Alex: I

Jason: Welcome all collectors to another episode of Boomin' Sports Cards, the podcast where the hobby stays how and the card stays boomin'. I am one of your hosts, Jason.

Alex: And I'm Alex, today we'll be discussing PSA, the good, the bad, the ugly. So let's get right into it, shall we?

Jason: Alright, let's get into it. Today we're breaking down PSA aka Professional Sports Authenticator. good, the bad, the ugly. We're talking about the value boost that comes from PSA tons, the trust it brings to the hobby, but also the frustrations like lack of grading consistency, costs, and long turnaround time. Whether you're submitting cards or buying slabs, this is a conversation every collector needs to hear. So Alex, let's start right from the good. We love PSA Slabs. That's pretty much what both of us buy, right? Like, I don't think you have that many other companies, Slabs.

Alex: We do. The only thing I have besides PSA is that SGC card Not you see yeah SGC card of Roberto I bought from a shop for like 35 bucks. That's the only thing I have besides feels like besides ⁓

Jason: ⁓ yeah. I think I only have like one BGS and I got that for free at the national. It was like a Cooper flag.

Alex: for the free that's on screen.

Jason: Yeah, I was free. was like, yeah, hell yeah. But yeah, good. So it's pretty much the industry standard. That's the first thing that comes up with PSA. It's widely recognized, gold standard and card grading, PSA Slabs. It's most recognized across marketplaces and shows. Everyone knows PSA. They've been around, they were founded in 1991 but began grading in 1992. and introduced the 10 point grading system in 1998. So it's been a long time since PSA has been around and yet we'll get into the problems, but it's the standard right now in card grading.

Alex: So they've been around for a while, so they've been ripping people off for the last couple years. Crazy.

Jason: Yes, lot of ripping off. We'll get into them. We're talking the good first Alex. We love people. We love them. Yeah. So right now they're currently grading over 2 million cards per month. Arguably the biggest grading company out there. I don't think it's even arguable anymore because everyone wants those slabs. They grade bad cards. They grade good cards. Even controversial cards. We've seen some controversial cards they've been grading.

Alex: I know right? Man.

Jason: Don't want to get into that. But yeah, two million, 2.17 in April. In March, I'm sorry. What's your experience with PSA? What's a good part of your experience with PSA?

Alex: Um, so with PSA, uh, it's more automated than most, uh, places, uh, cause recently my email dad went over like automation or PSA versus BGS. BGS doesn't tell you when they get the cards. They don't tell you when it's getting slabbed. They don't tell you anything. They randomly arrive at your door out of like nowhere. And I don't know if it's a good thing or for me, I know I want to know if my things are being worked on.

Jason: Mmm.

Alex: Especially like if it's a good card my desk and a Ken Griffey out of I think was that a 25 or out of 10? He got like a patch out of a pack and he sends it to get greater because BGS is much better with patches But ⁓ he sent it. He said randomly he came in the mail and he didn't get any notification but ⁓ with automation with PCA it's that they tell you when the card arrives when they're working on it and you even have the chance to receive a notifications saying hey your cards are done we're gonna send them to you do you want to see the grades on your phone accept instead in person yeah I know

Jason: That's crazy. No notification on anything and you're sending like hundreds, even thousand dollar cards to BGS. I've seen that like the tracking and then they've had like a new animation where they reveal the card before you even grab it. That's kind of cool. Their app's not too bad either. I enjoy their app even just for authenticating the cards, making sure the serial number is correct. ⁓ So that's a good part of PSA. I like that part of the automation.

Alex: but the resale value ⁓ a PSA 10 versus a BGS SCC. There, there, there, could see it when you look at a card, like when, say if you pull up a, like, you're like a data on a card, pick a card you think of that you'd like the most reason.

Jason: I'm go with I'm gonna go with kangrifi. Just... young kangrifi.

Alex: You can't griffy. Um, yeah, if you go down the list of like if you're on market movers and you go down the list, you see the variations of like PSA nine versus PSA versus P uh, BGS nine versus SGC nine. You see the prep, the value drop maybe either, either it's the same value of the card by itself or a couple of dollars more, maybe a hundred. You're gonna be like, man, why are these, these are all nine. Um, BGS is much, much harder to grade, especially as you see.

Jason: Mm-hmm.

Alex: Cause the tiers for harder grading is goes from BGS to SGC. And then I think it's S C G C. Have you ever seen CGC?

Jason: Yeah, I've seen like there's a lot of new brands out there that like I don't even know what's going on. There's like I don't know if I should trust her or if they're better than PSA. But yeah, PSA is the standard and they hold the most value. mean, there's out there that don't want to buy anything else with PSA.

Alex: But yeah, those are the four companies and then the one that ranks on the bottom for on grading cards is ⁓ PSA. So that's weird. if I send myself to a harder grading place, I feel like it should be more valuable. Which is what is in some cases, say if you do get like a 10 for a BGS or a pristine on like SGC or CGC, yeah, the value triples but. It's kind of weird when we use PSA 10s, it's automatically just a grade value as soon as you get the 10 on a PSA, which is kind of interesting.

Jason: It is interesting. From research I've done, like, oftentimes they are worth more than 20 to 30 percent from competitors. So like one example being the Michael Jordan Flir rookie. A PSA 10 is 268,400. And an SGC 10 107,500.

