Upcharges from a Bulk Subber and Collector's View. Hobby Quick Hits E214

It's been covered ad-nauseum but I'm tackling from a bulk-subber and collector perspective. Part of my job is calling submitters and informing them of the bad/good news that their card has been upcharged and they owe me more money.  How's does that look and feel and what reactions do I incur? 


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Robby quick hits, delivering that breaking hobby news direct your
ear loads. You want to know those hot Josh's card
shaft Shafter you've got your cover, your host John.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
New name name. Hello, everyone, Welcome to episode two fourteen
of Sports Cardination. Today we are going to talk about
something that's not new but has really come up again

(00:39):
into the hobby public eye, if you will. That's up
charges and I know PSA is sort of the poster
boy for them, and rightfully so, but they're not the
only one that does it. So we're gonna talk about
I'm going to weigh in. If you've listened to me before,
you sort of know my stance or what I think

(01:02):
of them. I've had Peter Steinberg Nat Turner on the show,
asked them about it. You know, kind of got the
company line if you will on that, But I really
haven't done a standalone episode out and I know it's
sort of kind of the big topic on hobby content,

(01:22):
but wanted the weigh in for those that listen, kind
of my stance and having a different angle being a
folk suburb for SGC, subbing the both PSA and SGC
as a collector and dealer as well. So we're going
to take a quick commercial break and then we will

(01:44):
be back with the release schedule, some news, and today's topic.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Okay, now a quick word from our great sponsor, followed
by the new product release schedule. Then we'll go around
the hobby verse to tell you all the latest hobby
happenings and news. Then we'll tackle today's topic of discussion.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
Hi, this is Pat Hughes, Cubs announcer, coming to you
from the Sports Card Shop in beautiful New Buffalo, Michigan.
The Gocher family has built an incredible place here for
collectors to buy, sell, and trade cards and memorabilia. Be
sure to stop buy and let them show you around
the Sportscardshop dot com, connecting sports athletes, the hobby and

(02:29):
collectors around the world.

Speaker 5 (02:32):
Hi, this is Alan Pinkett and I'm here to tell
you the Gocher family has done it again. They've just
opened up the Sport Card Shop in downtown Valparaiso, Indiana,
and it is awesome. If you're a collector, you need
to check this place out. Tell them Alan sent you

(02:52):
and get a free gift on your first visit.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Let's check out this week's hobby Wax release It Take
It Away, Max, Hey guys.

Speaker 6 (03:05):
It's Max and Sports Card Shop bringing you guys the
weekly releases for these upcoming few weeks here. Starting off
on the twenty second of October, we have twenty twenty
five Panninium Peckable Football, twenty twenty five Panini and Peckable
Live Golf, twenty twenty five Tops Diamond Icon Baseball, twenty

(03:26):
twenty five Tops Holiday Baseball, three Tin Box as well
as the Mega, and on the twenty third we have
twenty twenty five Tops Basketball, Blaster, Hobby and Jumbo, twenty
twenty five Panini Down Res WNBA Basketball in twenty twenty
four Panini Eminence Football. On the twenty fourth we have

(03:49):
twenty twenty five Tops you have seen Knockout. On the
twenty seventh, we have twenty twenty five Tops Holiday Baseball
Advent Calendar, as well as as twenty twenty five Pennie
Phoenix Football, twenty twenty four to twenty five Upper Deck
Premieer Hockey as well as On the thirtieth we have

(04:10):
twenty twenty five Tops Holiday Basketball Mega in the Basketball Countdown,
and on the thirty first we have twenty twenty five
Bowman Coombe University Football Blaster and the Breakers, The Light,
The Hobby, the Jumbo and the Mega, as well as
twenty twenty five Absolute Thank you guys for tuning into

(04:30):
the podcast and enjoy the rest of the show.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Let's go round the hobby Verse and catch up on
this week's hobby news.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
And find out all right like it or not. Tops
just taking over the basketball license team. This year they
released the first TOPS with logos Cooper Flag Rookie and
speaking of rookies, if you like the Major League debut

(04:59):
pad that is randomly scattered throughout fanatics and Tops Baseball products,
that trend will carry over to the basketball side, So
the rookies in the NBA will have a NBA Rookie
Debut patch which will be future one on ones in
future TOPS basketball products. On the autograph front, riddle the

(05:25):
manufacturers of pro helmets. You know, they do the full
size helmet you see in gameplay and then they do
the mini helmets for autographs. You know, the full size
ones cost four hundred, the mini size ones cost between

