9 More Trimmed 2009 Trout Elite Extra Edition Autos Sold via PWCC

[Cubsfanp]

Originally Posted by mattglet

Ah yeah, good point. I was caught up in the "decreasing reputation == someone else can/should jump in and strike while the iron is hot" thought process. The brand awareness (no matter what kind of beating it's taking right now) and built in customer base should not be underestimated - for now.

I wish this were true, but what would make me fearful to invest in this from the ground up, would be PSA or BGS simply doing the same thing - and now you are in a deep hole to dig out of.

[pewe]

Originally Posted by mattglet

Your abstract idea is good, your reductionist plan is less good There is a whole lot more involved than "plug and play" - it will take literally years to build up a system that is 100% successful. But if someone is able to successfully tackle that elephant, they will be market leaders for sure.

You'd be surprised about how quick you could set this up. The software development effort for the basic version is very quick (like 1 person <1 week) - most of the math is open source.

The bigger point will be choosing the right algos, and training the system. The beauty is there are lots of high-res shots of existing BGS cards that are graded, so you can quickly get a good bead on centering, corners, edges... the surface is probably the hard one, as the images won't pick that up well. Essentially you feed the system the pictures and the grades, and it creates a prediction of how it would grade them itself.

Operationally you have a number of options to build the model for how it works, but the technical and training side aren't too difficult to nail.

The bigger issue will be getting customers, and I think you do that through the work this thread is already doing... catching trimmed cards. By feeding the images of all these cards through the system, and having it catch trimmed cards, it would build a reputation. And drive people to trust getting its opinion.

Plus this system has a bunch of angles to have added value vs. the current players, so becomes a preferred route for a bunch of possible use cases:
-- speed
-- validation of trimming authenticity
-- price (I hate to list this, as my preference is to never use this in business building... but you ought to have a pretty significant COGS advantage vs. competitors because of the computer aided approach)
-- etc.

And long term you could develop the canonical reference site housing all the authoritative images for key cards, across numbers, as you aggregate up all the source materials from ones you see personally and pull in from all the other sales and grading sources.

You may even be able to eventually own the provenance of key cards... that would be huge!

[SaveMeTheGum]

Originally Posted by pewe

BTW for any of you entrepreneurially minded, this is a perfect time to build a competitive grading service vs the big boys.

And do it completely differently using tools I’m sure they would struggle deeply to use.

Like “artificial intelligence” “image recognition” etc... all of which sound like scary words, but the tech is mostly plug and play for someone willing to put the effort in to learn it (the hard math was done by someone else) and the workflow you would implement is also quite straightforward. I could tell you which to look at (https://towardsdatascience.com/train...e-8ed0bdd8d9ba)

On top of producing a more consistent result, and catching trimmers, they could execute the process with less human labor and faster! Crazy to me seeing folks in here saying they are using humans to do this grading work... this is exactly what computers and computer vision is better at.

Take the free business idea and run with it happy to give advice for anyone who decides to take the plunge

Beyond tech your biggest issue will be building credibility, but with this scandal there is a very very easy way to do that, too... it is a strategy called “content marketing” and is cheap and very effective




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'll give you the $500,000 that you're asking for, but I want $1 per card graded until I make my money back, and then I want $0.25/card in perpetuity. All roads lead back to Mr. Wonderful.

[pewe]

Originally Posted by mattglet

The biggest advantages PSA and BGS have are predominantly 1) brand awareness within the market and 2) (before the trimming scandal) trustworthiness built upon that brand awareness. All they did was establish the rules around making grades based on damage level (or lack thereof) and built the encapsulation methodologies - both of which could be developed by a high school student who has access to an ultrasonic welder.

You are spot on with this... and the reason this might be the one toe in the door to become a new player. It is a common reason in other established industries why a new player gets an angle - there is some deeply felt problem with the current players, that isn't easy for them to address, and that player comes in to solve that pain point. And because of "innovators dilemma" and entrenched interests of the current players, they don't act fast enough to block the entrant, who builds their own brand and becomes one of the trusted sources.

This is a very very common success story in software/tech entrepreneurship. And honestly, one of the key diligence question VCs use when evaluating a new startup idea.

BTW if you wanted to think about how this could be a VC backed idea, you'd have to expand the market size, I bet. I don't have a good sense of how big it could be today, but you'd need to look beyond sports cards, and even beyond things like Pokemon, and build a business that is about grading and authenticating many many collectibles. That is a harder problem, of course, especially as they become 3D and more niche/one-of-a-kind, but I think you could have some argument there.

I'd be surprised if there aren't some folks trying to tackle this right now, in fact.

The difference is they may be doing it in a different market segment (like art), and not seeing this entry angle through the trimming scandal, so you'd have a different entry point here.

I'll look at bit... I know there are some innovative auction startups in art/high-end collectibles, and I wouldn't doubt they've looked at this. As their buyers expect to know the provenance and be able to spot fraud.