Alex: So you're saying we can afford one?

Jason: So yeah, you're looking at a was it a hundred sixty one thousand dollar value? Between that, so it's because no one wants the STC, which is insane. Still Michael Jordan card, still the same grade. Maybe their standards are a little bit different, but at the end of the day, it's the same cards.

Alex: So with what most people do now is with, ⁓ I don't know if you've seen people like buy SGC nines and crack them and then send it to PSA to hope to get a nine or better. that is a thing that's, ⁓ people either do cross grading. They'll send the card over to PSA. They'll crack it open and regrade it. Some people just crack it open and send it to the PSA. cause you don't really lose in my opinion. ⁓ save like that Jordan card is, $5,000. 9 SCC 9 and if you get a 9 PSA, it's like $10,000 so so you

Jason: Yeah, I mean that name is just alone. Even if you get an aid, it's probably worth more or the same.

Alex: So was what most people do with the, the, order to like gain value or whatever money they have and they want like a better card and they don't want to buy a rock card, especially rock cards are like expensive rock cards are hard to grade because one, you don't know the authenticity. Like you got to see if it's real too. You don't know how the, the, what do call it? The quality is three. If you already have a car that's a nine and the grader is like super hard, like say BGS nine or SGC nine, those, those grades are hard to get or, and then you just crack it open and send it to PSCA. I bought it and I'm like, okay, this is pretty good. Boom. 10 automatically save some money. Only thing you really do spend is on grading and maybe the insurance also.

Jason: Mm-hmm. Yeah, which leads to another point authentication. So PSA is pretty much the standard for that. They do other things besides cards like helmets, autographs. It's kind of weird. Like there's a TikTok earlier this week that I saw that was like we've never seen we've only seen like hints of like their offices and how they authenticate. That's another thing. But for the general, they pretty much guarantee that they can check if it's authentic or not.

Alex: Um, they, so the way they check is that they have a, like a drawer of like ready, like on card autos are authenticated. they just like, they have people who just use like the something similar to like what's already written down. like you say if they have your auto already and they have like a picture of it, they'll compare them like, right, yeah, it's the right one. You can see by the E how you write these blah, blah, blah. And then they'll, they'll end up looking up the card too. So If the card is actually real, look up a list of cards in the checklist. But say if get it signed by somebody, they'll just check verification.

Jason: That's interesting. Yeah. According to Google, their authenticators conduct ink and analysis, autograph structure analysis like Alex said, object evaluation and side by side comparison. So there's multiple ways that they authenticate. Overall, I mean, I don't think I've seen too many fake. I know there was at one point, I think it was a messy who was a controversial autograph because they're saying like his is I think his brother was signing for him at one which is kind of funny. But I think they just stopped completely from him because they realized it was a problem. So they recognize that there's problems with some autographs. So that's why ⁓ trusted authenticators. know when there's a problem and when there isn't.

Alex: Yeah, um They also do like I think they give you a frame like, uh, know when we went to go get our autos from uh, modest They uh, they'll put the picture of him In in like a big, uh, like slab case And just say authentic authenticated so they know it's real

Jason: Yeah. I've seen that. Are they the same guys? I can't remember. Are they the same guys with like the authentically like hard books or is that a different?

Alex: Yeah, they do that. They just started doing it maybe like a couple years ago. ⁓ no, Dom and Ash, I think the people who really do it is CGC. They're really big on it. So if you see, think a blue one, Logan Paul.

Jason: Mmm. Okay. There's also like JSA, right? That's another guy.

Alex: Sound like that. think there's like so many rating companies that we, so many, so many, so many companies, so little money, so many cards, so many things you want to get created.

Jason: Three initial companies, yeah. very much. So leads to our final point of the good, protection and presentation. It's just a beautiful slab. When you have a PSA 10, Avidutani, have a Wemby, just looking at it, it looks beautiful. It's very uniform, it has the title, it has the grade, the condition. I love the slab. I feel like that's the main reason people come back to PSA. It's nice and clean, it looks nice. and it's a standard for grading.

Alex: Yeah, the thing with that is that, yeah, when you look at Jason's eyes, you can see the little glint in his eyes and he knows how beautiful that PSA stab is. yes.

Jason: TSC 10. Beautiful.

Alex: That was me when I got my PSA 10 Caleb x-ray and I was like man, this is what this is what feels good having a PSA 10 and then And then then I get a 9 I'm like Why am I receiving withdrawal symptoms? But overall why can't everything be a 10 it sounds like my dad he calls himself the nine guy because I Know right

Jason: This is what crack feels like. Why can't everything be a ton? I need more. ⁓ no, don't just don't repeat it too fast

Alex: He'll get a he said the last patch he sent a Pokemon just got a bunch of nines. He's like, know, I'm just a nine guy I clean the car to try to do my best and I'm just I said unfortunate but yeah overall great slab though. I think They've they have different ones. I think there's a clear one and that's like one that looks like I'm like what is like not clear was like I don't know what it is, but there's two variations of it I've been seeing online. Like I think it's an older one and the new ones now, but ⁓

Jason: That's unfortunate. I think I know what you're talking about. It's like more like texturized, right? It's like not super clear.