(05:45):
thirty five and forty five. Well, Riddell has right, ol
I should know that as a former football coach has
announced a new mid size version called the MIDI, which
will be the exact in between between the mini helmets
and the full size helmets all up to spec, just

(06:07):
different size, and those will retail for one point twenty on.
They're making pro and your favorite NFL colleges, so it's
a little bigger you can get more autographs on. It
still will fit on a shelf for those who do
NFL autographs. Leaf and Rival Scouting Service have announced the

(06:29):
collaboration where Leaf will be able to use Rival Scouting
reports and ranking system and there's a future products in
the work that will trend and track high school players
all up through their college days. Very early stages of that,

(06:52):
so I'm not sure what that really looks like or entail,
so we'll have to stay tuned for a future Leaf's
Rivals collaboration. We all heard about the strike in Canada
on the postal services. There's been announced that they are
going to rotate rotate their strike, so there will be
some movement of letters and packages, not at the speed

(07:16):
you normally like or accustomed to, but things will start
get moving against so things will get delivered, just not
at the pace you'd probably like it too, But that's
good news, so stuff isn't stuck in limbo. And Fanatics
has announced their Fanatics Fest is expanding from three to

(07:39):
four days next year. And also they're going to get
twenty five more percent of the Javits Center to use,
so the show is going to be bigger. They're adding
a Thursday, and the dates are now July sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth,
and nineteenth, and the light bulb goes on. That's literally

(08:00):
two weeks before the National in Chicago, so July. If
you are one that attends all these events, you're not
going to be home much in the month of July,
so let the family know they'll see you maybe in August,
depending on what your schedule looks like. But so almost

(08:22):
two weeks of show between National and the Fanatics Vest.
And yes, I know they are different events, but they
pertain to the hobby both, so you're looking at half
the month of July accounted for which show. So there

(08:42):
you go. There's the news, all right. Up chargers are
not a new hobby phenomenon, if you will, They've been
around a while. PSA is again the post the boy
for them and for those that may not know exactly
what an up charge is. It's when a grading company
grades a card that goes over a certain value that's

(09:05):
sort of a design more desirable card, and they will
charge an up charge. Generally, if it's thirty five hundred
dollars and or more, it's going to start at an
eighty five dollars up charge and go up. Obviously the
more significant the card, those up charges will go up

(09:26):
from eighty five dollars. And I've had it happen to
me one time years ago. But you know, I box
up for SGC even though they've gotten rid of their
bulk suber rates, and I've had about five to seven
cards up charged for my customers in the last couple

(09:49):
of years. Three or four of them were Michael Jordan rookies.
Another one was a Mickey Manno rookie, the fifty one bowman,
and another one is a Joe Namath rookie, and maybe
one other one. And you know, I, I'm you know,
speaking for myself here. I don't like them, right, I

(10:10):
don't like them personally. To me, the grading card company
sort of should be honored that you trust them to
grade that significant card and you pay that, you know,
that grading fee, and that should cover it. I use
an analogy. I might have said this before I wanted
my content episodes. You know, it's like if you go

(10:34):
to a restaurant and you order a steak, and you know,
you tell them how you want to cook, what you
want when it and you know, let's say the steak's
fifty bucks or whatever, we'll use fifty bucks, and all
of a sudden, you know, twenty five minutes later, the
chef comes out with this beautiful looking steak on the skillet,

(10:54):
comes to the table and says, you know, I know
this steak was fifty dollars, but I just made the
the greatest steak I've ever made in my chef career.
And it's it's it's going to cost you eighty five dollars.
You wouldn't be happy with that, right, you bought a
steak for fifty You want the chef to do the
best job he or she can in preparing your food

(11:16):
and your meal and your steak. Right, why do you
have to pay extra if they feel like, you know,
it came out really well. And so I always feel
like up charges is a money grab, right, It's it's, hey,
we can make some extra money on certain cards. Here
off a certain and I would rather they say, hey, man,

(11:37):
this is awesome that you know John Doe here is
trusting PSA, SGC, whatever grading company they picked us to
put this man old rookie, This Jordan rookie, This Ted
Williams rookie, you know, just Joe name of rookie in
our in our slab, not when they could have went

(11:59):
with somebody else rather than kind of beat them over
the head. Now, the powers that be folks will tell
you that there's a reason for the up charge, right,
They have to ensure the package, maybe for more because
of now the value of the card is significantly more.
I really can't argue that per se, but that was

(12:19):
a significant card to begin with, and so the insurance
is sort of baked in there. The other thing they
will tell you is those are the kind of cards
that not one grader is looking at. That is that
is going through maybe two, three, even potentially four graders
to get the grade right and the significance of the

