Tag grading submission kit

[Krakenfan]

Very awesome process. I am curious how your first submission turns out. Please post your grades.

 

[Pacman69]

I’m on the road til tomorrow night. When I get back I’ll take high quality scans of my cards and post them here.l along with my guesses for grades. They are not all gem mint 10s but I feel worth sending in

Pacman

 

[Pacman69]

ok so i still have not sent my kit back yet, but good communication (maybe a little slower than id like), but im anxious/excited.

They said i was ok to share what has happened so far, so here we go

from me

Hi there, the cards I am sending would sell raw on ebay for in excess of $6000 USD. Hoping after grading that will be more. Can you get me a quote for insurance for them? Is this at my cost or yours? Honestly I would be very surprised if you don’t get a fair amount of communication like that as 20 cards adds up quickly!

Thank you again

Peter

response

Hi Peter,

Just wanted to follow up regarding insurance for your TAG shipment. As we navigate this presale and begin to streamline our processes and build our systems for the future, ensuring the safety of every collectible trusted to us is truly important. We are currently in the final stages of securing our insurance contract for high-value shipments like yours and will be back in touch with you very soon. We apologize for this delay - we are striving to do our best to serve our customers and the hobby and situations like yours have helped set our priorities.

Best,
The TAG Team

from me

Ok fair enough, as excited as I am to send my cards to you, I will hold off until I hear back from you

Thank you again

Peter

response

Hi Peter,

We are finalizing a contract regarding our insurance policy tomorrow afternoon, and we would be happy to give you a follow-up call then so we can get you on the same page with us with how TAG will be insuring packages in the immediate future. For your current order, we will be insuring your package at no additional cost to you.

We will be in touch soon and thank you for your patience,

Best,
The TAG Team

I commented about the HI board and the interest in the thread and received this today. Hoping for final information tomorrow so I can send them out

Hi Peter! We are actually just finishing up with our insurance agent now, I'm typing to you as we are wrapping the call We have a strong game plan here! I will follow up with you shortly. Also I'm happy to hear you are active on the hobby board! Your honest feedback is always appreciated so please feel free to post about it. We are beginning integration with insurance plan options on the website today.


All in all, solid communication and they seem eager to solve the concern for me.

Ill post up scans of the cards later on tonight

Pacman

 

[Pacman69]

My submission, hitting fedex tomorrow.

according to my last communication, insurance options will be available going forward with purchases. I just checked, and they are. Rate is a little less than 1% of value which i dont consider to be out of line


IMG_20220924_0001 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0002 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

Malkin 9

IMG_20220924_0003 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0004 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

Makar 9

IMG_20220924_0005 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0006 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

9 plus, i cant see anything wrong with it

IMG_20220924_0007 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0008 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

Ovechkin 1 weaker 9

IMG_20220924_0009 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0010 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

Ovechkin 2 a little better 9

IMG_20220924_0011 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0012 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

Ovechkin beehive beige 9, this one looks very good to me

IMG_20220924_0013 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0014 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

mcdavid gold fusion 9, very clean

IMG_20220924_0015 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0016 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

crosby this card surprised me, i think 9

IMG_20220924_0017 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0018 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

crosby high 8

IMG_20220924_0019 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0020 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

mackinnon high 8 at least one small mark, longer line top right is on scanner

IMG_20220924_0021 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0022 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

high 9, clean card

IMG_20220924_0023 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0024 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

kovalchuk 9

IMG_20220924_0025 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0026 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

kucherov mid 8

IMG_20220924_0027 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0028 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

McDavid 1 mid 8

IMG_20220924_0029 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0030 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

mcdavid 2 mid 8

IMG_20220924_0031 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0032 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

Mcdavid 3 mid 8

IMG_20220924_0033 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0034 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

doughty mid 8

IMG_20220924_0035 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0036 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

Stamkos mid 8

IMG_20220924_0037 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0038 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

Fleury low 9

IMG_20220924_0039 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

IMG_20220924_0040 by Pachow1969, on Flickr

Patrick Kane 7-8 back is beat dont know how i missed it earlier

OK so scanning these and giving my best guestimate at grade was an interesting process. Im very curious to see what TAG comes back with. Even better, they tell you where the problem areas are and I can relate that back to my scans and what i saw.

Hopefully i learn something for when they do auto cards, I have a lot of future watch that need encapsulation

Anyways there they are, ill be back in a couple of months with results

Thank you

Pacman

 

[gomaz]

aww man I can’t wait to see how these all look in the TAG slabs! Great selection there Peter! Good luck with the results!

 

[Chinner]

Good luck with the submission, I'm definitely interested in seeing what TAG can do. Everything that they are talking about is promising and is what the grading industry probably needs long term. I wonder if/when they would start cross grading BGS/PSA/other slabs.