Alex: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, more texturized.

Jason: Yeah, I think I have one of those actually. That's kind of weird. think that's their older versions of it. I ⁓ I have Chris Brian ones like that. It's weird.

Alex: But overall, great. It says the modern slabs can be survived certain drops. So they have survived 15, 20 foot drops and even been run over at cars. I don't know who's throwing the slabs under the cars or dropping them for 20 feet. ⁓

Jason: something like Patrick Williams PSA so I just got ran over.

Alex: fine with that. I could just like if I'm really if I'm really mad at the bulls I'll just throw my Patrick Williams card at the one see if it's like ⁓

Jason: I mean like it's Gerber Pollen in the first place.

Alex: And like, great. I thought you were going to be the new Kauai Leonard, but you were not. But yeah. Real durable. We're kind of. Well, I know, like we try to crack, try to crack a PSA slab. It's difficult to do and maybe.

Jason: Yeah. So they're very durable. Yeah, because they're in case like even inside it's like they're in us know like a sleeve right from what I've heard when I've seen

Alex: No, not in the sleeve. They're just like encased in like a heart of plastic because um, I think in the car laska moments they've updated the slabs that make it a little harder so people can't can't read like grade their cards so the plastic's a little bit harder and um So yeah, you're gonna have a harder time. So there's there's way people people have opened open a slab with like a bottle opener or a

Jason: I some dude like bite it, man. It was weird. He like did it with his teeth and just cracked it. I'm like, this dude's insane. Yeah, but like another good part of it is like the scratch sensitivity. There's not that many scratches that comes out. They accumulate like micro scratches overall from like stacking and handling. But like, to be honest, I don't see like once with like a big scratch out there or like something that's like pretty much covers the whole case.

Alex: This dude's insane.

Jason: They're pretty good with that.

Alex: I ⁓ if you get a big scratch on it, they do recases. if like it does something, does break, think somebody who does break their case or like something's name wrong or some lower case, but that's always like extra money. labs are not are not airtight. So don't think that your house floods and your cars are fine. Water does get into everything. ⁓ know Drake make is they stay and watch you from the beach, right?

Jason: Don't go swimming with them. Don't go swimming with them.

Alex: He can hang a Tom Brady on the lawn chairs while he goes swimming in the

Jason: Yeah, he can watch you swim from afar. ⁓

Alex: While they protect from light, moistures or rain, are water resistant, not waterproof, and can suffer damage if submerged. All right. And let's see what a deliberate cracking because the new slabs are more flexible. They are slightly harder to crack, which brings me back to the point. Yeah, it's just not be hard to crack. Don't bite the bone. Don't bite the slabs. All right,

Jason: to invite him, please. I don't want to get a Ben Slav at a show or something. I do have one that's like cracked, like one of the sides got cracked. a John Moran, like I think it's the one I told you that I can't regret buying. I home and then I looked and I was like, why is this like, it's chipped pretty much on the side. I'm like, it's whatever.

Alex: What was that? He Guys, he threw it because he knows what's going on with John Rand, so he knows that we can do it.

Jason: He's a he's a real shooter. All So now let's go to the bad price. lot. It a lot to grade. ⁓ Prices are up every year. ⁓ seems like We'll start from top ⁓ value book. Twenty dollars value. Thirty two dollars value plus forty nine dollars value max. You just keep adding more words to these pricing. methods. $65 regular $80 express $150. They like making money.

Alex: I'm just waiting for like the ultra fast pass pro.

Jason: Ultra mega week. Yeah, I I bet there is. I bet there's for like higher spenders be like, ⁓ you get it next year if you spend if you give us a thousand dollars.

Alex: in the way for like the iPhone number iPhone pro like names ⁓ express pro max next day shipping that's five thousand dollars well yeah

Jason: express pro yeah plus minus yeah so like they charge so much and just for you to get like a nine or eight and you're

Alex: Yeah, it is crazy. And then the thing they don't add on to this is that you might think it's $25 by itself. It's not. It's plus the insurance to ship it and ship it back. Say what my dad does when we ship ourselves with you, we directly take it to UPS because you get over a thousand dollar cards in there. You're not going to just let the mailman take it.

Jason: Yeah, let's not risk that.

Alex: You're to have to add at least $60 worth of insurance to cover the whole thing. Um, let's add, add $60 between how many cards you have in there, maybe a couple more dollars each. But the other thing is, uh, save you have a super value card, say like a downtown and it's a.

Jason: Let's wait for upcharges. We got that further on.

Alex: Now, yeah, we're going to talk about the upcharges, but the turnaround.

Jason: Yeah, but like the price is just a base price. It's increasing every year. mean, how much did it increase? Like five blocks or more this past year?

Alex: It was 20 when we started, man, when we started last year, it was like $21 and then they have to pay their PSA people guys. They got to pay area 51 and they have to bring out the prices.

Jason: Yeah, they got aliens grading chat. ⁓ Yes. So. grading prices, they keep increasing, which leads to our second point, turnaround time. They're going up yet. Yet again, their price, their business days of how much they take to grade your cards is going up as well. I mean, your base, your value book, 95 days and your ⁓ your most regular price, which costs 80 dollars is 25 business days.