(12:39):
card right. And again I'm not saying that doesn't happen,
but you know, we don't know that that happens. And
you know where we're you know, when you sell a card, right,
you're paying for one grader to you know, you're paying
for that grading company to grade it. If they choose
to have two, three, four different graders look at it

(13:01):
to get that final grade, why do we necessarily have
to foot that bill? You know, I get the insurance stuff,
and maybe they could be an up charge. I guess
that could be a debate too, is to the price
level of up charges. So I won't throw up charges
completely out of the realm of possibility, but maybe make

(13:23):
that price a little less stinging. Now, I will tell
you from personal experience that, like I mentioned those five
to seven cards that were up charged through my Folk
Submission service with SGC, you know that's automatically charged out
of my bank account. So I'm paying those up charges

(13:43):
for my customers up front, and I have to call
them and let them know that, Hey, good and bad news,
depending on or both right both of your You know
your card has been graded high enough where it's over
the up charge value, and now you know an additional

(14:05):
eighty five bus. I have had a car. I haven't
had a card. I take it back, I had one card,
go I have one hundred and seventy dollars. That was
the Mantle up charge, but all the other ones were
at the eighty five level through SGC. And I will
say this full disclosure, and those five or seven calls
that I made to those five or seven different people,

(14:28):
they were actually not upset about it. I was waiting for,
you know, maybe a little disgruddledness if you will, or
really or you know, but I guess enough, I guess
people the five or seven instances, those folks were glad
it got that grade to you know, warrant an up charge.

(14:49):
And I so, I guess it's a bitter sweet like
no one wants to pay more money. But I guess
when people are you know, getting you know, maybe a
higher grade than they thought or signific get bumping value
on a card that they sub that it hurts a
little bit less, you know, I've heard and this is
a great point. Someone else made this on social media.

(15:11):
You know, some people sub cards who have a limited budget.
Maybe they send two or three cards. Maybe it's a
loved one's cards that they left them and they want
to get it graded. They have no intention to resell.
It's a sentimental card, even though it's significant, it's sentimental card.
Now they're getting you know, if they're on a tight budget.

(15:31):
Now they're paying eighty five one hundred and seventy a
few hundred bucks more and even potentially more if it's
a huge card, and that can be a tough pill
to swallow, and you're not going to get your card
till you pay for you know, that up charge. And
even with me, they you know, with the the c ones,

(15:54):
they take that right out of my account and I
have to let the person who sub with me know
that they owe and an additional amount of funds. I
haven't had that issue, thankfully, but you know, I thought
we would. I you know, what could I do if
someone says, hey, I don't want to pay it, Well,
obviously I can't give them their card bag until it's paid.

(16:15):
You know, maybe work out a payment plan if you
know that's not in their budget. I haven't had that problem,
so I can't speak to sort of any kind of
plan b's and that sort of thing. But but you know,
not everyone everyone has different budget and discretionary incomes. And
I've heard I've seen people report like, hey, I just

(16:37):
wanted to have this card graded for me. It was
my dad's stay in on my desk or in my safe,
I have no intention of ever selling it, and now
it's going to cost me in addition to what I
already paid for the grating. Now I got to pay
an addition of four hundred bucks or whatever the up charges?
What I So? What are solutions?

Speaker 6 (16:56):
Right?

Speaker 2 (16:56):
We can complain and talk about like I hate up charges,
and I do if I make no bones abomb as
someone who's had to tell people that you're being up charged,
as someone who's had a card up charged, I don't
like them, right, No, who does?

Speaker 6 (17:14):
So?

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Really? I mean, if you can say you can have
the same card and not pay the up charge, everyone
is gonna obviously take that option. So what are some solutions? Well?
I was thinking this, what about and I don't love
this idea, but I'll throw it out there. Right, when
you get something certified an autographed through JSA, right, they'll
charge you based on the player. So like to authenticate

(17:40):
to Lou Garrigatto, it's gonna cost three hundred bucks to
do a Mickey Mano. I think it's one hundred or
one hundred and twenty five. To do a Bob Feller.
It's gonna be ten or fifteen dollars. What about these
grading card companies sort of having that already built in.
You know, when you go online and put in that

(18:01):
fifty one Bowman Manno, you know, instead of it being
twenty five dollars to grade, it's going to be one
hundred bucks to grade. Based on the card. When you
put that Jordan rookie on that itemized line, right, it
automatically detects that and says, hey, that Jordan rookie instead
of being twenty five bucks, is going to be seventy

