Card Collecotors SELF-IMPOSED PSA Monopoly (If we don't escape the cult NOW, we Never will !?!??)

I realize people are sick and tired of the PSA drama, the self-imposed, self-imposed monopoly that the hobby that we have put on ourself. We have put it on our self. In this video, I'm going to give you some the solution, the only solution to the situation that we find oursel in. Others have talked about it, but it it appears to me that it goes in this ear and out this ear, and people are not hearing what people are trying to communicate to us. So, my hope is in this video that I'm going to share it with you one more time and it goes in this ear or this year, doesn't matter, but it lands here and you said, "You know what? It starts with me. I'm going to make some changes in what I'm doing." That's the only way it's going to change, guys. There's only one solution. One solution to this and it's simple. It's common sense and I'm going to rehash it on this video. Also, if you're a dealer, a lot of you know Don and I, my wife, we operate DND sports cards. We did like 14 15 shows last year. We have a large eBay presence. We sell cards on eBay and other online platforms. We just started our Tuesday, every Tuesday whatnot shows. So, we're in we're running an actual business. We're not just flipping cards. Uh I'm a huge collector, have been my whole life, but we're running for the first time what we consider to be a lifestyle business for us. We enjoy sports. We enjoy going to sporting events, and it's a lifestyle business for us. And if I'm talking to you, if you're in a similar situation, in this video, I'm going to share with you how we've been able to maximize our card grading profits. I mean, maximized our card grading profits and how you can as well. So, when I get home, we'll get into it. Uh, as always, your comments, feedback are appreciated. But guys, it's if we're ever going to break the PSA, self-imposed monopoly, now's the time. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I'm home. And I believe that if you'll stay with me through this video, every single person that watches it will know exactly how as a hobby we can break up the PSA monopoly. When when we're done here, you will have no doubt. And if you're a dealer, flipper, uh, side gig, you're building a side gig, you will know how to absolutely maximize your profits. Um, when it comes to grading, that's my two promises. So, let's get into it. And I understand, let me say this up front because people will I know the comments that are coming, but we all, we all participate in the hobby differently. We all collect differently. We all get into our our box and that's how we operate. And what I've tried to do from the time I've got back into this industry is constantly look outside the box. And I know we get in our box, we get comfortable in our box. And when we start to get outside of our box, it gets uncomfortable. And we all look at things differently, see things differently, collect differently, like different parts of the of the [snorts] hobby, and I appreciate that. I respect that. Okay. So, I'm going to give you as clear perspective as I can on exactly where I'm coming from. And I believe you should always ask before you listen to anybody because your time is the most valuable asset that you have is who is this person and why should I be listening to them? There's a lot of great content on YouTube, but there's a lot of people that are operating the business the way I'm not operating at the moment. So, I believe a wise person learns from uh their their their own mistakes, but a really wise person learns from the mistakes of others. And and that's what I am trying to do. I'm trying to learn, read as much as I can, talk to as many people as I can and and try to develop some some concepts, ideas, systems that make sense and understand this entire process is a journey. Um, I am I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I started my career at IBM in Lexington, Kentucky. I made it five years there and I realized from the very beginning that I am psychologically unemployable. It says physiologically, sorry. Uh I I I didn't check any of this. I I've got it done and I want to get get it done. Sorry about that. But I also know that as human beings, we see things not as they are. We see things as we are. So different people again see this hobby through different pairs of glasses and different understanding. Uh I owned a card shop with my brother in Kentucky in the late 80s, early 90s. It was a part-time venture for both of us. We had an employee that worked the shop when we couldn't be there. And we had a blast during the summer of 1990. We did car shows all over Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee. We were there uh for the playoffs in the World Series when the Reds swept the Oakland A's in four games, defeated the Bash Brothers. We were right there. We had tickets. We went to 20 30 games that year and it was a great great summer that I'll never forget and we enjoyed having that card shop. Um, but what happened for me is I got involved in other business ventures and then the whole, you know, market fell went crazy and and and just we ended up closing it up. Uh, and because I had other ventures that I was really wanting to do because the market, the bottom fell out of it, but I did own a card shop. When we had our shop, PSA was not around. They were just starting to come around. You were starting to hear a little bit about grading grading, but it was all a big joke. Nobody believed in it. Thought it was ripoff, ridiculous. Why