Beckett 3 3

[Tec-Tac-Toe]

On 10/26/2017 at 9:18 AM, The Resurrection said:

Agreed on every point, and I will add the 500-600 set has added many new registry users. I mean WE knew Tec was the Cats Pajamas! And I still have about 50-100 books to sub, but haven't been happy with CGCs inconsistency

Yes, the Tec 500 to 600 has also grown substantially. My set only includes  books that I purchased graded as my original owner copies are still in storage and likely will be for many more years, if not decades.

As concerns subs, most of my last few subs have been moderns and all received the grades that I expected. Of course, receiving a 9.8, for example, on a modern is a "gimme," in my experience, if the book only has the issues, excuse the pun, that, again, in my experience, CGC accepts on them.

[Martin Sinescu]

I'm not sure, but I can't imagine this would be a change in philosophical approach to grading. It's probably an infusion of cash and infrastructure, so it would likely allow them to beef up staffing, upgrade equipment, increase marketing, streamline workflow, etc. but I wouldn't think Beckett would buy in to go muck around with the core of their business (grading). At that point, if they're really going to impose their identity into the situation then why not just rebrand as Beckett Comic Grading or something. To think anything Beckett has done historically in the sports card hobby will somehow now transfer directly to a pre-existing comic-grading company is a real stretch, though.

Some of the negatives brought up about BGS here are news to me, but I only stayed with card collecting for a few years. I was actually pretty impressed with how Beckett immediately one-upped PSA when they entered grading -- the incremental grades really helped the high-end market by bridging the gap between the increasingly common 9's and super-rare 10's (which I believe PSA eventually implemented as well), while the four sub grades on the back gave a collector a much clearer picture of the card's attributes. The cases also felt much sturdier. Seemed like a pretty good product overall.

[1Cool]

4 minutes ago, Martin Sinescu said:

I'm not sure, but I can't imagine this would be a change in philosophical approach to grading. It's probably an infusion of cash and infrastructure, so it would likely allow them to beef up staffing, upgrade equipment, increase marketing, streamline workflow, etc. but I wouldn't think Beckett would buy in to go muck around with the core of their business (grading). At that point, if they're really going to impose their identity into the situation then why not just rebrand as Beckett Comic Grading or something. To think anything Beckett has done historically in the sports card hobby will somehow now transfer directly to a pre-existing comic-grading company is a real stretch, though.

Some of the negatives brought up about BGS here are news to me, but I only stayed with card collecting for a few years. I was actually pretty impressed with how Beckett immediately one-upped PSA when they entered grading -- the incremental grades really helped the high-end market by bridging the gap between the increasingly common 9's and super-rare 10's (which I believe PSA eventually implemented as well), while the four sub grades on the back gave a collector a much clearer picture of the card's attributes. The cases also felt much sturdier. Seemed like a pretty good product overall.

I hope they do not change the name to BCG since it's way to close to CGC. 

[blazingbob]

BCG is close to CGC?  Buy Can't Grade

[Broke as a Joke]

I wonder if they will have a comic book equivalent to BGS and BCCG.  

[Tony S]

2 hours ago, 1Cool said:

In my experience companies are bought out for two primary reasons.  Either the company is doing so poorly they sell cheap to avoid going under or they are doing so well a bigger company offers a ton of cash to obtain the ongoing profits.  Any idea which of the two occurred in this case?

Those aren't the only two primary reasons companies get bought out.   Another big reason is companies want to move into new markets, diversify their business 

I've been expecting one of the sports card grading companies to move into the graded comic market for a long time. At first the market looked to small for another successful comic grading company. But CGC has now graded over 4 million comics and the pace at which they reach the next million milestones has greatly accelerated. It appears based on press releases that the went from 3 to 4 million in about a year and half.  It took seven years to reach one million, five years to reach two million, less than four to hit three million. It was in summer of 2016 when they said they had graded over three million - and now  it's 4.1 million.

Meanwhile, the first real competition to CGC entered the market four years ago and while they haven't released numbers, they have repeatedly said in the first year they reached levels of books graded they thought would take several years. 