Alex: to not wear it for $24. He had one these grading his own parts.

Jason: $80 for 25 businesses. That's still insane to me. Like who's behind that?

Alex: Tom Brady. Tom Brady. But yeah, the turnaround. ⁓ asked the other day, how long, is the turnaround for like his if he's going to give us a car? I'm like three months. And he's like, God damn it. ⁓

Jason: Yeah, like it's even worth like there's like things like ⁓ yeah, they just gone down a value since I sent it It's not even worth I wanted the car to be sold as

Alex: I like it's a big marketing. You feel like you got to send it in as soon as you get it. And I'm just like, spend the freaking $80 to hope that it gets a nine or 10 and hope that value stays with it. But yeah, certain round times have gone up. We just sent one last month and that's going to be bad. It's going to be the week before the nationals. I'm going get those to the nationals. I'm going to be hit with a $200 charge. And the next one that

Jason: Mm-hmm That's insane.

Alex: Jason wants to get on, it's probably going to be September.

Jason: Like chat, is that even worth it?

Alex: It is all the cards for the PC.

Jason: They pretty much kidnapping my cards for to eight months

Alex: They're holding car as hostage and they're like pointing at you and like do you want me to grade this or not?

Jason: Yeah, right? it's like, like, here's the thing. It's like advertising. 95 business days. That's more than more like 130, 170 because they don't count weekends. They don't count holidays. It's pretty much when they have when they have a business day, they'll they'll possibly get to your cart.

Alex: Yeah, the thing is that no one really tells you you gotta add 10 days on to that by the way This might it might be 95 days. You gotta add 10 days to it It's one it's literally 105 because um PSA they take forever to open up your order so um So like if they get it they won't work on it for maybe like a week or two

Jason: That's some bullshit.

Alex: Maybe it's usually 10 days. don't open the box 10 days and start working on it. So you're thinking like, all right, cool. They got it. They want nose. Not day one. They still haven't opened it. They're still working. They're going to work on it next week by chance. Whoever's on the book shop block is like, all right, I'm getting Jason's order. I'm going to work on it. Or we're eventually get around to it. So it's an additional 10 days, which kind of sucks.

Jason: That's brutal, Like, it's so discouraging, like wanting to send out these cards. I'm like, just for it to come a nine and it's already more than $20 to slab. I don't know. That's crazy. Which leads to another big problem, subjectivity and grading. I remember seeing a post, I think it was on Reddit as well. It's stated like, oh, I'm a PSA.

Alex: That's crazy.

Jason: greater and if you put on higher value, higher like grading system, grading, if you go like value max or ⁓ express, are likely to be more lenient towards your grading. I'm like, that's absurd.

Alex: That is bull crap. is bull crap.

Jason: It is. is. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. We're sending him more money. like, he's like, yeah, we're more lenient if we see like scratches or like if it's off centered a little bit. We'll give you that 10 instead of like a guy who goes value. We'll probably give him a nine. I'm like, oh, and you're saying this as online. So subjectivity, they are dog shit.

Alex: You're saying this while you're online. We can talk so you know where live,

Jason: Legit like legit you know just because someone spends a little bit more money They are gonna be nicer to your cards what

Alex: That's bull because I sent my Cooper flag for what is it? The regular per $80 max 25 days turnaround. I got a freaking eight on that crap. So I think he's bull crapping. I think.

Jason: They just didn't like your name, Alex. It's like, fuck this guy, Alex. He's from Illinois? Fuck him.

Alex: No, this is like they just They He's from the way. He's a bulls man. He's a kid. I'm a cream base fan. I'm gonna fuck his day up

Jason: Yeah, fucking fucking Minas Cooper. I'm a con fan over here. yes, subjectivity, it's all about how that human judges your cards, that human judges your center and your surface, your edge, your corners. They're not consistent at all.

Alex: Fuck him in the scooper. thing is to my dad had figured out was that because PSA is in LA, right? It's California ⁓ He had sent a tiger kawaii Card and I got an eight and my dad didn't know why I got me and then there was no they usually put notes But sometimes they don't It's all corners of fine standing is fine and we all got around to him We just figured out that it's LA people don't need like the Clippers and they don't really like quite

Jason: I think so,

Alex: So you get them it's cool. It kind of made sense like yeah, they don't really fuck kawaii like that So maybe that's why they got a freaking I was like fuck ⁓

Jason: Some bullshit. That's insane. dude's a diehard Lakers fan and he said, fuck why, we're ⁓ rocking with him. But yeah, it's insane, like there's subjectivity, we've seen cases where they cross-grade through different grading companies and sometimes they get a higher PSA grade, like maybe like six tries later, which is insane to see the difference, because what does a month make a difference in consistency in that card? It's ridiculous.

Alex: It was ridiculous. The human element because our human grades are inconsistent arise sometimes leading to the same card receiving different grades upon submissions Yeah, just you're somehow gonna get a freaking on my that's why I wanted to submit my ⁓ piet Cooper flag hoping to get a 9 so an 8 but They're gonna screw me on it Micro PC 10's gemint quite new perfection meaning Microsoft flaws that one greater miss is not my catch I don't know how they do it within the minute because they have women in per card. So they're going to I feel like in the bullcrap on them, they're like, see a little dimple that's not really there. So I'm going to that's going to be. ⁓

Jason: That's ridiculous. It's so dumb. A minute per card is ridiculous. what they just like, scroll on TikTok and like, just move past cards. They're like, yeah, that's a nine. Hold on, let me watch this video. ⁓ that's a two.

