PSA Officially Involved In Repacks?

A very late addition to the newsletter, right before I went to bed Sunday night.

A week after everyone told me PSA wouldn’t get into repacks, PSA appeared to be getting involved in repacks:

My friend Jon sent me those screenshots, received via email directly from PSA on Sunday afternoon. They appeared to be partnering with courtyard.io on these.

In case you have any doubts about it coming from PSA:

I was so sure PSA was getting involved with repacks, and all the potential conflicts, but I was probably wrong. Sooz, a highly-respected and much more knowledgeable person than I, replied to my tweet:

You can tell I’ve never worked in Marketing, I guess.

More:

I’m glad to have been wrong.

Best Card Shop Criteria

Last week I stopped in at PB Collectibles in Newport, RI, and asked if it could be the best sports card shop in New England:

This led to a bunch of you disagreeing and suggesting your favorite shop, rather than engaging in the prompt, which was:

What criteria should we use to determine the best sports card shop?

For me, I should have been more clear that I prefer singles, and specifically vintage. Even more specifically, I want to see rookies and big cards of some of the GOATs. And PB checked that off better than any I’ve seen.

After that, off the top of my head and in no particular order:

• Engaged owner / employees

• Knowledgeable owner / employees

• Clean shop

• Organized shop

• Room to easily view all of the items on display

• Variety of items, including memorabilia, preferably vintage

• Fair prices / willing to negotiate

• Wax wall is the least important to me, but I still like it

PB had the kinds of cards I want to buy. And what could be more important than that?

One note on fair prices: it’s not the most important thing here to me because they can have fair prices, but if they don’t have anything I want to buy then it doesn’t do me any good.

I ask you to answer my poll, and if you choose other, please tell me what is your top criterion:

A Reader’s PB Collectibles Story

Reader / viewer Mike emailed me about PB Collectibles:

Here’s Mike’s Jackie:

The Vermont Collection Progress Is Slow

I thought I’d spend more time during my month off finishing up my work on the Vermont Collection. Instead, I’ve been out doing awesome things with my family, who didn’t seem that interested in the weeks leading up to my month off. No regrets, obviously.

I did reach a big milestone, though: I have gone through every single card that isn’t in a factory set.

I also sent two T205s off to SGC on Saturday. One of them is a semi-rare Cycle back, so I’m kind of excited to see what it grades and to sell it.

I also stopped by my local dump and noticed that all of the cards I’ve dropped off are gone. I asked the guy who runs the place, and he said a local teacher came by and took them. Fantastic news!

Next up is listing all of the complete sets in a Google Sheet and offering them up for sale. Then going through all the singles I’ve set aside and creating player lots for sale.

I haven’t yet decided how I’m going to sell everything. Whatnot is super-easy, and it’s a nice way to interact with my followers while they buy. I’m leaning that way.

Upcoming Videos

LCS visits!

#100 on my Attainable Collection of Envy

Channel Highlights From the Past Week

My most fun video last week was my lookback at three years on YouTube on my third anniversary:

It was far from popular, but I enjoyed doing it and the people who did watch it seemed to enjoy it.

My Pickup Of The Week

When longtime viewer Nick offered me this John Havlicek rookie card at an extremely reasonable price, I couldn’t say no.

Links:

Victor, The Rookie Card Specialist, has written a book called True Rookie Cards! I pre-ordered it, and you can too.

In Hobby News Daily, Jason writes some great tips on how to start a vintage card collection.