The Brill Report: eBay Still Sux and So Does the Potential Governor

By Bob Brill

Not only does eBay continue to suck but are you just tired of hearing how former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is going to fix California when she's elected governor and Arnie retires? Since I sit behind a microphone at the only all news radio station in Los Angeles at least 14 hours a week I have to listen to her commercials and hear her stretch the truth through her teeth while I watch the trading card industry suffer more losses due to the likes of eBay.

First of all let's look at "eBay!" When it first started it was a pretty good thing and became an industry standard. Then came their lack of policing autographs -- try looking for bad stuff and you'll see the same old guys selling the same old fakes. Over the years eBay did bring more collectors back into the market by putting a death knell on retail hobby stores. The stores were forced to play the eBay game right out of business.

Even today it's terrible although the overall economy hasn't helped, but eBay's policies are getting worse and worse. Why on earth can a buyer leave negative feedback for a seller, but a seller cannot leave negative feedback for a buyer? The only solution is to "not leave feedback at all" because it doesn't mean anything anymore! If all the buyer can get is a positive no matter what kind of malicious, perverted, demeaning, thieving, scumbag he/she is then what is the point?

And the value? Drop it off the edge of the planet Mac. For instance, this week I listed a 1955 Bowman Eddie Lebaron rookie card graded BVG 7.5. That is basically an 8 for a key rookie from 54 years ago and a HOF player as well. I started the bidding at $9.99 figuring it would go to about $40. It's real true value is about $60 and it should be $75. Well how does $10.50 sound? SUX to me but that is where it ended up and to think I once turned down $30 for it in my store when I had one.

Well enough of that and onto Meg Whitman. She left eBay as CEO and as one of the richest women in the world. Let me say that again "one of the richest women in the WORLD!" Does the word billionaire come close. Her reported NET WORTH is $1.4 Billion. That is right, "Billion" with a "B."

So now she wants to the Governor of California. Well la-de-dah. Her pitch is threefold. Here it is, via the radio commercials which I've heard ad nauseum.

1. Create new jobs because as she points out she created thousands of new jobs at eBay while she was CEO, creating thousands of new businesses. That is true, businesses with no benefits and thousands of new businesses who don't pay or collect taxes creating the largest underground economy in world history.

2. Government shouldn't spend more than it takes in so she will freeze spending, cut taxes and take those government service departments which are out of control and eliminate them and lay off thousands of people who are government employees. Wow! Talk to the state legislature about that before you do anything because that is what you have to. Let's see lay off thousands of state workers? Doesn't that kind of conflict with No. 1 above? Put more people on the street who are paying taxes and paying their bills. Hmmmm, now that sounds like a plan. Oh and getting rid of those departments which aren't paying their way? Schools, roads, the State Board of Equalization (the guys who collect sales taxes) and all those government watchdog agencies who keep an eye on all those oil companies and other large anti-green and anti-government oversight firms. Wow that will work. Cut taxes? How long do you want to stand in line at the DMV? The EDD? Or any other state required agency? Cut taxes, cut jobs and make lines longer and have services only available three days a week.

3. Schools. "We're going to give more choices to parents and reward better teachers by paying them more." So let's see that means school vouchers for private schools and home schooling (more money out of public schools) and Merit Pay for Teachers. All Merit pay does is create greedy money hungry administrators and teachers in the classroom. Merit pay works if your kids are widgets but they are not widgets. They are indivdiual learners who learn at their own pace and more often than not there is nothing any teacher can do which will make a slow learner, learn faster. Now you can get all the smart kids into a few classrooms and no matter who the teacher is they will perform better on those tests. That teacher will get more money because of the better grades.

Now here is something which might work. Teachers might go for it if you let them draft their kids just like NFL teams draft their players. Let's say you have three first grade classes in a school. Each teacher the first year draws their position from a hat. They draft from the upcoming 2nd graders in an even mannered order as in a Fantasy Football Draft, but the second year and from then on they draft in reverse order of finish. If teacher no. 1 has the best overall student test scores in year one, she drafts last the following year and so on.

You can even let the teachers trade kids. You give me two better than average kids for one dumb one and one highly intelligent kid. And there are some dumb ones just like there are intelligent ones. Now don't forget the Non English Speakers. We have to spread them out evenly which sounds a little like discrimination but hey this is corporation here, we can push that under the rug for now.