[adding some quick AI-to-spot-forgery startups... as an analogy to what might be applicable here:
-- https://news.developer.nvidia.com/ho...feit-products/
-- https://algorithmxlab.com/blog/new-c...ai-find-fakes/
-- https://www.axios.com/researchers-sa...19fd9b5e9.html
-- https://qz.com/1135209/the-hague-hel...100-accuracy/]

[pewe]

Originally Posted by SaveMeTheGum

I'll give you the $500,000 that you're asking for, but I want $1 per card graded until I make my money back, and then I want $0.25/card in perpetuity. All roads lead back to Mr. Wonderful.

Haha - I was just with a friend who got an offer from Mr. Wonderful just like that two years ago. We laughed. Their offers are terrible. And hilariously the business model Mr. Wonderful was trying to push my friend to do was terrible, which my friend figured out too late - a competitor turned the competitive business into the fastest time to $1B valuation, but commercialized very differently. Mr. Wonderful actually has a bad nose for business models, I've noticed.

[Wiseguy917]

Originally Posted by SaveMeTheGum

I'll give you the $500,000 that you're asking for, but I want $1 per card graded until I make my money back, and then I want $0.25/card in perpetuity. All roads lead back to Mr. Wonderful.

They’re gonna crush you like the cockroach you are!!!

[mattglet]

Originally Posted by pewe

You'd be surprised about how quick you could set this up. The software development effort for the basic version is very quick (like 1 person <1 week) - most of the math is open source.

The bigger point will be choosing the right algos, and training the system. The beauty is there are lots of high-res shots of existing BGS cards that are graded, so you can quickly get a good bead on centering, corners, edges... the surface is probably the hard one, as the images won't pick that up well. Essentially you feed the system the pictures and the grades, and it creates a prediction of how it would grade them itself.

Operationally you have a number of options to build the model for how it works, but the technical and training side aren't too difficult to nail.

The bigger issue will be getting customers, and I think you do that through the work this thread is already doing... catching trimmed cards. By feeding the images of all these cards through the system, and having it catch trimmed cards, it would build a reputation. And drive people to trust getting its opinion.

Plus this system has a bunch of angles to have added value vs. the current players, so becomes a preferred route for a bunch of possible use cases:
-- speed
-- validation of trimming authenticity
-- price (I hate to list this, as my preference is to never use this in business building... but you ought to have a pretty significant COGS advantage vs. competitors because of the computer aided approach)
-- etc.

And long term you could develop the canonical reference site housing all the authoritative images for key cards, across numbers, as you aggregate up all the source materials from ones you see personally and pull in from all the other sales and grading sources.

You may even be able to eventually own the provenance of key cards... that would be huge!

lol, you sound like a software developer... quick to underestimate and then you realize the 90/90 rule. I can say this because I am one

I absolutely believe it can be done, and done well, using the basis of your outline. However my optimism about speed is quite a bit lower than yours.

Speed, quality, cost. Pick two

[pewe]

Originally Posted by mattglet

lol, you sound like a software developer... quick to underestimate and then you realize the 90/90 rule. I can say this because I am one

I absolutely believe it can be done, and done well, using the basis of your outline. However my optimism about speed is quite a bit lower than yours.

Speed, quality, cost. Pick two

NICE! I get two?!? I normally operate by crushing the team to get MVP out the door in unrealistic time-frames

[SaveMeTheGum]

Originally Posted by Wiseguy917

They’re gonna crush you like the cockroach you are!!!

You're dead to me.

[Rookiemonster]

How can psa continue to do business after this is exposed? Ever card they ever graded is now questionable. The reason to use them is to have these concerns.

[Wiseguy917]

Originally Posted by SaveMeTheGum

You're dead to me.

If you want a friend, buy a dog.

[Astros19]

Originally Posted by pewe

You are spot on with this... and the reason this might be the one toe in the door to become a new player. It is a common reason in other established industries why a new player gets an angle - there is some deeply felt problem with the current players, that isn't easy for them to address, and that player comes in to solve that pain point. And because of "innovators dilemma" and entrenched interests of the current players, they don't act fast enough to block the entrant, who builds their own brand and becomes one of the trusted sources.

This is a very very common success story in software/tech entrepreneurship. And honestly, one of the key diligence question VCs use when evaluating a new startup idea.

BTW if you wanted to think about how this could be a VC backed idea, you'd have to expand the market size, I bet. I don't have a good sense of how big it could be today, but you'd need to look beyond sports cards, and even beyond things like Pokemon, and build a business that is about grading and authenticating many many collectibles. That is a harder problem, of course, especially as they become 3D and more niche/one-of-a-kind, but I think you could have some argument there.

I'd be surprised if there aren't some folks trying to tackle this right now, in fact.

The difference is they may be doing it in a different market segment (like art), and not seeing this entry angle through the trimming scandal, so you'd have a different entry point here.

I'll look at bit... I know there are some innovative auction startups in art/high-end collectibles, and I wouldn't doubt they've looked at this. As their buyers expect to know the provenance and be able to spot fraud.