would you need that? So, I was in this world way before grading was even a thing. Uh, the first cards that I ever graded were back in May of 2022, and I paid $50 a card to have them to have the cards graded. And basically, it was an experiment. Uh, we sent in 10 cards that came out of factory sets that I have. And you know, we sent in uh I sent in a couple Griffy rookies, 89 upper deck cuz that was my guy and I collected a lot of those back when we had our card shop. Send in Samberg, Gwyn, Maddingley rookies. And I was beyond disappointed. And I personally have never met anybody who did their first PSA grading and was happy with the results that they have that they got back. I've never met anybody. everybody their first time. You know, it takes a while to develop the eye and understand what you're looking for as many of you know. Uh so what happened for me my entire life again I've been involved in multiple businesses. I've evaluated dozens of opportunities. I've built sal sales organizations in different niches all over the United States. I've spoke in 40 states on stage all over the United States over my career. I've I've been in five different countries. Um um you know, I've been involved in everything. I've bought, built, and sold 20 different uh online businesses. There was a time uh when I had my office in Lex. I had three full-time guys and all they did was build websites that we sold. Uh so I've done a lot. My wife is one of the largest Hallmark uh resellers in the world, Hallmark Ornaments. Uh you know, we we operate a few e-commerce businesses right now. Um I' I've done a little bit of everything. Shrimp farming, uh you name it, I've done it. Uh, but I love I love building businesses. So, what happened for me? Uh, Don and I, my wife and I have sold over a million dollars worth of items on eBay over the last 10, 15 years. That's actually how we met. I was speaking at a seminar here in Atlanta. I'm from originally from Kentucky and we met and she was working at IBM at the time and I had left IBM and she said look I just need to make an extra,000 to $1,500 a month. I was speaking, it was a direct for direct sales company and she said, when we met, we talked. She said, "I just need to make an extra $1,00." And I said, "Well, then you don't need to be doing working with this direct sales company. You need to be flipping items on eBay." We were selling, long story short, we formed a partnership. We were selling Sketcher shoes, buying them wholesale, flipping them on eBay, making 10, $15 a pair. But we've sold over a million dollars. sold everything from, you know, Coen collections to I I sold a Dodge Viper, my personal car. I sold it on eBay back in the day. So, that's where I'm coming from. And what happened back in couple years ago, a guy called me, Dave Jordan. You may have seen him on Whatnot. Moving product out the door. Here we go. Out the door. Moving product down the highway. Down the highway. moving the product. Some of you might have heard Dave uh he was getting ready to he I had spoke at a couple of his conventions for his company, his direct sales company, and he wanted me to consult and and work with and help him launch a direct sales company in the collectibles market. And the first thing I did, you know, I'd heard he had a big collection, but I flew to South Dakota and I went through the warehouses and I was blown away. And he had he had that market in the palm of his hand. We helped him launch it. Uh we we went to South Dakota, went for the launch. I took about 30 to 40 people I've worked with in the past out there for the launch. It started off great and unfortunately he just listen and he'll tell you he listened to the wrong people and the company didn't make it. But I am so thankful because it resurred in me the passion that I had for collecting, you know, when my brother and I had our shop. And I was selling cards on eBay at the time. a few. I probably had a hundred listings of just cards just but wasn't paying any attention to the market. Had no idea why, you know, we started selling Kobe Bryants like crazy and, you know, I I was paying no attention to it. I just it was just another item to add to our eBay store at the time. So, that's where I'm coming from. um what what I decided to do after that company went out of business is like I have a lot of options. There's a lot of things I can do where I can make a lot more money, but I've worked hard all my life. I've traveled all over the country. I'm sick and tired of airplanes. Uh I'm tired of the travel. And I I I was thinking, Dale, what do you really want to do? And I said, I would love to build a sports car business. I wonder if you could build it up to where you could make a full-time income, you know, uh have other people done it. Have Have other people started basically from scratch? Uh could you build it to a quarter million dollars in income in five years? Because if you could, I'd be willing to do that if it's possible. And I had to prove to myself, yes, it's possible or no, it's not. I'm not going to start a card shop. I've already been down that road. I'm not doing that. But could I build it up? The word dome my wife and I could have because we enjoy sports. We like to go to the Braves game. I'm a big Reds fan. We go to Reds games. We like sports. Could we just build a lifestyle around our a business? Is it possible? And we came to the conclusion that or at least I did that I believe it is. And that's kind of the path we've taken. We're not in any big hurry. I didn't want and I wanted to do it in a way where my grandkids