Under this system each teacher has a chance build a winning team to make more money. Otherwise, under the way it's actually planned, what is to prevent a teacher from offering half of his/her bonus salary to an administrator in return for stacking her class with smart kids. And if an administrator doesn't like a teacher what is to prevent them from stacking her class with dumb kids and kids who can't speak English at all? Nothing. This is why running a classroom is not the same as running a corporation. It only works with widgets and you may want widgets from your loins but my kids were never widgets.

You see what you will get for teachers in the future is not caring teachers who want to help kids. You will get greedy salesperson types who only care about the almight buck, not the kids. And why not? You are paying them more to get higher grades and getting higher grades is not teaching them to learn, it is getting them to get more points on a standardized test, biased test or not. Heck I might become a teacher. Show me the money! Who cares about those little brats? Whip them into shape, memorize things, reward them with candy, whatever it takes to get those little brats to get higher scores. Who cares if they learn anything? I don't. Just SHOW ME THE MONEY! Now for those of you who know me you know I'd never become a teacher under any circumstances. It's a very difficult job and you have to care, which is why Merit Pay does not work.

So Meg, yes you built up eBay, but let me ask you this. You keep saying cut taxes. If you are elected governor of  California are you going to go after all those new businesses you created via eBay and make them collect and pay their California Sales Taxes? Oh, that's right go to her web site and ask Meg? I'll wait until I get her on the air instead.

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Finally I can announce copies of my new book are on store shelves as we speak. I'm told sales are good for "Fan Letters to a Stripper: A Patti Waggin Tale." I will be signing copies of the book this Sunday afternoon at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., in West Hollywood. You can also see a video of the making the book on YouTube. C'mon out and pick up a copy. I'll also be in four northern California cities in coming weeks. The week of November 15th I'll be in Oakland, Chico, Sacramento and Bakersfield for signings with one coming up in Ventura but it's as of yet not decided regarding a date. You can read more at my website.

Tags: whitman baseball grading merit waggin don ebay lebaron rudolph beckett california patti pay football psa meg governor

THE BRILL REPORT: Grading? Is it Bogus?

By Bob Brill

  This is a question the hobby has pondered for a number of years and like almost everything else in this industry the questions linger and there are no solid answers. We hopefully will provide some answers in this dispatch but I fear will only raise more questions. The bottom line in a democracy is raising more questions is a good thing.

  There are three main grading companies; PSA, Beckett and SGC. At one time there were about 30 including our own TBR Grading Service. While TBR was probably the most innovative and toughest of the grading companies we just ran out of marketing money so we had to shut it down. PSA remains tops among collectors especially of those who collect vintage while Beckett is also very popular and SGC flounders behind. The rest are gone and if they do exist they are insignificant.

  The focus today is an experiment we tried and is finally over. While all three grading services have good reputations the collecting public still questions their accuracy and motive. How do they compare cards and how do they differ from company to company? Do they switch out your great cards for not so great ones? If one dealer sends in 1000 cards and I send in 10 cards will he get better grades because he spends so much? Are certain things overlooked because a dealer sends in lots of cards on a regular basis? How accurate is grading and is it really just an opinion?

  We will site several examples but the one we want to focus on now involves two specific cards, graded (or not graded by each of the big three). The two cards in question were a 1965 Phil Niekro and a 1965 Masanori Murakami Rookie Card. These two cards were acquired in a collection of extremely high grade cards from the 1960's. They were collected by a very strong collector who obviously admired centering first and foremost and had since he began collecting in 1955. He died in 1995 at the age of 40 and left his collection to his daughter. We purchased the entire collection from her. We submitted many cards to PSA for grading and got some really nice grades.

  The two most beautiful cards in the collection were the two rookies named above. After careful consideration we thought we had a legitimate shot at a 10 on the Murakami and a 9 or even 9.5 on the Niekro. PSA refused to grade them sending them back as "not meeting minimum size requirements." They did not say "showed evidence of trimming," but didn't meet minimum size requirements. So were they trimmed or just left the factory a bit off cut but perfectly centered?

  The source of the purchase was dead so he could not be consulted. He either got them from packs which was highly likely or bought them from a dealer in the 1980's. He bought a lot from Larry Fritsch who has a sterling reputation. Did he buy them from an unscrupulous dealer who trimmed them? PSA didn't say trimmed they said didn't meet the minimum size requirements.

