The Continued Amazonification of PSA

I talked about it during last week’s Clearing the Bases episode, but PSA’s Amazonification continued apace last week:

The easier they make it to grade and subsequently sell your cards, the more Amazon-like PSA is becoming. The company that nobody likes, but is by far the most-used.

Last month they worked on making it easier to enter cards for grading by eliminating the need to look up comps and entering declared value:

They introduced the straight-to-eBay sales program earlier this year, and now you can do a fixed-price listing instead of just auctions that start at $0.99.

Convenient!

I’ve worked in continuous improvement for more than a decade, and PSA is putting on a clinic.

What bothers people about the submission process? Fix it. What bothers people about the grading process? Fix it. What bothers people about the selling process? Fix it.

All in one place.

Even I, an avowed anti-vault collector, just submitted some slabs to the PSA vault so they can sell them for me on eBay. Like with Amazon, the simplicity and ease with which I can do things outweigh the things I dislike the company.

Mixed Bag

This Sports Cards Nonsense post is pretty nonsensical:

The top reply is pretty good, though:

2024 John Elway cards have no negative impact on Elway’s playing-days cards. If anything, it brings attention to Elway and improves his market in the short-term.

I might quibble a little with some of the other things John said, but in general I agree about this specific case.

I Am On Mantel

Mantel, a social media website for collectors, announced a new app last week. Since I do virtually everything on my phone, I finally signed up.

They’ll be introducing groups soon, and I anticipate having my own community there, which is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

Sports Cards, In General, Are Not Investments

There are, of course, exceptions, but the very general “sports cards are great investments” cry from the last 5 years hasn’t turned out great:

Some cards can be considered investments. Some players. Some higher grades.

But influencers screaming for you to just buy sports cards because they’re great investments is not the way to go.

🗣️ YouTube Comment Of The Week

Not a YouTube comment, but this made me slap my forehead because I didn’t think of it myself:

🎬 Upcoming Videos

I went out and got seriously organized last week, and now have lists of topics for both my channel and newsletter. It’s funny to be saying that after 3.5 years with my channel, but whatever.

• Another Attic Find Friday — I have a bunch of these again

• #64-60 of my ACE 100 list

• Amazing card room

• A subscriber’s amazing music card collection

📩 Upcoming Newsletters

• Topps and the case of the worsening collation

• An absolutely bonkers vintage and pre-war collection my friend Oliver saw parts of on Saturday and is trying to help the person sell

• Trimmed Ohtani card graded by PSA

• Swapped jersey patches

• A Paul Skenes card that surprised me

🎬 Channel Highlights From the Past Week

I did my first-ever best-of list:

🎁 My Pickup Of The Week

Nothing new, so I’ll re-up this from last week:

👻 Brief Horror Movie Review of the Week

Horror movies from 1995-2005 just hit differently for me. I don’t know if it’s because of the age I was at that time, or because of the movies themselves, but I tend to like them more.

This week I watched 2005’s House of Wax. I never would have thought to watch it without my friend’s surprising 5-star review, but I’m glad I did.

There’s nothing deep or amazing about this movie, but that’s not what I’m looking for. I just want to be entertained. And House of Wax delivered.

4/5 stars

It’s not a horror movie, but my wife and I also watched Netflix’s new action-thriller Carry-On and absolutely loved it. If you can suspend disbelief for a couple of hours, this is a thrill ride.

4/5 stars

🔗 Links:

Maine’s top small-business seller of popular sports trading cards is in Houlton — I can’t express how bizarre this is. Houlton is in the middle of nowhere in northern Maine.

Here’s a map of Maine, where I have circled Houlton and Portland:

It’s 3.5 hours north of me, and 4 hours north of Portland!

There is nothing near Houlton, and it’s on the rural Canadian border.

See Bangor, just to the lower-right of the MAINE in the center of the state? That’s as far north as I’ve ever been in my 45 years in Maine.

Actually, scratch that. I went to a wedding in 2004 in the Presque Isle area, which is quite north of Houlton.

More links:

Discovering an $813k Babe Ruth Card at a Yard Sale - What It’s Like to Bring $1M Cards to Auction (I did an Attic Find Friday on this topic recently)

Newly discovered carton of T206-era cigarette packs sells for $218k (also one I did an Attic Find Friday on recently)

Book With 1,000 Autographs Of Baseball Greats Part Of Taurus Auctions Sale

Trash to treasure: Man sells trading cards he found in a dumpster, donates earnings to local nonprofit

Aaron Judge's Dropped Fly Ball in World Series Sells for Nearly $45K

Topps aims for new era of MLB 'Logoman' cards