could watch what we did and duplicate it. I didn't want to put, you know, $50,000 $100,000 in this business and and I wanted to start from scratch just for the just for the the thrill of doing it that way honestly. And that might be weird, but my main focus really is not, you know, making as much as I can right now. It's I'm looking long-term. I believe your long-term value uh your long-term income potential is in direct proportion to the value that you provide to the market that you serve. I believe that. That's been my philosophy my entire business career. Jim Ran taught me that. And some of you may know who he is. But so that's where I'm coming from. And I know with everything within me right now that using alternative graders, graders other than PSA, they they're going to continue to be a huge part of our game plan. And they've been an enormous part, you know, this past year in 2025. And I've talked about it on on this channel. I talked about alternative grading and collecting car a car collector's gold mine. I did this video PSA grading. Do other options make more sense? This was over a year ago this video was done and I and I talked a little bit about alternative grading in our most recent video and this video has just taken off. The comments have been unbelievable. But the only reason I started YouTube was to document my journey really for my grandkids. That's really the way I'm looking at this to just document it. So, without question, there's only one way to break up the PSA monopoly. Period. End of story. And you guys have all heard it probably. But again, there's a difference, as I said earlier, between hearing it and really hearing it and doing something about it. Doing something about it. Because if we choose to continue the way we've always done, if you continue, the definition of ignorance is to continue to do what you've always done the way you've always done it, expecting different results. I think Benjamin Franklin said that. That's the definition of ignorance. And most people when you know what to do, but we continue to do what we've always done. Most people do. Most people continue to do what they've always done. So, I'm going to share with you, and actually I'm going to let somebody else share with you exactly how we break the PSA monopoly. Let's hear from Neo Cards. He'll tell you >> a full Yeah, I'd have to look at exactly the submissions, but I think it's been a full year plus since I have sent anything to PSA. In fact, the video is not posted yet on the TCG channel, and it's on its way. in the mail system right now. I just sent a 25ish card order to CGC TCG. It's all one piece on its way to CGC because of and and it didn't have to do with the pricing for me. It had to do with turnaround times for me personally. >> Turnaround times. >> I didn't want to wait three months to get to four months to get the cards back. CGC, I paid up slightly for economy, get the cards back in 20 days. So part one of this is are people actually going to stop submitting or all my the thing I would love to know and it's impossible to know because a lot of people in the comments down below are like I'm done. I'm never submitting with them again. I I would love to know how many of those people have submitted cards in the last year because I I have and maybe I'm just wrong on this. I have a sneaking suspicion. Most of the people saying that they are done sending cards to PSA probably don't send a lot of cards to PSA to begin with. >> Maybe I'm wrong on that. You all could tell me in the comment section down below. >> I agree. >> But that's that's one half of the equation is is the I'm not giving them my business anymore. I'm either just not going to grade, I'm going to go somewhere else, I'm going to toss in a mag, whatever the case might be. The other part of it, and it's what we've talked about before, if you really want to raise up competition against PSA, you have to buy nonPSA slabs for PSA prices. that will move the needle more than your lack of submission to PSA because there it is. This is the only way to break up the PSA monopoly. Especially if you're collecting and selling thousand cards, plus it's it's really difficult to make those kind of decisions. But if you're not, you should pay real close attention. If you really want to raise up competition against PSA, you have to buy nonPSA slabs for PSA prices. That will move the needle more than your lack of submissions to PSA. So, there's the answer to the first thing I promised you. There it is. That's it. That's it. Agree. Don't agree. That's that's the that is the answer. Here's my personal belief. After grading, and this is not a misprint, after grading 4,000 568 cards in 2025, the conclusion I've come to is this. A 10 is a 10 is a 10. And it doesn't matter if PSA graded it or Joe Bloward grading company. A 10 is a 10 is a 10. That's after again 45,568 submitted cards last year. And if that is true, what I just said, a 10 is a 10 is a 10. If that is true, then why would we as a hobby choose to pay the highest prices with the longest turnaround times? Why will we choose that? It's, in my opinion, it's self-imposed brainwashing. We've brainwashed ourselves as a hobby. It's It's like and again I I'll keep going because I'll get off too much and I don't I want to try to stay on track here. But think about this from a common sense mindset. If you were starting a grading company, you were an alternative, I call them alternative graders, trying to build a grading business, would you want to have a card with detectable flaws in your slab that was graded a 