A grading company’s role is to give us their opinion on an item’s authenticity and condition, and to put that item into plastic to protect it. The latter part is easy to do and little innovation in slab/holder design has resulted. However, earning the trust of the consumer base is difficult, which is why nearly every basement grading company that popped up during COVID has closed or is open but completely irrelevant.
The only legitimate way for a grading company to earn trust is for the larger market to buy their items and collectively agree with their standards. A problem arises when too few people in the overall market have bought their items and buyers do not inherently understand their standards.
It is hard to extend trust to companies that serve geographically-restricted populations because too little of their product has been made available to the global market. There is nothing wrong with speaking to people in the UK about their experiences with UKG and taking a chance on an item. However, one cannot blindly expect the global market to immediately trust their expertise or to understand their grading scale when they have little to no experience with the company.
And it’s important to not confuse my statement with prejudice toward companies outside of North America. It is irrelevant where a company operates, as long as trust has been earned among the global market and comparisons to the well-established companies have been made.
Tagging @pokerd, because their thoughts on the topic may be insightful.
UK is a pretty big country. if they trust ukg and several people here on the forums said that they are i trust them. taking a chance ? i aint collecting for ROI i couldnt care less and would never sell it anyway. not everyone is collecting as a business or for money.
again another example is the fairly new company ESG grading which is asian. as im living in thailand they are located in singapore and has become quite spread even with many items graded in ebay. those that want to stick to PSA and think they are the only legitimate company in the world or WATA for games are welcoe to do so. they are just narrowing their options.
edit : another example here is IGS grading (mainly for media small pc boxes and VHS). not many heard of em here on the forums they are located in north america. been grading with them for 2 years no issues what so ever and they are great.
I’ve heard of and seen UKG games listed on ebay, but have never bought one. I have heard people speak positively about them, but that means nothing insofar as what I expect if I buy a UKG game.
I don’t have experience with their grading scale, and I don’t know how consistently they are able to apply that scale (typically that comes with popularity over time). A few people saying ‘trust me bro’ is not convincing; an entire market having a clear, preferred choice is.
those few people are just an example. this reminds me playing WOW online an mmorpg. where if you wanted to get into doing new dungeons ppl would want you to have past exp in that dungeon or they wont let you in. but if no one lets you in how can you ever get the exp you need for doing it.
new pizza opens in town but there is an older pizza shop with already good experience. so you condemn the new pizza shop just coz its new (which isnt the case with UKG as they arent new). also its not “few ppl saying bro trust me”
again the great PSA made countless mistakes in grading in the history i dont see people questioning them even when some times the card deff doesn’t deserve the grade it gets.
so ok WATA is a known north american company. do you know their scaling grade? for me its bette to do some quick reseach than to pass a game just because it wasn’t graded by a big well renowned company in north america.
also again and i cant stress this enough, i dont care about ROI im not in it for the money but because i love pokemon and want to collect.
They have been ‘let in’ in the sense that people use their service, and have been for a while. But after 11 years there are still people who send to US graders from the UK, at much higher cost.
PSA has made plenty of mistakes, but in comparison to the volume they handle it’s reasonably low. There is also a lot of criticism PSA (from myself as well). No company is perfect but they are the most reliable for cards; BGS and CGC, especially in below gem mint condition, are far less consistent in their grades.
I’m more familiar with their scale than UKG’s because I’ve seen multiple people post pictures, descriptions, videos of before and after grading. With that said, I feel like I’ve seen greater variance with their games than I have with VGA.
The crux of this discussion is, how confident are you buying a game without seeing pictures? The answer is a function of price, grade, and company; if a UKG game is significantly cheaper than the equivalent grade as a VGA graded copy, I would consider it. If they’re similar prices I would just buy VGA.
Edit: I forgot to add that having a financial guarantee is a huge factor. VGA recently paid out $8,000 for a game that they graded in 2008 that turned out not to be factory sealed.
if i had a grading company here in thailand i wouldnt send the cards to PSA paying a lot more and needing a middle man.
remind you i think in covid era when CGC were new to grading cards a lot of people were bashing them yet they grew and people now even grade trophy and rare cards with them.
UKG might not want to expand beyond england. does that mean they are a bad company and cannot be trusted ? i dont think so.
VGA and a game not really factory sealed ? how did the buyer know unless he noticed something opened the grading case and actually checked ? to me its sounds like Bullcr*p or your not giving all the details or dont know them.
also, same products being listed with diffrent prices doesn’t mean they are more reliable and seller just want to try screw people. some people put fan club porygon psa 8 for 1400$ and some list the same thing exactly for 2300$. does that mean the 2300$ porygon is better or justifying the price ? absolutely not.
for the game, there is only one more version like this listed and graded by VGA. seller has it on BIN of 2499$
the one graded by UKG is on BIN of 2272. a difference but not a big one.
I think if you’ve done due diligence on an “unknown” grading company, and are happy with the reputation/have no expectation of stonks, then it can’t hurt to dip your toe in as long as you aren’t financially reckless.
