Lizard's Rant

In what’s becoming an increasingly competitive landscape, PSA recently opened their own online marketplace as a part of their popular Collector’s Corner marketplace - which sells only certified coins and cards. Considering they already had this infrastructure in place, what took so long?

Overall, the site seems adequate but not up to par with the competition in terms of features, usability, or aesthetics. As of now, there are only cards available from a few dealers in a few select sports and categories.

Here are the other (weak) details as I understand them:

• Only PSA graded cards can be sold
• They can only be sold by PSA Certified Dealers (application required, with references that are checked)
• Sellers only get one image, and it most be hosted elsewhere online (is this PSA or a college kid running a site trying to conserve bandwidth?)

According to Sports Collectors Daily, CCE president Cassi East had this to say:

“Card collectors will be able to view, select and buy tens of thousands of PSA-certified sports and other trading cards offered by many of the top dealers. Because of the number of dealers and collectors potentially involved, this new service is expected to significantly boost activity in the sports card market,” said Cassi East, CCE President. Both CCE and PSA are divisions of Collectors Universe, Inc.

“This new service is expected to significantly boost activity in the sports card market?” I highly doubt that. Three reasons why this won’t work: eBay, NAXCOM, and Beckett’s new marketplace. Wait - just thought of a fourth - the fact that you ONLY allow dealers to sell and that they can only sell PSA graded cards. I know you don’t want to admit this PSA, but a lot of card collecting, buying, and selling occurs with collectors who either don’t get cards graded or use a different grading service.