10? Can you imagine what what some of these some of the quote unquote influencers would do to you on all everywhere they could spread the word about look at this wrinkle in this card and it's they said it was a 10. Look at this surface scratch and they gave it a 10. I can you can imagine but you don't you don't see that on YouTube. I I haven't seen it. If you have, I'd love to know in your comments where somebody went to another grading company outside of PSA and is holding a slab with a tin on it with a obvious defect. I've never seen it. And we all know we would see it if it was out there. At least that's my belief. And we've all seen the cracked out of card experiments on YouTube where people crack the card, send it to a different company or or crack a nine and resend it into PSA and it comes back a 10 this time or an eight or even a seven. And and if you haven't seen that, if you haven't seen the uh video that Tapot did, uh I sent the same card to PSA, BGS, SGC, and CGC. You won't believe what happened. You need to check that video out. I mean, when you when you when you look at it from a common sense perspective, and again, we're all brainwashed. I was brainwashed. But when you look at it from a common sense perspective, I I'm telling you in my belief, a 10 is a 10 is a 10. I don't care who grades it. That's what I've experienced. So, I want to talk to end this up. I want to share with you if you're a sports card entrepreneur, how you can maximize your profits when grading. In 2025, we sent 511 cards to PSA for grading and then an additional 40 for autograph and autograph and or card grading plus an additional 4,100 or 4,17 cards to seven different alternative graders. And again, I talk about this on these two videos, which really nobody seems to care about. Here's why I was part of the cult and how I got my brainwashed and how then I got my brain cleared out. I was part of it because when I got back into this hobby, you know, after Collect Direct went out of business and I said, I'm going to stay in it, then I had to get myself as educated as possible. And I read every article I could read and, you know, I got a lot of great information from a lot of great people on YouTube and other platforms. I'll talk to a lot of people and and you know I've always had the opinion if you want to really be successful in a market look at what everybody else is doing and do the opposite because the masses it's sheep following the sheep following the sheep following the sheep and nobody knows where the shepherd's taking them a lot of times. So here's my thoughts and this is what did it for me. Uh, I bought a lot of Ronald Aunia cards on eBay and there was one graded card in this lot. All Ronald Akunia. Uh, very popular player in this market. I love to watch him play. Uh, popular throughout the hobby. I think this year he's going to come back with I think he's going to have a great year this year. I really do think he's going to start the year healthy. But anyway, so I bought a lot of Ronald Couna cards. Uh those of you that watch this channel regular, you know one of the methods we teach is buy lots, sell the singles, and that's what I was doing. Well, in that lot, there was one graded company from some company I'd never heard of before. It wasn't PSA, and I'd heard of PSA and Beckett and CGC, and that was about it. And I, you know, was at that time I was sending cards to Beckett on a pretty regular basis. And this card came in and I actually had the exact same card in a PSA 10 and it was an alternative grader and I wish I could remember exactly but I can't. But it was it was a 10 as well. So I had both of those cards. Both of those CUNA one PSA one was an alternative grader in a 10. Don and I did our first show in uh Alabama. And what I do at what I do with our showcase is if if I have five or six Aunas to sell, then I'll just stack them in the showcase and people always say, "Do you have more Aunas under there? Is it the same card?" And I just reach in and hand them the whole stack because I want to get the cards in their hands. That's what I do. So this young man came I was probably late 20s early 30s and he asked me about the kunas and I handed them to him and he handed them four of them back to me. I had six at the time and he's looking he's looking at the PSA 10 and he's looking at the alternative graded graded 10 and and he looks at them both and he hands me back the PSA and he says I'll take this one. And he was thrilled. He said, "The reason I came to this show is I was hoping to get a slabbed a a card in a slab of Ronald Akunia Jr. That's why he came to the show." He didn't say a becket slab. He didn't say a PSA slab. He said, "I'm looking for a sl I was looking for a slabed Ronald Akuna card to add to my collection." And he was thrilled. He could have bought the PSA for 40. He bought the other card for 35. Now stay with me. So the for I did again I did not grade the the this particular card $40 card. Now it's a $25 grading fee. So the gross profit, you know, not counting shipping and all the other things would have been $15 on that card. I did send the one he bought. I did send it to an alternative grader and I paid I paid $8 to have it graded. We sold it for 35. I made a $19 profit. 