what other independant grading companies are there in the UK?
Tree frog grading
Majesty
get graded
pokegrade
PCG
universal
that’s all I know off top of my head
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I think the unfortunate thing is that there is none that are even close to the level of ACE in the uk
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yeah i agree with that, ace is the UK’s PSA
I have had a few cards from the others I listed, if I had to pick best of the rest it would be TFG, never had an issue with them, they use royal mail for deliveries and the fact they include the sub grades on the cards like beckets is nice
PSA is the UK’s PSA.
Ace is not nearly in the same ballpark and this is very serious for them, very unfortunate stuff and I very much hope they can find their feet, something like this for a smaller business is very serious.
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Oh cool, its good to know we have that option here at least. I hope that with time we will get more easy access to local grading, for example the PSA walk in service where stuff gets graded quickly.
If an office is opened in the UK I would probably travel there in person to drop off and collect. The CGC UK but shipped to US sounds ok but local grading would be even better.
i said that as in ace where the biggest UK based company not that they had biggest market share
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The biggest company in the UK, if you mean with a physical location, would be CGC.
They’ve had an office here for 6 years.
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We’re nitpicking for the sake of it at this point honestly lol, what the guy said makes sense, especially in the context of what he was replying to. Ace is the go-to if you want a UK grading company, just like PSA is the go-to in America. Yes PSA does more volume from UK customers than ace does, and yes cgc has a physical location here, but ace is still the #1 uk company
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I think the point is that ACE is the largest (maybe?) grading company opened in the UK. Obviously their volume doesn’t come close to the major US companies.
The fact that they are so successful and yet still have -500k equity as brought up earlier just shows how hard it is to build a viable grading company. And why a large theft could be an existential issue to them.
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really sucks
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i love the fact that the image that have used in that article is PSA cards
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unfortunately the police will not do much, they would rather spend their resources investigating the theft of $500 bikes than $100k pokemans, and likely dont know the difference between a pokeman and a psa
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It’s indeed a low probability it will get solved. The investigation is likely to have already been closed pending any new evidence such as the stolen goods turning up on eBay.
A lot of the investigation depends on whether there was any forensic material left behind, CCTV images of the culprits etc.
Then it’s whether that evidence is clear and cut enough to identify any culprit’s. Thats if the culprits are even known on police systems.
% this was a inside job with a worker saying oh security so low here blah blah blah and then a friend of a friend broken in. No way you can be in and out knowing where to go if you didn’t have info prior.
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From what I gather it seems like shipping cards to the US for grading is a logistical nightmare.
Any chance you could give a dumb American a breakdown of what that process looks like?
I’m truly ignorant but genuinely curious
Shipping cards to PSA from the UK is very easy.
The breakdown of the process is you create a PSA submission, pack your cards, use a shipping aggregator like parcelhero to purchase your fedex label, then have the parcel collected. Done
Customs form takes all of 10 seconds to fill out and parcelhero e-files so there are no extra paper documents.
PSA will ship your graded cards back to you using Fedex.
Yes there is risk because you’re shipping internationally, but the process is hardly complicated.
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I think insurance can add a few more challenges.
I understand many people use Secursus, however they can only cover items that are part of a sale and shipped from the seller to the buyer.
Some insurers require signature on delivery. Which means using a super easy service like ParcelHero etc is not possible because they dont allow you to add “signature on delivery”, even if its offered by FedEx etc. when going directly through them.
How do you insure high value cards, when shipping for grading?
Unfortunately PSA do use FedEx to return items, which has always been problematic, at least for me when living in London. FedEx often claim they’ve tried to deliver when they haven’t, change the delivery day on the due day etc. which is a pain if you make arrangements to be home. UPS by comparison have always been a dream.
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Secursus cover items at sale or purchase value. If you have proof of purchase for the raw cards they will cover that value. This is what is written on their website:
“Unlike carriers that always try to refund the lowest possible value, Secursus protects your item at its last retail value or actual purchase value. Secursus has over 12000 customers using our service to protect their valuable items.”
This of course is problematic for personal collections that have been held long term. For those buying cards to grade though it fully covers you for what you paid.
Thanks for sharing.
I suppose it doesn’t cover the value post-grading.
Your quote clearly states it covers purchase or sale value. Which I cannot argue with. But when I enquired for more detail from Secursus, earlier this year, their response was quite firm. Which is why I have not used them.
Obviously insurance can be quite tricky. Do you have experience making claims with them? I want to find to good insurer, so any information would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT:
I remembered someone else on the forum had a similar response from Secursus a while ago too
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I’m definitely not pro-police but haven’t public services in the UK been constantly gutted by neoliberal politicians? It’s the chickens coming home to roost.
Not going to make excuses for the antisocial behaviour of scalpers, thieves etc but income inequality continues to grow and no hobby will be immune to people trying to make a quick buck. It’s all very late stage capitalism, where the barons run amok free from consequences as the rest fight amongst themselves.
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