The only way a company can gain global recognition, is by having customers take a chance on their product, so they can naturally grow regionally → nationally → globally. Otherwise we end up with a catch 22, where people won’t buy because there’s no rep and there’s no rep because people won’t buy.
** Plus, the UK is smol, but a good chunk of the world’s biggest innovations came from here, so don’t write off companies in this “geographically isolated area”.
Have you considered that you are so vehemently defending UKG to justify your purchase? It’s OK to support a company while still maintaining a critical view.
It appears that your cursory appraisal of their scale met what you were looking for, so that’s great! There’s no need to die on a hill for a company that you know little about.
see my wow mmo rpg game experience its the exact thing but again they are not some underground company just because north america doesnt know them. not everything revolves around usa mmkay?
It may be frustrating or unfair, but that’s how it is. Inertia is the most important thing because the product is not an acrylic case, it’s the logo on the label.
The pizza analogy falls flat because the stakes are low. It’s more like trying to invest $5000 into a pizza place and the options are the famous long-standing successful place in town that everyone knows and you are friends with the owner or one you’ve never heard of or been to before but when you visit there are like 5 people in line so maybe it’s ok?
i dont know if its frustrating or unfair i stay away from pc games like these if you refer to that.
if your talking about the game and UKG, yea gonna buy it anyways. was never collecting pokemon stuff for making money or an ROI but coz i love pokemon.
i know in my city back in israel a few places who opened a pizza where there is an iconic pizza in my city since it was founded in 1976. those other pizza places are doing great. yup they might not be like that first pizza shop that got a big rep but they are deff doing well for themselves or they would have closed down years ago. it is also good to havea variety which keeps market prices not too high.
To answer the original question, what makes a company trustworthy to me is not generally based on their reputation but on their product. Do they do what they say they do and does their product meet the standards it is supposed to reliably. Even then, there are levels to trust ranging from “Would trust with anything” to “Only if I have to” to “Never”.
If I sent something to UKG or GMA or CGC or “Backalley graders” etc, am I going to get what is promised with grading? I expect a grader should be able to authenticate, determine condition on a reasonable scale, and to encapsulate in a way that prevents changes to the product.
I dont care if theres been a handful of bad experiences that are one offs, I dont care if they sealed it in a basement, I dont care if the value is less than ungraded. Will they deliver reliably at the standard expected is all I care about, after that its all personal preference.
UKG seems to grade a lot of different things but as long as they have a scale of conditions, their cases are tamperproof, and they have done enough research to show products are what they are supposed to be, I have no issue with them or people who use them.
GMA I wont touch unless I want the raw card because their scale is inconsistent.
“Backalley graders” usually have an issue with their condition scale and with their product research, I try not to touch them but every now and again will check out new ones for experimentation.
CGC has their issues but compared to quantity it is a small amount, although is still concerning and scale changes have put me off of trusting them to the point where I wont give them money unless I have to. Trust was broken, it takes time to repair if at all.
If you are grading for other reasons it changes the conversation from trust to other things. Value, Style, Protection, Flipping, History, Condition, Reputation, etc are all things that I consider personal preferences when considering a grading company once a companies trust level is figured out.
i think you summed it up good.
i dont care for the ROI so ukg perfectly fine for me as well as IGS (gonna have some VHS arrive soon like you like me posting so prepare )
Id be happy to see them once theyre in, you do you with grading. For what its worth, I looked back and UKG has graded decks in the past and here is my reddit comment from a year ago
“Ive seen them but personally I stay away from graded decks. Thats the second company that currently “grades” them that Ive seen and it essentially means nothing. They dont classify the deck correctly, they never say how they authenticate them, and they havent shown a reason for grading. Im all for if its for fun but the companies that currently grade decks arent necessarily well regarded for grading.”
I feel like IGS is the other company but its been a while so I cant remember specifically. As you can see, I wouldnt use them because they fail my trust level of researching product correctly and the incorrect label would annoy me to no end but if I only wanted them encapsulated, then Im sure they are great.
You literally just explained basic business principals when starting a new business. If you are a new business in town, it takes a long time to build reputation and a base. It is the reason why 60% of all new businesses (especially restaurants) fail within a year and an additional 20% fail within 5 years.
So yes I agree with your point saying new/relatively unknown businesses will have a hard time building trust.
thing is i would try a new pizza place if it isnt good, i wont come anymore.
although UKG are a company of several years already and are well known in england
I’m quoting from a post made on an old thread where there was talk of alleged Topps fakes.
For me a nice piece of ISO 9001 type paper would be a good indication that the company has a quality standard in the production process.
I believe that every service company has the possibility of obtaining a certification of this type, not having one, despite being a large and famous company, means that in my eyes it automatically loses points, regardless of whether it can then work well or not.
There are quite a few threads on this same forum proving that even the best can make mistakes, so credibility towards a company is very subjective. For my part, I make this point.
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