19 versus 15. I pulled the card out of a collection that we bought where my cost per card when when I it was like a 12,000 plus card collection. My cost per card was less than a penny. So my cost for the card was basically nothing. Okay, that's just one example, but I'm going to give you a couple more. First, I want you to to understand [snorts] where we come from right now in our business at DND Sports Cards with our show inventory and most of our eBay inventory. We're just now starting on whatnot. We just started on whatnot in January. Our focus is on collectors. collectors, not flippers, not people they're selling to repackers. It's on collectors. So everything that we do at shows is designed to is to make people stop at our table cuz what people do and again I've got a whole training on this in our our beta members are are familiar with this in our in our course that we may never release. But there's a psychology setting up your table. So, we're not the guy that has three showcases. All the cards in the showcase are $1,000 plus and in the middle he's got they're buying cards. That's not us. That's not our clientele. That's not our market. That's not what we're doing at the moment. Okay. Right now, we started again from scratch. We just keep reinvesting. And so our market is the collectors, the people that are coming to the show, like the guy said, looking for a slab. That's our market. Okay. In our showcase, our cards are going to go on average from about $50 to $1,000. Yes, last year we sold a Gretzky rookie and we sold you we sold a few five figure cards, but that's not the norm for us. Okay, so you So again, if that's if if you're the guy sitting there with the banner buying cards, two showcases here, two showcases here, they're all, you know, five figure cards. what I'm saying does. It applies to you, but not at not at the level that it does everybody else that's a dealer. So, you know, again, there's a lot of psychology in what we do. Our $15 slab boxes, those of you that follow this channel, you saw it. We had one box, it did extremely well, so we added another one. Did even better. So we added another one. And now if you come to our, you know, I think we have 12 or 14 slab these boxes full of and they're $15 a slab, four for $50 and we sell eight buus. Bukus. It's great value for the collector. uh you know it it it it it's just been great for us, but it's been a progression. It's not something we just did. It's trial and error and we saw what happened. You know, we've got, you see, this is a Braves box. We stack this thing because there's a lot of people that come to shows, they're just looking for Braves cards in this market. Uh then our showcase in our showcase, these are the kind of cards you're going to see. We've got we've sold several of these this year. This is Ellie making history still in home and it's autographed. We had him personally autograph these at a show that we went to in Northern Kentucky. We had several of these cards autographed. We've sold several. It's something that I try to look for cards that people are not going to see every day and iconic cards. That's primarily what's in our showcase. Here's another example. This is Bo Jackson. Again, we had him autograph it at show. I these classic greens. You don't see a lot of the classic greens out in the market. Uh we had him we had him sign three or four. This is we got one left. Okay. But this is this is what you'll see in our showcase. This card I've talked about this many times on this channel. We were buying these for our buy price was $12. I was buying them I bought 20 30 of these last year, sent half of them maybe for grading and this card has gone through the roof in the last 12 months. I I can't even buy it now. I can't it I can't get I get a gauge on it at this point. But man, when people see that card in the showcase, it stops them in their tracks because a lot of people remember that card. Uh we sell a lot of Billy Ripken. We put it in a little frame, the corrected and the error card. We sell those. That stops people in their tracks. It shows that's that's the type iconic cards that we that we sell. We've sold dozens of the Bo Jackson shoulder pads card. This is one of my favorite. I think I only have I think this is my last one. I was buying these, buying these, buying these. We took them to Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky to that show. Had Ellie sign these as well. Autographed these. Got the autograph authenticated by Beckett at the show. And we've sold I think we had I've got one for my personal collection. I think I've got a couple more. I do have a couple more PSA now and we've sold three of these so far. So, iconic cards. Uh on our eBay store, it's totally different. We have a scanner we run those cards through. Anything 6070s commons, we sell a ton of those. You know, $1.99, 24.49, 3.89. We do a lot of those. We'll do some of the cards that you see here, but but basically what we're trying to do is keep our inventories separate for our different platforms that we sell on. That's what we're trying to do. We have and we'll be able to fully be able to do that this year as is my thought. But, you know, we we've got 100% feedback on eBay. We've sold 9,500 items, have 197 followers, and that's really all we're trying to do is create long-term customers. Right now, everything we're doing is is to develop the right type of customers. And that's it. You know, you know, they buy from you once, they're a suspect. They buy twice, they're a prospect. They buy three times, they're a customer. Now, alter when you can When you can take a card and you pay $8 and say a $40, $50, $60 card and you pay $8 to have it graded instead of now 25. Okay, you're looking at what $17 difference there between 8 and 25. And and again, really think about this from those of you that are selling 50, 60, 70, $100 cards. The difference between eight and 