  After closer inspection it seems the Niekro did seem slightly smaller, not so with the Murakami. We sent the two cards to Beckett Vintage Grading. Both cards came back. One sheet said both cards "had been restored." In both cases BVG said the cards did not meet the minimum size requirements from left to right and were "below measurement tolerance."

  So it looked as if there was some consistency. I still however was not sold. While the Niekro did look a little suspect the Murakami looked dead on. Were the two cards judged together and assumed to be tampered with by the graders? We don't know and they would say of course not because each card is graded individually as you expect them to say.

  The two cards are quite valuable. The Murakami carries a high Beckett price tag of $50 while the Niekro also carries a $50 catalog value. We would not object to the cards being graded by the same person at all. The next move was to send the cards to SGC. Never before had we sent cards to SGC but this time it was necessary for this experiment. The cards were returned this week and guess what?

  The Niekro as expected came back as ungradable. Again the words "minimum size" requirments not being met kept the graders from slabbing it. However, the Murakami was graded. It received the high grade of 96 or equivalent to PSA 9, Mint. They did not believe the card was trimmed or altered or even under the minimum size requirements. The Murakami card no. 282 in a PSA 9 is valued at $250! It was according to SGC and as we expected a non-trimmed card of high grade. It wasn't the 10 we felt it was but a 9 was great.

 So did the graders at SGC screw up or just miss the mark, or did they take the time and grade the two cards seperately and make the correct call? We like to think they did since it goes along with what we believe. Did Beckett and PSA think the cards were borderline and worthy of passage but backed off because they wanted to seem to be the grader with the toughest standards? This might be the case.

  In another instance several years ago we broke 50, 1991-92 Upper Deck NHL Hockey Update Sets which included the Keith Tkachuk and Alexi Yashin RC's. Carefully going over each card of the two players in question we found about 20 of each to be near exact copies of the others. So we sent the 20 Yashin's to one grading company and the 20 Tkachuk's to the other.

  Imagine our surprise when we recieved the cards to learn 80% almost exactly recieved an 8 and 20% recieved a 9 grade. The grading numbers were almost exact when it came to the breakdown from the two firms. Could we figure at this point if a customer sent in a large number of one card at the same time with nearly exact credentials, this would result in 20% in higher grades? It would be difficult with such limited experimentation to come to such a conclusion but the question was there regarding large submissions to smaller ones.

  PSA prides itself on its security and rightfully so. Beckett prides itself on its holder and innovations. Some of those innovations backfired. BCCG, Beckett's self proclaimed "low end" grading service was the joke of the industry. In an attempt to get large firms such as Wal-mart to carry graded products the company came up with the idea of allowing dealers or firms to submit a minimum of 1000 cards for a $2 grading fee. The holder would be basically the same but there wouldn't be an inside sleeve and less time taken to grade and no sub-grades.

  At the Hawaii Trade Conference that year a high ranking Beckett official stated this was "our lower end grading service."

  "If the card is graded a BCCG 10 it really is more like a BGS 8," said the official. "It is designed to get more lower end cards graded."

  He left the company a few months later by the way. The whole project still is seen as an embarrassment to the company which was at one time a leader in the industry for integrity.

  SGC made it's reputation on grading the oversized Tiger Woods Rookie Cards. Since then PSA has gone to grading oversized cards and taken away a lot of the market. PSA still stands out in the minds of collectors for one big reason. They want to complete graded sets and register them. As one dealer put it when it comes to PSA grading "it's all about set registration."

  TBR had several innovations which the industry has failed to adapt. TBR was the first to put sub-grades on the front label. Beckett did adopt this for vintage grading until it chose to drop sub grades for vintage cards. TBR also offered for free to the two big companies the TBR video grading system. This was developed by Bobby Brill II, a photographer and videographer who came up with the concept of placing a video camera on a poll overseeing a small platform. In this way the grader could move the card around on a felt slab underneath the camera and watch on a video monitor. This ingenius method allowed the grader to see a blown up version of the card and not hold the card while straining tired eyes.

  The younger Brill had worked for PSA for a short time as a temporary grader and was amazed at the lack of technology PSA employed in grading. Basically a lamp and a ruler were employed. The video system was offered to Beckett and PSA but both turned it down.