Lots of businesses looking to move into a new field simply buy an already established business in that field. It's  lot cheaper than trying to establish a brand new company. hie staff, build facilities and compete with the already established businesses.  Big banks love to move into new territories - and the most favored path is to buy up small regional banks.  When Microsoft wanted to make phones, they went and bought Nokia.  When big computer and hardware manufactures wanted to move into services, they did so buy buying established services companies.  HP bought EDS.  Xerox bought ACS. Dell purchased Perot Systems.

So I think what we see her is Beckett moving into a new, promising market for them and playing it smart buy purchasing the #2 company in that market.  Rather than trying to establish a #3

[1Cool]

3 hours ago, Tony S said:

Those aren't the only two primary reasons companies get bought out.   Another big reason is companies want to move into new markets, diversify their business 

I've been expecting one of the sports card grading companies to move into the graded comic market for a long time. At first the market looked to small for another successful comic grading company. But CGC has now graded over 4 million comics and the pace at which they reach the next million milestones has greatly accelerated. It appears based on press releases that the went from 3 to 4 million in about a year and half.  It took seven years to reach one million, five years to reach two million, less than four to hit three million. It was in summer of 2016 when they said they had graded over three million - and now  it's 4.1 million.

Meanwhile, the first real competition to CGC entered the market four years ago and while they haven't released numbers, they have repeatedly said in the first year they reached levels of books graded they thought would take several years. 

Lots of businesses looking to move into a new field simply buy an already established business in that field. It's  lot cheaper than trying to establish a brand new company. hie staff, build facilities and compete with the already established businesses.  Big banks love to move into new territories - and the most favored path is to buy up small regional banks.  When Microsoft wanted to make phones, they went and bought Nokia.  When big computer and hardware manufactures wanted to move into services, they did so buy buying established services companies.  HP bought EDS.  Xerox bought ACS. Dell purchased Perot Systems.

So I think what we see her is Beckett moving into a new, promising market for them and playing it smart buy purchasing the #2 company in that market.  Rather than trying to establish a #3

100% agree it’s not all cut and dry but it sounds like your scenario falls into the company is doing very well and another company buys the company at a premium.  Of course Beckett could have been making offers for awhile and CBCS is not doing well and decided to sell.  Not sure if we will ever know for sure.

Edited October 27, 2017 by 1Cool

[Shockmaster]

On 10/23/2017 at 10:55 PM, hoffitmus prime said:

Another new case coming soon.

Try three or four. Beckett has at least 3 card grading divisions.

[Lucky Baru]

It has to be Friday.  The Beckett thread on across the pond is locked and this one is still going. 

[Kevin76]

In before the lock

People mainly use Beckett for newer cards and PSA for vintage, however, Beckett does use a grading system on their labels.  Centering 9.5, Edges 10, Corners 9.5, Surface 9.0 Final grade 9.5 Mint. Wondering if we could see something like that soon from them on comics.

[Shockmaster]

On 10/24/2017 at 3:10 AM, SECollector said:

So the second best in the sports cards market purchased the second best in the comic books field. I wonder if PSA who is the leading company in cards will now make a move towards CGC. Now, that would be interesting! 

I hope the Collector Society buys SGC and brings them back into the fold. Collector Society should get back into the card grading game. Especially with PSA's questionable grading and Beckett's poor customer service (not to mention they have to have 3 different card grading companies instead of just 1). SGC would be awesome with the Collector Society's registry.

[fastballspecial]

Just reading this gives me a headache.  They bring nothing to the hobby, but greed and an attempt to find a new hobby they can run into the ground. Just like the card hobby currently is. The end will be near when you see Marvel and DC do collaborations with them.

 

 

[valiantman]

47 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:

Just reading this gives me a headache.  They bring nothing to the hobby, but greed and an attempt to find a new hobby they can run into the ground. Just like the card hobby currently is. The end will be near when you see Marvel and DC do collaborations with them.

The end of what?

 

I see more packs of sportscards in stores now than I have since the 1990s.

[fastballspecial]

34 minutes ago, valiantman said:

 

1 hour ago, fastballspecial said:

Just reading this gives me a headache.  They bring nothing to the hobby, but greed and an attempt to find a new hobby they can run into the ground. Just like the card hobby currently is. The end will be near when you see Marvel and DC do collaborations with them.