[adding some quick AI-to-spot-forgery startups... as an analogy to what might be applicable here:
-- https://news.developer.nvidia.com/ho...feit-products/
-- https://algorithmxlab.com/blog/new-c...ai-find-fakes/
-- https://www.axios.com/researchers-sa...19fd9b5e9.html
-- https://qz.com/1135209/the-hague-hel...100-accuracy/]

Completely agree with you on expanding the market. I was thinking stamps and coins.
I know both of those collectibles already have grading services, does anyone know if any of this technology isn't already being used?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[mattglet]

Originally Posted by pewe

NICE! I get two?!? I normally operate by crushing the team to get MVP out the door in unrealistic time-frames

lol, you sound like a treat to work for

[mcgoo2]

Originally Posted by Rookiemonster

How can psa continue to do business after this is exposed? Ever card they ever graded is now questionable. The reason to use them is to have these concerns.

Half the cards in the OP are graded by BGS. It's an industry issue, not just specific to one grader unfortunately.

[SaveMeTheGum]

Originally Posted by mcgoo2

Half the cards in the OP are graded by BGS. It's an industry issue, not just specific to one grader unfortunately.

Also, most of the names on Beckett's Industry Forum list are known trimmers. Not a good look for them. It's a bad look for both for sure. One seems incompetent. The other seems fraudulent.

[DaRitz]

So if you own a trimmed card in a PSA 10 holder, and you send it back to be re-slabbed... can you put a note on it that you think it's trimmed?

Because then they refund you the difference, right? Between the value of your 10 vs the value of a trimmed card?

I have a Kris Bryant RC that slides all over the place in a PSA holder. This was just a $20 card or something like that. I never could figure out why it moved so much in the holder, but I think I have a pretty good idea now....

If I send it back and say that I think it was trimmed and it gets a "altered" rating, do they pay me?

[SaveMeTheGum]

Originally Posted by DaRitz

So if you own a trimmed card in a PSA 10 holder, and you send it back to be re-slabbed... can you put a note on it that you think it's trimmed?

Because then they refund you the difference, right? Between the value of your 10 vs the value of a trimmed card?

I have a Kris Bryant RC that slides all over the place in a PSA holder. This was just a $20 card or something like that. I never could figure out why it moved so much in the holder, but I think I have a pretty good idea now....

If I send it back and say that I think it was trimmed and it gets a "altered" rating, do they pay me?

[sportzking]

I usually stay out of these threads, but won't the grading companies have a much easier time using electronic calipers to grade? The stamp and coin industry uses them to get measurements and it basically calculates the size perfectly. Unless the TPGs really don't care, then thats another story.

[DaRitz]

Originally Posted by SaveMeTheGum

Haha.

That was my first impression when I read somewhere that when you get a card reholdered and they reduce the grade... that they refund you the difference in value.



Here's one reference on these boards:

Originally Posted by mjohnatgt

If they downgrade it though, they owe you the cash value of the difference between the two grades.

That's from over two years ago, though, on this thread: https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1071077

[ShadeTree]

This would only involve Serial #'d cards but shouldn't the numbers be recorded and never allowed to be regrade and recorded among both BGS and PSA. Than again thats less money for the companies and the greed of money is bigger than moral concerns and its sad.

[HarryLime]

Yeah, PSA will "buy back" cards that are overgraded. In the past, it's been for stuff like they missed paper loss on the back or other irrefutable damage. They'll regrade and cover the dollar loss. It's part of their guarantee and is on their website. I've personally seen them do it multiple times.

Arthur

[Vladdy Jr]

Are there any bowman chrome autos 2015-2018 that we need to be concerned about? I know there has been some altering with autos on superfractors. Thanks for the help

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by Vladdy Jr

Are there any bowman chrome autos 2015-2018 that we need to be concerned about? I know there has been some altering with autos on superfractors. Thanks for the help

anything graded a 10 should be suspect

[3124508 on COMC]

Originally Posted by Vladdy Jr

Are there any bowman chrome autos 2015-2018 that we need to be concerned about? I know there has been some altering with autos on superfractors. Thanks for the help

Here's a Bowman Chrome list of cards that I can reasonably assert that there are at least 1-2 trimmed copies of. Many, like the Trout and Bryant, are much higher. Buyer beware of these high grade Bowman Chrome cards first sold through PWCC/Probstein:
2013 Bryant
2014 Bryant
2006 Kershaw
2011 Fernandez
2015 Rosario
2015 Torres
2016 Robles
2010 Arenado
2014 Betts
2013 Correa
2011 Lindor
2016 Soto
2009 Trout
2014 Conforto
2012 Bogaerts
2012 Seager
2014 Schwarber
2010 Machado
2008 Stanton
2008 Posey
2009 Matz
2010 Harvey
2010 Myers
2011 Springer
2011 Harper
2011 Profar
2013 Buxton
2013 Polanco
2014 Urias
2013 Judge
2011 Martinez
2017 Acuna
2017 Maitan
2015 Devers
2015 Rodgers
2015 Benintendi
2015 Bellinger
2015 Baez

Going to stop there. This list is getting long and I'm getting tired of looking through my spreadsheet. Hopefully you get the point.

[JWBlue]

Is it possible to trim a card and have it be within the limits of an authentic card?