Alex: Yeah. If it was me, I'd probably give everybody a 9. But be fair, I wouldn't get every ni- If it's terrible, yeah, I'd give it. But if it's nice, be like, alright the only thing that's wrong with this is a 7, 9. But I can't, you can't push it.

Jason: Just to make the news, I'll give like the most off-center card like a 10. Just to fuck around. If I was a grader. It'd be like the most scratched off-center card. Yeah, that's a fucking 10, man.

Alex: Thanks, man. I'll take it. Freaking $10,000 card. then everybody's looking at you like, really? You gave that guy a 10, but you won't give me my fucking near perfect card, a 10?

Jason: Fuck it, man. It's so hard to get tons from what I've heard. I haven't done too much grading myself. But like, yeah, it's damn near impossible. mean, with the subjectivity they have, they look at eye appeal. mean, it's a guessing game overall.

Alex: do. Feels like I'm freaking modeling my cards. Whoa.

Jason: Yeah. And then even if, yeah, even if they do grade a 10, you get up charges. Alex, what's your experience with up charges? I know you've gone through it.

Alex: So you like winning, right Jason?

Jason: I love winning, mostly in gambling I love winning. I love money.

Alex: Alright besides that So with the save you have a 10 or 9 and it's an expensive card save it to downtown and it does well 9 That's your jackpot You spending some more money on PSA is a good jackpot Let's go you if you opened up your receipt and you're like, oh crap $500 in insurance, you know like oh shit

Jason: So the jackpot, that's my jackpot. I hit the jackpot. You gotta turn. Let's go.

Alex: I want something fun, something good. Thank God. but yeah, so with, uh, they'll charge you automatically. say if you bring, uh, the charger shipping charger for insurance, the charge for cards you send in, um, and then there's all their like other fees, uh, save like you selected to get the auto graded and the card that's the more, um, so yeah, just if you're, if you're winning and you're happy about paying more on PSA and you're like alright cool I got a 9 or 10 on these cards and then probably it's probably the most expensive one so when your time's ready just hit 9 guys congrats

Jason: Day. That's unfortunate. Yeah, that from what I've heard, they pretty much give you an upcharge if the cards valued more than what you initially selected. The grading thing, grading value. They send you like a pay now link, like, come on, man, just let me have my card. They pretty much hold your card until you pay that they won't release it or ship it back. So ⁓ you've to create that. I wonder what they do if you don't. They probably just upgrade it and just send it back.

Alex: something. Sometimes they'll just take the money out of your account. That's why most people put credit cards on file like my parents do they put like credit cards just in case like it does come back early and expected They're not gonna be hit with a thousand dollar fee. Don't know what out of the debit card. I'm like great. I don't have money to like for that Yeah, so they they don't really so yeah, I think they'll charge you man. No matter what card you have and it's lot of being expect unexpected like

Jason: I'll be bogus.

Alex: You might wake up tomorrow and be like, why am I missing a thousand dollars? Oh crap, my PSA order went through and they're going to tell me the results and then like, like by today. So yeah, it will get hit with the feet. Just.

Jason: Is it true that like it's pretty much based on like the market value of that of that card, which are charged?

Alex: Yes, uh, uh save like my dad's from an anthony card, uh, it's worth a thousand dollars by itself Uh psa not psa 10 just uh, it's sold for 5 000 because somebody just sold it for 5 000 the other day Um, they're gonna upcharge you for the insurance fee So they're gonna have to find I think it's like an additional hundred dollars for one card to Just to cover it just in case they screw up and they get they gotta pay you back

Jason: Hmm.

Alex: And and and it adds up to because all cards are insurance so it's not individually So say like all your cards come out to be over a thousand dollars each they're gonna have put you're gonna have a person on insurance on that what you get charged, so You might be thinking I'm gonna spend thousand dollars on these cards Add on the five thousand not the five thousand five hundred

Jason: just to say he's 5000 at that point. just buy it graded.

Alex: I know, buys just migrated and you end up getting another 50 like you're like, Oh, okay. A thousand or 1500. What the hell? All my cards hit, but I'm It's satisfying feeling. you, you know, you hit something and then now you just got to pay the price.

Jason: You hit the jackpot boy, you gotta pay the fees, the IRS. Okay, so now let's go into the ugly, the very ugly. PSA, it's been around for so long, yet they still have problems. One of the problems is pretty much the card industry itself. We have an obsession for PSA tons.

Alex: found a fluvies virus I PSA 10s, they're my favorite.

Jason: Everyone wants that PSA 10 if it's a PSA 9 like we said, it's dropped a couple hundred dollars People don't want PSA nines. I don't I don't really don't care if it's a PSA 9 I do want like certain players of PSA 10 like I mentioned to Alex I want a PSA 10 of Drake May Because that's my goat. So I want a PSA 10 But like for example, we both have like a Kobe Bryant rookie card. That's like an eight and we're like

Alex: TROPE!