25, that's $17. That's your profit. That can be your profit. And I just went in our our uh our $15 slab boxes tonight and I just pulled out a few cards to show you all the different types different graders that we use and that we have in the slab box. Yes, we have some PSA cards, but those are usually ones that we thought would jy and don't. And they come back and a nine's worth $18 or $19. So, we just put in our $15 slab box. But, and see, a lot of people don't realize that the market is here. So, we hop over to eBay right here, uh, you know, like we're listing a card and select grader. You can see all the different grading car graders that they support here. And look at all these look at all these grading companies. And if you're if the company that graded your card is not on here, you all you have to do is click other. Click other and you and you and you can list whatever graded card that you want. And look at all these different grading companies. Most people have no idea, but if you pay attention, and you've seen this in the last, you know, six months, the number of of alternative graders that graded cards that are being sold on eBay, I don't know what percent it has gone up, but it has gone up. Go in there and just type in Ace Grading or any of these companies and look and see. Look and see how many cards they have. That's a lot. a lot more than it used to be. So, this is something that has started and I think right now with all the drama going on at PSA, I think you're just going to see more and more authentic alternative grading companies, uh, cards being graded at shows by dealers that have the guts to take the chance, by dealers that have the guts to take the chance, and you're definitely going to see them on eBay as well. I said there was 11 potential graders on eBay. Actually, I think it's I think it's actually more than that. So, you know, again, the $15 slab, if you if you follow this channel, then you've seen the what's happened for us with that. And uh you know, we we even bought the domain $15 slabs.com. So, I mean, I'm talking from experience, guys. I'm not just talking to hear myself talk. I'm really trying to to communicate as best I can what I'm seeing. And I know that the common industry belief is you cannot sell cards graded by companies not named PSA and sell them for close to PSA prices. Most people don't think that's possible. As Neo said, that's what's got to happen if we're going to break up the monopoly. And after having this conversation with hundreds of dealers and vendors, literally, I've learned most have accepted this fact, but have never really tried to put a card from a company other than PSA up to sale. They've never really tried it. So they just have a preconception that that is the truth because that's what everybody says. And you can see here we sold this page over bone in a 7 for $15. And according to the research we did on market movers, a se 1975 PSA7 also sold for $15. This is on eBay. I just wanted to pull a couple of these just to show you guys that this may not be the gospel truth. And in my opinion, really, it's just people have been brainwashed. We've brainwashed oursel. It's self-imposed. Here's another example. This is a Griffy. We had graded from a PSA grader or a alternative grader GMA and we sold it for 12. And when we're doing the research trying to find comps PSA, ours was a nine. Ours was an 8 and a half. 8 and a half. A nine sold for 550. 550. Ours sold for 12. Half a point grade lower. sold for 12. Another one we found sold for $15.99. So, it sold for about $3 more than ours also in a nine. In a nine. Again, I could show the these things all day. Some of you remember the old taste test they did. This is in 1975 where they had people come and they would taste Pepsi and Coke. And you all remember the commercials and all the advertising campaign around that. This would be something phenomenal for PE Teapot to do or anybody else that has the t that you know wants content. I guarantee you I guarantee you you can take a 10 from PSA any card a 10 from an alternative grader. Frack them out. Put them in sleeves. put a dot on on a red dot on one and a blue dot on the other one. So you know the red dot is the PSA, the blue dot is XYZ alternative grading company. Tapot could take these and have everybody at Cards HQ come and look at both cards and ask which one of these is the PSA card and document it. It probably is going to be close to 5050. 50 50% will say one card. 50% will say the other. Now, they're probably not going to do that because they have a PSA grading facility in their in their shop, which I'm thankful for. I'm very thankful for. But that would be a great experiment. The old double blind coke experiment because I'm telling you, a 10 is a 10 is a 10. Here's another example. We sold this Tom Brady for $50. Uh, all I could find was a couple of nines that had sold in PSA. One sold for $19.99, one sold for 18. We sold our 10 for $50. Do you think I'm happy with that? We pulled that card from a dollar box. You guys, if you watch this channel, you see this happening all the time. I could go on tonight, buy it for about $10, $11, have it delivered to me. If I think it will grade a 10, and it may not, but if I think it'll grade a 10, I can turn around, send it to alternative grader, and then flip that card that I have 11 or 13, whatever it is, and and you know, that's what a $ 30ome dollar profit here. And if it comes back a nine, I just put it in my $15 slab box and everybody's happy. Here's Dave Conpsion. The only reason I bought this card, he's not he's not a Hall of Famer or anything, but he's a member of the Big Red Machine. I'm a Reds fan, as I previously mentioned. Here's uh 1976. It came back a 6 and a half from an alternative grader. As I said, they're tough as nails on these cards. 