Bleeding Cool: How will you compete against the established competitors in this area? Will Collectors/PSA offer features that the others do not? What about issues like price point and turnaround times?
Elizabeth Gruene: We truly want to be a value add to the comic collecting community and address pain points that currently exist in the grading space. Some key areas where we can bring PSA’s deep expertise to this new category include: counterfeit protection with our best-in-class holders and thorough research and authentication process, a long history of autograph authentication and grading capabilities, and high standards for grading consistency and accuracy. We will offer attractive pricing and turnaround times that are in line with current offerings and put the utmost focus on customer service. PSA also has best-in-class technology that we will utilize to have a modern, customer friendly process for customers.
Elizabeth Gruene: PSA has put a lot of focus and energy to the broader Pop Culture space in the last few years. We have seen exponential growth across Pop Culture categories. TCG, for example, is a growing part of pop culture that has taken off in the US and internationally, and Pokémon has eclipsed baseball cards as PSA’s biggest vertical in the past three years. Nearly half (48%) of comic collectors also collect TCG or sports trading cards – adding Comics and Magazines to our portfolio is a natural progression to make our company a one-stop shop for this collecting community. We also see this as an opportunity to offer a superior grading option for this community of collectors – our holder is superior and the most counterfeit-proof and damage-proof solution for those looking to protect their precious items. Our team of experts across grading, pressing, operations, and beyond is top notch. We are the most trusted grading company and we intend to extend that trust to this new category.
This really is huge news. If they learn anything from CGC’s dominance over CBCS, it should be that the label matters to collectors. Hope they can address that and be successful.
Yeah I just can’t get over how absolutely massive this is. I actually never thought PSA would get into the comics grading sphere despite all the rumors simply because I thought there wasn’t enough money in comics grading for them to pursue it. Pokemon has exploded within the last couple of years and I’d thought they would devote more of their resources to that division.
The label leaves a lot to be desired, I’d always thought they look so generic on their graded cards but that has not stopped them from achieving the highest FMV in the card industry and also be the most trusted company. There is a certain prestige with the PSA label that hopefully will translate to the comic book marketplace.
My biggest problem with CGC (on top of all their shenanigans) is that I can’t trust them. They don’t have any integrity and it’s all about turning a profit. People trust PSA so hopefully this is a game changer. I will be an early adopter.
Great timing, no joke. I was finally about to sign up for a cgc elite account as I’ve been putting books aside that I’ve been picking up at conventions etc to be sent to cgc. I’ve been dragging my feet all these years because of all the problems cgc was having so this is great for me lol
In all seriousness, there will be some growing pains as PSA enters the hobby. We don’t even know who their “head grader” is. On their press release they did mention that the labels and cases are prototypes as they are going into pre production but they will listen to the market for feedback.
It’s most likely they’re trying very hard to keep their branding with the PSA labels but if the voices are loud enough they may listen down the road.
The worst thing that can happen is PSA enters the market and falls flat on their faces and pulls out of the grading game. If that were to happen CGC will have free reign to do whatever they want. It will mean there will be no more competition for them and there may never be another viable player entering the market any time in the future if people see a giant like PSA can’t be successful. CGC can go back to their shenanigans of raising their prices every 3 months, longer TATs etc.
We just need PSA to do “ok” and take a little market share away from CGC, just enough to make them sweat through the eyeballs a little bit. That would be the best for all of us.
This is the perfect time for PSA. Because CBCS sure hasn’t taken advantage of all the scandals and inconsistent grading of CGC…might as well be a newcomer.
Fair enough counterpoint @SpicyWasabi! I just feel PSA really goes wild with the card prices sometimes. Compared to what I see for CGC comics, at least.
I think part of the reason card grading companies get away with charging high prices for their card grading is that people pay silly prices for them. I don’t think they’ll be able to do the same with comics as most graded books nowadays are recent moderns and variants. PSA will still have to establish themselves in the market and if they overprice their services then they could potentially fail.
The biggest obstacle I see is that comic book collectors are so OCD that it’s ridiculous. They want everything to look the same, books all have to be the same size etc… I can see a large group of collectors not wanting to switch over to the new company because they’re already so invested with cgc and have so many cgc books in their personal collection.
So this is pretty interesting. Turns out our pal Dave was a consultant for PSA and had a hand in putting this together. This is pretty good news imo since Dave has always been really critical of the grading industry and would be able to convey to PSA the problems plaguing the industry.
Great to hear that PSA has a plan in place to be in it for the long haul despite the market downturn. Dave will have exclusive interviews with the people at PSA in his upcoming shows. Threw a little nugget in that he has some insider information that CGC is in panic mode (fantastic!)
I started working on reusing a model to train for grading purposes. The one I am assuming is … meh. More than likely building a new model from scratch is a better approach, but this would cost alot of money and compute resources.