Jason: That's a dope card. It's a rookie card. That's his base rookie card. It's not worth like the 10 or 9, but it's a dope card. But other people are like, I need 10. Anything besides 10 is a loss. We don't want 10s our collection, non 10s in our collection.

Alex: Yeah The price difference for that copy card and you mentioned um, I have an eight and that's like 140 then like the nine I think a nine is like 200 bucks then and when it's a tens at 15, so the price jump on that is crazy

Jason: Yeah, people just love 10s. get it. ⁓ supposed to be perfect. But like, we like being much before its subjectivity. They they can actually be an eight. Who knows? With good PSA. But yeah, PSA 10s. Everyone loves them in the in the grading community. And that's why they start charging more because people want the 10s. So it's just just a ladder of people wanting 10s. ⁓

Alex: People want the tunes.

Jason: Number three, we're going into number two. I'm sorry of this part. Cracking and resubmitting. So like we mentioned, lot of cards are great to poorly mates that that grader has a bad day. And maybe his dog ran away, his dog got ran over. His his wife took the dog. I don't know. I'm just talking about dogs nowadays. But yeah.

Alex: wife left

Jason: So there's multiple occasions where like a Ken Griffey Jr. card was a PSA 6. Dan translated to a BGS 9.5, which is insane. That fluctuates from like over a thousand dollars, hundreds and thousands of dollars just from cracking and resubmitting the cards. that's a big problem with PSA. Your grades aren't CERN. They can be something else in a couple of months if you crack it.

Alex: That is true. That's why people do a lot of cracking, resubmitting, cross grading. They would perfectly, I mentioned earlier, that's why most people do like CGC. They'll find like something, cause CGC is harder at grading. Cause I think they use some AI to upgrade their stuff. And same thing with Begit. So people will just crack open a CGC nine and resubmit it to a PSA, not like a PSA submission, hope to get a nine or 10. Cause the value difference is remarkable. Cause like a.

Jason: Mm-hmm.

Alex: Wanted a LeBron James rookie card and the CGC is 400 and then if it gets a 9 it goes up to $800 or 9 10 is 15 which is kind of great crazy, which is kind of crazy

Jason: Yeah, I mean, everyone wants that PSA. Another thing like it leads from like cracking cards, population reports increase. There's artificial scarcity questions like if that card really that rare, is there really that many cards in the market of that card? So it leads to that because people want the best grade, so they'll keep cracking the card until they get the the card grade they desire. So inconsistency overall. hurts the and the market in general. So that's a big problem, cracking and resubmitting PSA cards.

Alex: I know Jason just told me I'm the problem. That's what it is.

Jason: You are the problem. Stop cracking these cards. I don't know. It's up to you. I don't care. I don't care. Just give me a second.

Alex: Up to you grading controversies Accutations over the year and consistently favoritism. No proven systematic wrongdoing, but widely debated in the hobby, which is kind of Social media amplifies bad grade stories What is grad grade story to you? Jason? What is the world today?

Jason: ⁓ I feel like the one that has been, that happened last year was the allegations that PSA bought cards back from the sellers. Cause yes, PSA does buy cards back from the sellers. If you don't want that card, they give you possibly price, probably less than market price. ⁓

Alex: No. Give you like 70 % which is crazy.

Jason: Yeah. But they bought those cards were initially a PSA nine. And then next thing you know, that same serial code appeared as a PSA ton. And no one was notified. And the person submitted those cards saw it on the market and is like, what is going on? Where's the transparency in this?

Alex: Which is crazy because why isn't it like a Pokemon card or something? Yeah, which is weird because ⁓ Because I guess he just started I think they just started selling cards, which is weird So you automatically say save you get your list of cards that when you get to open them on the phone They'll tell you how much the value is the use card letter. They'll tell you how much the value is

Jason: Yeah, that's a Pokemon, I wanna say, yeah.

Alex: Afterwards they offer you I think 80 % or 75 % on what the card is worth Then they'll pay you out and they'll go put the full price of the card out Like oh I saw this for I bought this off for 70. I'm gonna go sell this for 100 now It doesn't really save the house. You get more money selling it

Jason: Yeah. Yeah, and like their response to this was like, ⁓ yeah, senior review upgraded some of these cards there was internal quality control check, but denied any fraudulent intent. I'm like, any fraudulent intent? You were trying to make money off this dude's cards.

Alex: stack hot.

Jason: That's super shady in general. Yeah, you got caught. If no one would have said anything, if the dude didn't notice, no one would have said anything and you would just make a couple more hundred dollars.

Alex: Yeah, we have the this is P and then we got one where it says PC lost my $25,000 cards. I see this on eBay.

Jason: Yeah, that's another big one. That's one why I sent you on Instagram where, yeah, go ahead, Alex.

Alex: This is lost 25k of my cars and I see them listed on eBay PSA off 50 % of my envy settlement and I want an NDA agreement I wonder and then it says honestly, I need some advice because the situation feels insane. I share my experience below To recap PSA lost my cards. They the exact cards are currently listed on eBay Police report has been filed PSA settlement offers is 50 % of my reason of envy. What the f... NDA required me Of me and if we sell the cartridge service, they require me to buy it back on my own. ⁓ my goodness.