  The TBR holder was the smallest in the industry for basic cards and was designed to fit into a two-row shoe box easily. Currently no holder of the major graders does this. A special box must but carried to hold the cards, unlike TBR.

  TBR, according to consumers, also had the most accurate and logical grading system of points used in the industry. It was uncomplicated and easily understood. Unlike BGS and PSA it did not use a complicated algorithm system, but rather an applied point system which worked. One point was assigned each corner down to a half point or zero, each edge was assigned a half point while the front and back carried one point totals each as did centering from side to side and top to bottom. A perfect card would gain 4 points for the corners, 2 points for centering, 2 points for the edges and 2 points for the surface front and back. Knock off anything less than perfect and a different result came about. Grading of centering and surface marks was 50% discounted for pre-1981 cards due to technology of those times.

  Beckett at the time used an algorithm which stated the overall grade of the card could not be higher than one full point higher than the lowest sub graded. So if the corners graded 9, centering graded 9, edges graded 9 and the surface graded a 2, the card would be no better than a 3. We thought this ludicrous and developed our own system.

  The only flaw in our system was with creased cards, which would throw the balance of the system way off. We chose to make it a policy we would not grade creased cards.

  So the bottom line comes up again. Is Grading Bogus? There are a lot of good people in the grading field and a lot who are not, but then this is the hobby. So when it comes down to grading and it's legitimacy? Is it a calculated opinion, nothing more. It is a way to make money for a few companies and in the hobby this seems to be the bottom line.

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(BETTENDORF, IOWA) GAI, speaking of grading, is back with a new management team, a new system, a new website and in a new town. Thousands of miles away from it's former Southern California (Orange County) base the much beleaugered grading company is back in business. Still carrying the GAI name it now stands for Global Authority Inc., rather than Global Authentication, Inc. Gone are Justin Priddy and Steve Rache; the company is now being run by Demian Werner and Mike Baker. Several years ago TBR broke the story of how the company authenticated Tiger Woods signed golf balls when it was well know Woods does not sign golf balls. This started a string of news releases which eventually led to the companies demise. It was purchased out of bankruptcy and now has moved to Iowa.

(HONOLULU, HI) What is one of the hottest collectibles emerging on the scene today? How about surf related items? At the Annual Surf Convention in Honolulu recently, a bidder paid $40,000 for an 11-foot board made 60 years ago. A second board sold for $39,000 and was made in 1955. More than 100 historical boards went up for bid with 400 bidders on hand.

(MEMORY LANE) The latest sale of a T-206 Honus Wagner card brought a record for a low grade card. The card was graded a 40 by SGC and sold for $925,000 in the ML auction. A 40 is the equivalent of about a PSA 3.

(VENTURA,CA) Our next signing for the book "Fan Letters to a Stripper: A Patti Waggin Tale," will be in Ventura, CA on September 24th, a Thursday at 5:30pm. We recently recieved a phone call from someone who had seen the web site and remember fondly Don Rudolph from his minor league days. As a nine year old kid Don (Patti Waggin's husband) kept in contact with the boy by writing him post cards and letters. Try that today.

Remember to check out our website www.pattiwaggin.com and purchase either the collectible version of the book or the regular version. Go to the site and check it out. The book is due in mid-to-late August. You can reach Bob Brill at bob.pattiwaggin-AT-gmail-DOT-com.

Tags: patti psa cards boards surfing surf service letters rudolph beckett murakami japanese sgccard fan don waggin niekro phil tbr bvg sgc grading sports

Beckett Grading Services (BGS) to start grading 1983-86 Star Co Basketball Cards

By Wesley Hein

In the early 80s, before Jordan, Bird and Magic reinvigorated basketball card collecting (not to mention the NBA in general), there was only one card manufacturer making basketball cards--Star. Unfortunately, Star did not put a lot of effort into making their cards distinct or unique and thus it was relatively easy and lucrative for counterfeiters (especially Michael Jordan rookie cards). Because of this many authenticators elected to stay away from grading Star cards. 

Last week, Beckett Grading Services announced that they would begin authenticating the 83-86 Star cards.  This is good news for collectors who've been holding on to quality raw Star cards from the 80s who will now have the ability to verify the legitimacy and quality of their cards as well as buyers who been on the sidelines for the same reasons.

Tags: grading basketball