6 and a half uh a seven on eBay. PSA 7 sold for $1250. What we sell ours for? $12. Sold it for 12. Sold it for $1250. This came again out of a large collection that we bought. Now I only gradeed this because I mean he was a great shortstop part of the big red machine but he wasn't the superstar was Rose Morgan Bench Perez Grippy was a great team but in your market wherever you are you have players exactly like this that you see every day that you buy collections and what are you doing with these cards once you got them? Why not send a few to an alternative grader if you're in Boston, find a few Red Sox from 76 and [snorts] see what happens. You You'll be shocked. Here's here's a great example. Otani, we had this in a in a 10. Jim meant 10. We had it listed for 55. Somebody offered us 50 and we took it. We took it. Okay, that card came out of a dollar box. What does it sell for in PSA? The recent comp we could we pulled on uh from market movers? $55. 55 $5 more. Pulled it from a dollar box. Sent it to an alternative grader. Came back. It cost us $8. cost us $9 was our total investment. We turn $9 into 50. That's $41 profit. Of course, there's some fees and all that as you guys know, but our bottom line cost $9 to 50. You can do that all day long. 9 to50. That's $40 profit. And I see people going around shows and they're buying cards for 1,500 and hoping to sell it for 1,600. But they're taking a huge risk a lot of times because maybe if they don't sell sell it at that show for $100 more than they paid for it, they're going to go home with a Drake May card that's going to depreciate probably over the next six months or three months. You It's It's just a different mindset. It's a different mindset, but we can sell these cards like this. The number one reason to use alternative graders without question, Neil talked about it, is the turnaround time. The money churned. The money churned. In this video, I mentioned the fact that we took cards to uh Cards HQ. We got them back. We went through a reveal and I also mentioned during the same time that we had sent a from the time we dropped these off to the time we got them back we had sent a,036 cards to two different alternative graders who have a 30-day turnaround time. 30 days and 447 of those cards had already sold before we even got back the other cards from PSA. 447 had already sold and we just keep it. We just keep it churning. Keep it churning. So, yes, I'm going to still use PSA when the turnaround time doesn't matter. I'll right now I'll probably continue to use it for all cards that I think have a $500 plus value. But guys, we have cards right now. We have 20 autographs. Ellies, couple Bo Jackson, Robin, Robin Ya that we got at shows that have been sitting at PSA since September. Since September. A lot of money tied up. a lot of money. I mean, we got some Ellie goats. We got a couple more of those uh the the Ellie with the pirate helmet, you know, in the dugout. That's a $45 $500 card after it comes back to us. We got a lot of money tied up and it's been tied up at PSA since September, but we'll continue to use them. As I said in this video, my goal, and it's going to change a little bit, but my goal was to get 20 to 30 cards to Cards HQ every month starting in January. We did we did just drop off 20 uh or 30 something in January. In February, I want to drop off hopefully 20 to 30 more. So, January, February, March, 20 to 30 more and so on and so forth. So eventually I can expect 20 to 30 new fresh cards for our showcase coming in every month. That's we're trying to get ahead of it because the turnaround times have been brutal on us. It's really messed up our rhythm. So we're just going to do 20 to 30 every month is our goal. We may not be able to do that, but that's what we're going to try to do. But we want to try to at least get some cards to Cards HQ, at least 20 every month so we can get into that rhythm with it. Uh, so we are going to continue to use Cards HQ. But if you're not using alternative graders, other other graders, I hope I've said something, especially if you're a dealer at a show that you just, you know, try a slab box or or or do something because it's like until you experience it, you don't realize how good it can be because most of the people in this in this hobby are not watching YouTube videos. We everybody thinks YouTube is the hobby. It's not. Go to the shows, talk to the people. Uh, you know, I I love it that when I see moms taking their sons to the card show. We did a video on that when we did a show here in Georgia. And it's it I I love to see real collectors, people that love their team, collecting their team, want to want to collect the cards of the of the guys that they watch. You know, when you see families involved, to me, that's what it's all about. And to choose to not make good cards available to those people in a slab that they'll be proud to have in their collection, I think is it's just a mistake. So, if you're a sports card entrepreneur, I mean, I hope using alternative graders, I've said something that has made sense to you. if you found this information valuable. I mean, I almost I mean, should I do a card reveal from an alternative grader? I should I do a video on that because I I got 136 cards in yesterday from a brand new grader that we're testing out, you know, and it's like, do