Jason: Yeah, so like these cards resurfaced. this dude's like, ⁓ PSA told me they lost my cards, okay. They are worth $25,000. They're like, yeah, that's my bad. PSA's like, that's my bad. We'll give you $12,500 for that. And ⁓ must sign an NDA to release this, to release anything bad from happening. He's like, what the heck? And then he sees this card on eBay. was selling and it's like, what is going on?

Alex: Looks like senior Drake may like you love so much on Ebang. Wait, I know that. That's my card. Why is it up there?

Jason: Yeah, it's supposed to be lost. What's going on? And then the dumbest thing is like, ⁓ if these cards do resurface after I settle, it requires them to buy them back and pretty much give the money back. They like, ⁓ you got them. That's the dumbest thing.

Alex: kind of, ⁓ do call it? Kind of nerve wracking. Like we send cards every, like every couple of months and ⁓ imagine seeing them on there.

Jason: Yeah, and like they think like people won't speak up, which is the most ridiculous thing ever. They try to do some shady stuff. They're overall just a monopoly and not and not the not the board game, maybe the board.

Alex: Not the guy with the mustache. Maybe there is a guy with a mustache there, but not that guy.

Jason: Yeah, he's trying to steal your money. is a robber.

Alex: The thing that my dad started doing when he started sending just to keep So he takes a picture of the cars he's sending to PSA just to show he knows what the ⁓ was before they send it back. Because he telling me the other day that when we got the Cooper flag and everything, because he sent the Stefan Castle on-card auto that he got. He got an 8.5, which is kind of crazy because the car looked fine. I thought it would get a 9. ⁓ there was damage on there and he didn't damage it. So he went back to the picture and he's like, yeah, I didn't damage that My knew he couldn't do anything because they're not gonna do anything. My dad's like those bastards

Jason: That's so shitty. Yeah, your dad does a lot of grading. I know I asked you what his opinion was on PSA. What do you have for us? What did Senor Gray

Alex: father the quote of the day the company owns the company that owns PSA is a monopoly has too much control PSA is where where people want to be I want to go because they still benefit from it, which is true If you might hate the company, but you do benefit from the most and it's from senior grenade your son senior gray and hobby fanatics That's ⁓ name on eBay Yeah, by ⁓

Jason: Yeah. Shout out hobby fanatics, buy your stuff. But yeah, Monopoly. mean, they just bought BGS. that, wasn't that right? Is that the company?

Alex: Yeah, so the company that bought that owns uh, psa They uh, it's called universal collectors or a collector universe something like that. I don't know what channel it is, but it's the name they just bought, uh bgs and I think the own cgc or sgc I don't know what they own. I think they own sgc too So yeah, it's a big company that owns a lot of these grading companies. So You got one that's automated. You got one that doesn't tell you uh that doesn't really tell you what's going on with your card. And you got another company that does it within two weeks, but it's not as much as the PSA. So which is kind of crazy.

Jason: Mm-hmm. That's insane. Yeah, and those stories are allegedly we're not trying to get sued by but PSA, okay These are stories they're not our stories you don't know if it's a hundred percent real But this is what's out there and this is what the catching buzz on social media I've seen multiple posts about PSA's horror stories like this Yeah, yeah, that's that's probably the same John John 316

Alex: These are just stories we see on our mind. John PSA, don't sue us. through joystick streaming.

Jason: ⁓ But yeah, so PSA, a lot of good, lot of bad, a lot of ugly. There's, it's pretty much up to you. Obviously you'll make a lot of money if you get that PSA done, but there's a lot of risk. There's a lot of reward. Just keep an eye out on what PSA is doing. Track everything like Alex said, make sure to document your cards before sending them out. And yeah, anything else about PSA you want to say, Alex?

Alex: Yes, there's two phrases for me one is gambling also sending your stuff to ⁓ a is gambling Same as opening cards, but you can't expect everything being a ten So when you're the stuff to PSA, ⁓ let's just at it. Try the best to Try to eyeball it before you send it because you're gonna send something Without eyeballing it. You're gonna be mad that you paid over thirty dollars for a slab card. That's not even worth thirty dollars It's me like an eight And then the last thing is, what do call it? think that's it. Yeah. That's all I had to.

Jason: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a pretty much pretty much a gamble. This company in general. So now let's move on to collector's corner. That's the end of our PSA segment. So now it's collector's corner. So we're looking at players on the radar. So my the guys I really want to buy this week or this upcoming month, because the month's pretty much over. I want to get an Erlacher, Otto or a zebra. So just a quarter lacquer card for my collection. Rainier Montgomery. Dude's going crazy. I've been telling Alex I need this dude to auto, but I don't want to spend that much money. And then Cam Ward. Dude just I got another prism of his, got to need to get more of his cards. He got Carnell Tate, a big wide receiver from Ohio State and Wendell Robinson. So dude has a lot of potential to do a lot of good things.

Alex: big zebra. What's a nice auto.

Jason: That's when it was on my radar. What about yours, Alex?

Alex: Um, so been hearing the big, uh, big fat, like big names like South, uh, South Stewart from the Reds. He's been killing it. He's in the MVP, uh, talks and he's also in the rookie of the year stock. It was just crazy. Cause I was looking at the odds this week. He's on there. He's in the lead for, uh, he's part of the discussion. He's also in the lead for, uh, the rookie of year and his cards are blowing up. And I was trying to see if I had some at home, which I don't know if in the Reds.