The end of what?

 

I see more packs of sportscards in stores now than I have since the 1990s.

 

Because there aren't any sport card stores anymore. When you cater away from kids which cards have done your industry implodes.  Unless we learn the lesson from them we wont be any different. Again Beckett brings nothing to our industry, but more greed. I could  care less about more competition in a grading market that I very rarely use. 

The grading market needs to stay small for the health of our industry. When you see it increasing its not a good sign for our industry in general especially in the modern age market. I can see their attraction in other older markets.

 

Edited October 28, 2017 by fastballspecial

[Kevin76]

Companies buy other companies to aquire more assets, so they can make more money. Show me a company that says "ok, no more growing, we are big enough, anything more is just us being greedy"  Company "C" already has people complaining about it's customer service already, do you think the staff is going to be replaced with Beckett staff ? I highly doubt it. No matter the company, you'll always have dissatisfied customers. Just the way it is. 

Edited October 28, 2017 by Kevin76

[Jaydogrules]

15 hours ago, 1Cool said:

In my experience companies are bought out for two primary reasons.  Either the company is doing so poorly they sell cheap to avoid going under or they are doing so well a bigger company offers a ton of cash to obtain the ongoing profits.  Any idea which of the two occurred in this case?

All extrinsic signs point to the former.  

-J.

[Logan510]

2 hours ago, Jaydogrules said:

All extrinsic signs point to the former.  

-J.

And then there is what really happened

 

[jsilverjanet]

I’m still here

[buttock]

On 10/27/2017 at 6:53 AM, 1Cool said:

In my experience companies are bought out for two primary reasons.  Either the company is doing so poorly they sell cheap to avoid going under or they are doing so well a bigger company offers a ton of cash to obtain the ongoing profits.  Any idea which of the two occurred in this case?

A more likely scenario is that whoever put up the funds for the start-up did so as a short-term investment, i.e. this was all planned from the beginning.  This is pretty standard venture capital business.  You start a company, establish a revenue stream, then sell for some multiple of EBITA.  A more risk-averse, but higher-revenue investment firm/company will take over for the 10%/year margin.  This is usually a 3-4 year process, so I think that fits fairly well, although I don't recall exactly when they started.  

 

All the other speculation about this sale makes less sense.  

[Jaydogrules]

I'll just say point blank what a lot of other people are politely skirting around for some reason.  

Here are the Top Ten reasons why Voldy Foldied (aka Failed):

1)  They could never have hoped to be anything more than a distant second, look alike, also ran company.  

2)  The routine sales of its slabs at every widening discounts to comparable CGC copies only proves the point more.  

3)  Their initial practices of "restoration disclosure" on their labels was at best, sketchy, and at worse, downright duplicitous to prospective buyers of their slabs, and was obviously a low attempt to attract submissions from sellers looking to play "hide the ball" with their restored books in blue labels.  

4)  "Verifying " signatures of non-witnessed and dead people.    

5)  Consistently over grading books early (probably also had something to do with their books selling at discounts).

6)  Cheap slabs and ugly labels. 

7)  Putting their grades on raw books and not slabbing them.

8)  Never putting up their census (obviously because they didn't want people to see how low their volume really was).

9)  Clearly under-staffed and under funded- It was nearly impossible to get a live person to answer their phone at their office. 

10)  Ever decreasing presence at the various seasonal cons. 

Being bought out by Beckett isn't going to help anything either, it might make things worse.  There are LOTS of collectors in this hobby who rue some of what they perceive to be te negative influences of card collectors into the comic book marketplace, so Beckett will already be coming into this with a certain negative stigma attached.  Voldy may very well have been started hoping for a buy out- but from CGC, who obviously continued to see them as such a miniscule presence, non-factor in the market, that they either didn't see the value or the point, and concluded their virtual monopoly was secure.  I, for one, am just glad to not be holding any high dollar (or any) Voldy slabs with this announcement having been made.   

-J. 

 

Edited October 29, 2017 by Jaydogrules