(18:23):
five dollars to grade, just kind of a flat fee,
kind of a known and if it gets a nine
to ten, it gets a nine to ten. If it
gets a two, they're still getting their seventy five hundred
bucks whatever they deem a Jordan Rookie should cost to grade.
I'd rather be on the up front at least then,
you know, going in, you know, if PSA says every

(18:45):
Jordan Rookie that gets subbed to us is going to
be one hundred dollars to grade through us, whether it's
a one, whether it's a fake, you know, you go
to subit and it turns out to be a fake,
it's still one hundred bucks. If it gets a nine
or ten, it's still a hundred bucks right then, you know,
kind of going in like everyone knows that Jordan Rookie

(19:05):
is going to be a hundred buck and they can
do that. I mean, yeah, it's gonna be a little
work on their on their end, on their IT end
as well. But I rather that than the up charges
after the fat and I mean that's just how I
feel about it. And again PSA is not the only
one that up charges. I just talked about the SGC.

(19:27):
Other companies do it as well, you know. And I've
had stuff I'll kind of as we're coming down the
stretch here, I've had cards come through my SGC bulk
subs that I even warned the suburb, right like, I
gotta give you a heads up, this card has potential
to be up charged. They you know, you might be
looking at eighty five bucks potentially more probably eighty five

(19:50):
bunds the person okay, you know, let me know. And
some of those cards I've sort of self flagged. I
gotta be honest with you, went through, got a grade
never up to I had a Paul Skeins one of
one gold, I don't know tops Chrome, it wasn't my card,
probably at the time. I don't know what it is now,
but at the time pretty close to five figures, if

(20:13):
not five figures, kind of figured to be up charge.
Warned the warned the guy and never got up charged, thankfully.
I mean, no one wants them, right, but that they
could up charged that that was that was more than
the three or four It was worth more, at least
on paper than the three or four Jordan rookies that
got five sixes and sevens uh through my folks up so,

(20:37):
so yeah, I mean sometimes I think they look for
certain ones, you know, they think they're certain significant cards
that they flagged Jordan rookie, man O rookie, a name
of rookie, and the list probably goes on you know,
T two O six is the significant obviously a Cob Wagner.
Those are bigger names, right, So they could if they

(20:58):
wanted to bake in the charges on the upfront side,
with a little work in diligence, they could do it.
And if they're gonna up charge, I'd rather people know
going in what it's gonna cost them, whether that's a
hundred bucks, two hundred bucks, you know, like I said,
JSA will charge you three hundred bucks to authenticate. Uh uh,

(21:19):
you know, Lou Garrigatto, that's on the high end and
it goes from there. So maybe have sort of a
grating scale based on the card sort of ahead of
time that way. You know, Hey, you know every time
I sub with Jordan Rookie, it's one hundred bucks no
matter what, whether it gets you know, not authenticated as
a fake, or it gets a nine or higher or whatever, like,

(21:42):
it's just gonna it's gonna cost that amount of money.
So love to see love to see that a little
more like transparency and stuff up front than you know, hey,
you gotta pay more we have and sort of holding
your car card hostage right when those up charges happen,

(22:03):
they have your card, you don't pay them, you're not
getting it, you know, as a folksover for SGC, they
take it right out of my direct debit account. That's
the other thing I always have to make sure, right
I have enough money in that account for you know,
if an up charge occurs, usually that's no issue, but
you never know, right, so you always got to be prepared.

(22:25):
So I'd love to see them go away. I think
we all know that's not going to be the case.
So you know what other solutions right? Mine is upfront, right, uh,
and just have some sort of grading, you know, card
sort of assessment to two individual cards. This card degrade

(22:45):
is always going to be one hundred. You know, you
got a T two O six tay Cob, It's going
to be one hundred and fifty bucks regardless of grade.
And you know that's that's what I'd vote for that. Well,
first i'd vote for no up to but if we
can't get rid of them, I would vote let's see
them on the front end rather than the back end.

(23:06):
But what say you do you have an alternative solution
even besides the one I gave with the upfront? Do
you like what it currently is at where it's just
based on value and it could be any card that
falls onto that value post grading value level. You know,

(23:27):
what are your solutions or thoughts? I'd love to hear
them and maybe we can share them on a future episode.
All right, thank you for listening to another episode of
hobby Wickets. Want to give out our social media, starting
with our website which is www dot sportscardnationpodcast dot com. Facebook.

(23:48):
You can follow us at www dot facebook dot com,
forward slash Sportscardination Podcast, Forward Slash, Twitter. We are at
Sport's card Natty one, so it's sportscard n at i one,
Instagram at Sportscardination Podcast, or you can email the show

(24:13):
Hobby quick Hits at gmail dot com. Again, thanks for listening.
We'll see you next week.