The slab design does look good. But due to resale value, I will only use it for cards that will never be sold or are extremely rare (where grading matters less).
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You won’t make a few extra bucks on the card because of the plastic it’s placed in or you don’t trust their grading capabilities?
Excellent write up! Thoughtful and eloquent. Two things that have always been clear to me for TAG though are that:
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I don’t understand how they will ever be able to expand to vintage sports given the insane differences for different cards in the same grade with PSA/SGC/CCG. Like I don’t know what they would even train their software on.
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They will absolutely be bought out by CGC or PSA if they ever become a viable business. 100k is basement grading numbers for a company that started building 15 years ago.
All things considered, I understand your rationale for trying them out and I have followed their story with interest as well. It’s a beautiful card as a tag 10/cgc 10/PSA 9. Anecdotally, I really liked their case when I bought a tag card and absolutely hated that I couldn’t see anything on the label. I crossed my card.
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Don’t have really have anything to add but I’m glad you’re happy with your decision and congratulations on owning such an amazing card! 
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copium is strong here
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yeah it is
I understand what you are saying but I don’t understand why there would be demand for this service. If it’s completely subjective and everyone knows it, why would someone else’s subjective opinion be more important than yours for your collection? Maybe your intent is to resell, but if you are going to sell to someone who is actually interested in the piece then they ought to have their own subjective standard for their own collection. You’re just paying someone else to say “I like this” or “I don’t like this”.
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This was quite the expedition.
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Congratulations! Those slabs do look nice!
I think the concept is intriguing but I do wonder how they plan on maintaining grading consistency overtime as the technology advances.
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It’s hard to say for trading cards. I get it more for coins, which if course have a reflective metal surface that can be difficult to get a good grasp of in a photo. A third party could help differentiate between two coins. (Won’t get into CAC stickers… another layer they have over there lol).
Subjectivity and inconsistency can both result in more difficult to anticipate grading outcomes, so think your point can even be applied to some extent to grading as a whole.
At the end of the day, it comes down to the trust that the 3rd party providing their opinion has from the buyers and sellers. If people don’t value it, or they don’t care enough that it removes value, it’ll work. If people speak with their wallets and actively oppose it, it’ll go away.
heh. 
Wow, congrats on the stunning illustrator, thats an amazing aqcuisition! I can totally understand where you’re coming from with the criticism for the grading companies.
But then again, I’m generally not grading cards worth more than $1000, so my issues are completely different. Which, given the distribution of values of cards graded, I would wager most people experience. So for the overwhelming majority, the current grading companies are perfectly acceptable (in your words, if it ain’t broke…).
I don’t believe this is a Blackberry vs Apple situation at all though. in the examples you gave there is a considerable difference in user experience, utility and convenience. There where actual reasons for people to switch. This just isn’t the case for grading. The end product is pretty much the same, a card in a plastic case with a grade attached. If I’m getting good, agreeable grades at PSA and they are the market standard, why would I switch? Because PSA overscrutinizes high end cards, that I don’t submit?
This situation feels a lot more like social media competing with Meta/Facebook to me. If a competetor ever becomes relevant with an innovative idea, they either get bought out, or their idea gets copied.
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Any chance Logan paid premium for not allowing anyone to get another 10 on Illus?
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Yes, and he has also done this with 70% real bone Triceratops skulls. Shame.
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The answer is in the other thread u created.
Logan Paul Enters the chat “PSA 10 is easy bro!”
Awesome write-up. You’ve confirmed something Pokemon collectors have speculated for quite a while which is PSA sometimes has different grading standards depending on the value and/or notoriety of a card.
The supervisor you spoke with should probably have not revealed that they do indeed harshly grade the illustrator, This is an actual form of “pop control” which I normally hesitate to say but in this case it being true.
Most people will probably not stop grading with PSA even if they did know about this instance because a lot of Pokemon graders do fall into the category of wanting the subjective bulk grading to get “easy 10s” to sell.
Big kudos to the illustrator acquisition and seeking as much objectivity as possible with a grading company.
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I disagree. That phrase carries way more weight than what is happening. Pop control implies that cards that deserve a 10 are intentionally downgraded to control the number. As in, the grade is dependent on who is submitting. The admission here implies that a more strict minimum standard is applied to cards of importance, the motivation for doing so is also left unclear.
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I think we can agree that part of it comes down to liability. PSA doesn’t want to be on the hook for a misgraded PSA 10 Illustrator, where they would have to pay out millions of dollars if someone submitted the misgraded copy to the Grade Guarantee. In other words, they have to be careful when grading high-end cards so that their reputation is protected and their financial liability is minimized.
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Maybe. It’s a reasonable explanation but still just an assumption
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