Jason: Is this the Filti's guy? Reds. Okay, I knew it was a red team. just, yeah.

Alex: So yeah, I got a I think I just got his base I don't have nothing besides that and I went to the store because ⁓ had the just I just Spent a crap ton on my car ⁓ I wanted to get a sunny drink the were filling the Whatever the the cases and everything everybody's waiting for heritage baseball because they want a South story card so bad and I'm like Jesus told my dad this and he was like, this could change next month. This guy could be in the running and not be in the running next month. It doesn't matter what's happening. It matters at end of the year. was like, you're right. ⁓

Jason: Yeah. Just look at Rowan Anthony, bro. He's struggling really bad and he was like the hottest player in the market for the longest.

Alex: I know. Thank God I buy anything expensive. But yeah, um, onto the next one is Monotaka from the White Sox. Uh, they just released the tops chrome black, expensive, uh, spots are like $200 because everybody wants to get his auto. Um, he's killing it for the White Sox. I wanted to see how much an auto was online. Can't find any that are like not authentic. It's cause Every time I see one online, it's part of the card and I don't know if it's an auto or it's part of the card. So I've been trying to find a nice card of his, but it for the players for me. ⁓

Jason: Mm-hmm. Yeah, a lot of good players. Yeah, I've also looked for tomorrow. He is like first top snark card when he has like being introduced as like 20 bucks. He used to go for like six bucks in the offseason. So his cards are rising and we can't wait for update because he's probably going to be in it and McGonagall and all those guys.

Alex: He is going to be an update just out post. This is crazy.

Jason: Yeah, so now let's move on to experiences. the weekend, we went to a game changer sports cards only card show about a lot of good stuff. We had a lot of great deals. We were there for like an hour, but we through that show with a bunch of cool cards.

Alex: Uh, yeah, great experience. I understand why Jason goes so early because it wasn't really overwhelming. Uh, we were there maybe the first people there. Um, we didn't get ripped off either. Um, I think the thing that I took out of is that there was when you get there early, there's not a lot of people. So you have more time to like think and like a prices and have better time to like negotiate. Um, Jason me picked up a lumpy in your mall card that was $8 and it was going for 18, which was kind of great.

Jason: Yeah, the early bird gets the worm. That's for sure. mean, I've always gone the earliest time possible just because, yeah, it gets really busy during the afternoon. By the time we leave, more people start coming in. Yeah, you just get better deals. Obviously, throughout the day, these vendors probably put more cards out. But we get first dibs on what's available. Alex got a really cool cosmic Caleb Williams.

Alex: Thank Yeah, good luck that well the Got it for 45. It's going for 50 right now price went up um It's it was easy to negotiate because i'm not like One i'm not swamped by people because people are crowded and you're like smelly and you're like I can't concentrate. They're like all right fucking 50 bucks Give me that shit and then you're like, all right cool. I have time to breathe Hanging out with jason having a good time like hey, can you do 45 for this? He's like, yeah boom May 5th, $5 off that. throughout the show, was pretty great.

Jason: Yeah. Yeah, you get like more conversations with these vendors. It's not that much transactional. We talk ball with these vendors. It's not just, ⁓ can you do this price? Let me get that price. Yeah, it's a better experience when there's ⁓ swamp like the sports spectacular. You were swamp. You were just waiting to get the attention of ⁓ buyer, of the seller. sorry. Yeah, it's just a great experience. ⁓ loved going to their ⁓ here in Joliet. So I'm excited for the next one.

Alex: Yeah, great deals. Everybody was really nice. think Nobody I think it throughout the day people together a little more angry or more annoyed So I think it's hard to negotiate with people but when we got there people were easy to negotiate talk to Me Jason didn't really struggle. We got really good deals. Um for me, I got picked up a Cooper flag base card And it was 12 was going for 24 got that a couple other base cards of his I overall paid 37 and the whole thing came out to 60 bucks if I did the math right on it. So we made really good deals on it and overall it was a really great show.

Jason: Yeah, big W. Yeah, got a lot of second year quarterbacks got. is it some a prism ⁓ shook like Jackson Dart, purple card for what's called shock, whatever purple shock, a nice VJ that's red, white and blue. So, yeah, a lot of dope cards. Colson Montgomery, ⁓ Colson Montgomery crazy today and yesterday as well. Got his auto. But yeah, cool experience.

Alex: Jason got a good deal on a Drake May card, which was kind of great. He loves Drake May. What's the X Factor? No, we're at Drake May. He's been trying to buy my cards from me. He's like, you know, you're at Drake May's. It's not how it works, I would like to have something nice of his too.

Jason: I'm trying to think what trick maker I could get. ⁓ yeah, my X-Fractor. I've been waiting so long to get that card. I just love it. I'm so happy. Yeah. W. I get all the trick me.

Alex: ⁓ the Drake Maze. That's gonna do it for today's episode of Boomin' Sports Cards. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to give us a follow on social, wherever you will enjoy podcasts. Stay ripping, stay collecting, and remember, the hobby's always boomin'. We'll catch you another next time. See

Jason: See ya.