do I need to just shut up about this or I don't know. I mean, I'm going to continue to do it regardless. it doesn't matter cuz it's it's been very profitable for us and it's I think it's been very valuable to our customers and people that come to shows but like you my time is the most valuable asset that I have so your feedback is appreciated more than you know and again you know 76 views on this one 230 views on this one you know I'm not going to waste my time if it's something that is not going to provide value. So, in my mind, this is the last time I'm going to, you know, really talk about alternative grading unless, you know, a people respond and want to know more and then I'll be happy to share anything I can on this topic. Uh, but it's better, you know, when did 10 become nines? this I just dropped this three was it three weeks ago and it's you know it's almost 10,000 views all kinds of comments. Uh but again guys let me know your feedback. I would appreciate I appreciate you watching this. I hope you got value from it. Uh, I've got a video that'll be dropping real soon if it hasn't already on. It might come out before this one on 30 days on whatnot and what what we've learned after 30 days on whatnot. I think if you thinking about selling on whatnot, I think you'll find that valuable. I hope you do. Thanks for watching. We appreciate you. God bless. Have a great week and uh we'll talk to you on the next video. Leave your comment, follow, do whatever you're supposed to do. I read every comment. It's important for me. It really helps me. It gives me a good perspective and I appreciate it. Thank you guys. >> [bell]

If you collect sports cards, you’ve probably felt it… the pressure to grade with PSA. In this video, we’re diving headfirst into what I’m calling the “Self-Imposed PSA Monopoly” — and why card collectors themselves may be fueling the dominance of Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) without even realizing it. Are we choosing PSA because it’s truly the best option… or because the hobby has convinced ourselves there’s no other “safe” choice? 🔥 In this episode, we break down: How PSA became the grading king Why resale comps often favor PSA slabs The psychology behind collector herd mentality Whether we’re undervaluing other grading companies And what happens if the hobby never diversifies This isn’t a PSA hate video. It’s a reality check. When one grading company dominates pricing, perception, and liquidity, the entire sports card market becomes dependent on a single standard. That affects new collectors, flippers, long-term investors, and the health of the hobby as a whole. Are we rewarding consistency and brand power… Or are we stuck in a feedback loop that only grows stronger the longer we accept it? If we don’t question it now — do we ever? 👇 Drop your thoughts in the comments: Do you grade exclusively with PSA? Have you switched to other grading companies? Is this just smart market behavior… or hobby tunnel vision? 👍 Like, Subscribe, and join the conversation. Because the future of the hobby might depend on collectors being willing to think differently. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THIS CHANNEL AND TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS: ►: / @cmgsportscardinvestments ►: We are currently do WhatNot Stream every Tuesday around noon at 12:15 & Tuesday evening at 8:15 PM. We would appreciate you stopping buy and giving us a chance to earn your business. D&D Sports Cards https://whatnot.com/invite/danddsportscards_com OUR LINK TREE LINK: https://linktr.ee/CMGCards CHECK OUT OUR CMG SPORTS CARD eBAY STORE ►: https://cmgsportscardinvestments.com/membership Join CMG SPORTSCARD UPDATE NEWSLETTER HERE (Scroll Down Right Side of Front Page) ►: http://www.cmgsportscards.com Of course we use Market Mover, when you are ready to start your free trial, click here: ►: http://www.DaleCalvert.com/MarketMovers CMG SPORTS CARD INVESTMENTS COURSE UPDATE & NOTIFICATION LIST ►: https://cmgsportscardinvestments.com/membership This video's purpose is education, NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE, do your own research before investing in any sports cards or any other investment opportunity. DISCLAIMER: CMG SPORTS CARD INVESTMENTS IS A DIVISION OF CALVERT MARKETING GROUP INC. WE ARE ENTREPRENUERS, COLLECTORS, INVESTORS, AND SPORTS CARD DEALERS. In that order. WE ARE NOT FINANCIAL ADVISORS. I MAY OWN CARDS OF THE PLAYERS THAT I SPEAK ABOUT.. THE IMAGES USED IN MY VIDEOS ARE A COMBINATION OF OUR IN HOUSE CARDS AND FROM THE INTERNET. WE LOVE THE SPORTS CARD HOBBY. ATEMPTING TO INVEST OR PROFIT FROM SPORTS CARDS TAKES THE PROPER MINDSET AND EDUCATION AND IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN RESEARCH, EDUCATION, AND DUE DILLIGENCE. THESE VIDEOS ARE MADE FOR ENTERNTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY, AGAIN, I AM NOT YOUR FINANICAL ADVISOR. AS ALWAYS YOUR FEEDBACK AND COMMENTS ARE MUCH APPRECIATED, WE ARE HERE TO HELP AND SUPPORT. MUCH SUCCESS ON YOUR JOURNEY! #sportscards #sportscard #baseballcards l #cmgsportscardinvestments #cards#tradingcards #whodoyoucollect #makemoneywithsportscards, #sellingcardsonebay, #sportscardinvestor #sportscardinvesting #sportscardstrategy #basketballcards #baseballcards #soccercards #footballcards #buyngcardsonebay, #investing #nba #nfl #sportscards #sellingcardsonEbay, #sellingcardsonComc, #sellingsportscards, #sportscardinvesting #sportscardinvestor #sportscardinvestors #sportscardflipping #sportscardbreaks #sportscardbreak #sportscardstrategy #thehobby #whatnotsportscards