing. That's not what these, you know, the, the Daily Grinders are doing. But you know what they are doing? They are buying and selling liquid cards in PSA slabs. And I'm going to tell you this, right? I'm going to break it down for you in case you're not at shows and don't see this or not dealing with buying and selling cards to people. If you put an SGC slab in front of one of these kids, it's like their mainframe shuts down. You have to hit Control, alt, delete on their head. You put a Beckett slab, a CGC slab, hell, a tag or something else in front of them. Does not compute. They don't know what to do with it. They have to try to figure out, okay, maybe this SGC9 is really a PSA8. Maybe I'll comp it at this. But in reality, the reason why they pause, the reason why they stop, is because they don't know what the person they're immediately going to sell it to is going to value it at. And that is everything. That is everything in this market. I know this sounds ridiculous to a lot of you, because my audience, there are a lot of vintage guys here, a lot of people who actually buy cards that they want to keep. And you guys who buy vintage stuff, 50s baseball, you know, earlier stuff, you love SGC slabs. And maybe if you can get a nice sgc, you know, tobacco card at a discount to psa, you'll take that every day. You look at the card, you don't look at the flip. I get it. That is not what's propping the market up today. That is not what's driving the money in the space. What's driving the money in the space is easy. I talked about it last week. It's that STOCKX mentality. It's that barcode mentality. It's that if I can get a PSA 10 of this Jordan or a PSA 9 of this Jordan, I know what it's worth because I can find 10 sales of it. Last week, I Know what the next 10 sales are probably going to be like. And I know if I buy it, I'm not going to get hurt. Because the person who I'm going to be able to sell it to tomorrow or next week, I know what they're going to give me for it. They don't have that with an SGC slab. They don't have that with a Beckett slab. They don't have it with a CGC slab. They definitely don't have it with an ags, aby, lgt, bq, whatever slab you got out there. Plus, it doesn't matter. And people need to understand this, right? Because anybody who is telling you, oh, PSA is $80, PSA is shut down. Go grade with somebody else is doing you a disservice. Because when you get that card back and you think you're going to be able to sell it the same way that you were able to sell a PSA slab, you will be mistaken. That person is not telling you what's actually going to happen. The same thing with Raw. Do I see more Raw at shows? Sure. Especially Pokemon. It's a little bit of a different world, but it's the same thing. People look at the Pokemon card and. And they buy it if they think it's going to be able to grade good with PSA. And if not, then it gets a PSA 7 price. I mean, that's easy, right? Do I see more Raw Jordans being sold? Sure. Did somebody buy a Raw Jordan from me at the last show? Sure. It's because they knew it wasn't going to grade well. We talked about it not grading well and they were going to put it out at a, you know, basically a PSA 5 or 6 price, because who cares? Maybe somebody buys it and grades it themself, but nobody tells me, hey, I'm going to buy that RAW card and I'm going to go put it in an SGC slab. No. Anybody who's telling you that? No. Bueno. That's not the. That's not the right advice. Now, can this change? Sure. Was it always like this? No, but that is the world we live in today. And it's important that you get the truth from me. Right. And am I being paid? No, but this is just how it is now. What are you supposed to do about it? Well, nothing. You're gonna have to do what I do. You'd have to do with what anybody else who understands this hobby truth is doing. When you open a box of cards, like last week you opened Topps Flagship or maybe your box is arriving today and your Mendoza comes and it's a card you want to grade because it's a card you want to resell. If it's something you don't want to spend $80 on. I'm not going to tell you to send it to Beckett. I'm not going to tell you to send it to cgc. I'm going to tell you to wait. I'm going to tell you to wait until the backlog gets cleared up. I'm going to tell you to wait until the prices come down and you can grade. Remember, if you're a collectors club member like me, which I am, that collector's club has basically stayed. They will clear the lockout. They will open it back up, and you will get the remainder of that collector's club that you paid for. And it will come with bulk or whatever it might be. They're gonna have to do that because that's what you paid for, right? You paid for the ability to grade. They're gonna have to figure that out or compensate you for it. So it will open up. Eventually it will open up and you will be able to grade, and you'll be able to grade with the company you want to grade with for a price. It's just. It's going to happen. At least that's my opinion. You know, we've been through this before. After Covid, they opened up, it was like 200 bucks to grade, you know, so it's not as bad as all that right now. It will get to a point where you can grade with them. The open letter here is the psa. I know you're working on it, but if your thought is, well, while we're closed, people agree with sgc. People grade with Beckett. They one-of-one And the people who do, they're probably going to be disappointed. And if that's you, if you're out there, I'd love to hear from you. Send me a DM or put it in the comments. Yu-Gi-Oh I thought while PSA was closed, I would just grade with Beckett. Well, I got my card back, and nobody really wants to pay me anything for it. That's you. And there are a lot of you out there. Put that in the comments. Send me a DMs way I can blow it up to the world. I can't tell you that because I just know better. I'm not going to grade with Beckett. I'm not sending a card to SGC. I'm not doing it. P.S. those are both collectors companies now. one-of-one you know, so you take that for whatever it's worth. I'm not sending it to cgc. And the reason for it is this. If I go try to sell it and I've had these, like, I've traded for them while my son has bought, or he makes trades at shows and gets a CGC slab or an SGC slab, you put it in front of someone, even if it's a card that. That, you know, people want, there's a Jordan card. Maybe the fifth or sixth person you put in front of takes a chance on it and says, you know what? I'll give you PSA 7 for this. CGC 9. I'll value it at that. And we'll figure it out from there. Maybe, Maybe. But most people, I can't do. I don't know what to do with this. I can't take that slab. I don't know what that's worth. And it's something you got to keep in mind when you're making your grading decisions. I know it sucks, but if you're like me, you got a stack like this just sitting there waiting for the floodgates to open up. And, you know, PSA probably knows that, and it's why they're not opening up, because they might have to just shut right down. Because there's a whole bunch of people like me who have a stack of cards waiting for the doors to open, waiting for Willy Wonka to open the gates again and start selling me chocolate so that I can grade my cards. Figure it out, psa. Why you got to figure it out. Yu-Gi-Oh you have to figure out a way to do it. And, guys, there's a whole episode there. I want you to understand why, because I know you're opening packs. I know you're opening Chrome Update, trying to find your Cooper flag. I know you're going to open tops trying to find Mendoza. You know, Fanatics has not shut down the printing machine because PSA is not grading. That's not the way they're. That's not the way they're going to do it. And you haven't stopped opening, and you haven't stopped buying cards. I wouldn't grade with any other company unless it's something you want to keep for a while. And that's an entirely different story. And you could basically erase the last 13 minutes and forget what I said. But if it's something you're trying to grade so that you can flip it quickly, you can grade with another company 100%, but expect to have to tell a story. Expect to have to explain why you're Beckett is a good grade, what it would be worth in a PSA slab and have to go through that kind of conversation, which, you know, for some people it's not a problem. But just I want you to be informed because I don't hear anybody else telling people this. I just hear people saying, PSA is closed. Use these guys. Oh, keep your card raw. Sell it raw. I'm going to tell you what will happen if you bring that stuff to a show. And it is a little bit more of a headache than you're probably expecting. And there you go. Why psa? Why? Well, why psa? Because they are the ones that people will buy and they're the ones that people know what they're worth. But why psa? Why are we still closed? Take that title however you want. And that's another episode here On a Monday, August 24, brought to you by Arena Club. Buy card ladder, use code cage and save yourself a couple bucks and buy the Philly Show. See you guys there. Take everybody. Sorry.