 

[Triple B]

Just checked their website. That 1,000 point TAG grade is a game changer.

 

[Kharlamov17]

Good luck with the subs. This might be the most exciting thing in the hobby right now.

 

[Pacman69]

well sent i sent my package out Saturday, its in their hands delivered today and my submission already shows received and currently grading (i will not assume anything faster than the 60 day turnaround i paid for though)

Pacman

 

[katoy2j]

This seems incredible. If the tech works where it's out of the hands of a random human to assign a grade and can be done consistently this will be revolutionary if they can can get just a fraction of collectors to convert.

If everything I'm reading can be proven and if there is the ability to detect counterfeit and altered cards then this will revolutionize the grading industry. This is like Netflix replacing Blockbuster except for grading. If the proof of concept works this won't last long and I would be shocked if someone like fanatics didn't make a huge offer for a lot of money for the tech. It's early days still but this would put the other players out of the industry if it works or at least force them to do away with human grading in order to survive.

 

[Pacman69]

Just for ****s and giggles my plan is to crack one of the lower graded cards out and resubmit when they can take autos as well. They say the grade is reproducible within 8 points out of 1000 (and I thought they even said they could tell if a card had been graded before including non numbered non autoed etc etc) which will stop resubmit til you get the grade you want


Pacman

 

[junyab]

I'm hoping to hear positive feedback/experiences with this company. And even more hopeful they can expand into Canada. I don't see why they wouldn't as it should be easier to set up a tech device somewhere then train and move humans for the job.

 

[katoy2j]

I'm hoping to hear positive feedback/experiences with this company. And even more hopeful they can expand into Canada. I don't see why they wouldn't as it should be easier to set up a tech device somewhere then train and move humans for the job.

I don't really see the point of setting up in Canada if I were them. The population of Canada is contained in California alone so it just isn't a big enough market for this sort of thing. Canadians who want to use it will anyways so setting up in Canada would be an awful business decision for maybe capturing a few thousand extra orders which is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I'm surprised they even opened up to serving Canada at all with the logistics, customs and costs hurdles. It's probably more of a drain on their resources as it is.

The sad thing about the industry of cards is that there are always people doing shady things to make a buck. How this company is able to handle controversy will be huge. Especially since they are so new. They have a very impressive board though.

The point of grading is for the secondary market. They have a miniscule market share so most who see a TAG slab on ebay will likely discount the value because of it even if it has a higher grade than a PSA card. The key for them will be to grow as fast as they can even if they have to burn cash to do so. 5% of the US market is a lot more valuable than 30% of the Canadian market.

 

[gomaz]

We will be in Canada one way or another. It is a very important market for us.

 

[joshpackham]

Have any cards hit the secondary market yet? I tried searching for TAG but I get so many results that are not cards

 

[katoy2j]

Have any cards hit the secondary market yet? I tried searching for TAG but I get so many results that are not cards

There are a few. I see more gaming than sports but that could mean nothing also because the sample size is so small. If you are grading a card you want to get the best price possible for when you sell it. Right now that is PSA. That's why it will be important for TAG to establish some level of market share in segments that matter. Baseball, Basketball and Football. Those sports move the needle in the US with prices. Hockey cards which are much more prevalent in the Canadian market won't really help them.

I'm a big believer in the technology but nobody is going to be breaking high value PSA slabbed cards (think 50K or more) to get it put in a TAG slab. So they are going to be in the market of newer cards. How fast they can turn around will also be key. The faster they can turn around cards means that new releases get on the secondary market faster than a PSA.

 

[Pacman69]

I'm a big believer in the technology but nobody is going to be breaking high value PSA slabbed cards (think 50K or more) to get it put in a TAG slab. So they are going to be in the market of newer cards. How fast they can turn around will also be key. The faster they can turn around cards means that new releases get on the secondary market faster than a PSA.

I think that’s part of my issue as well. I have no problem grading my current material and I have auto’d and vintage cards for when they open that up. I have a Crosby sp authentic rookie psa 10 I graded a few years back and have had since 06. I would be sick to crack it out and send in and not come back a ten. But no issues sending my ungraded McDavid to them when possible`

edit - in terms of speed of service, there slowest current level is 60 days. it also sounds like very large volumes are not as hard to scale up to as it doesnt require human graders, and obviously more processors and machinery. Ill let you know how long my order takes to turn around

Pacman

 

[katoy2j]

Without knowing how intensive their process is, they very well could have issues even if it's not a human doing the grading. A human still has to handle the cards in some form. Then there is the whole logistics aspect of it. How many machines do they have to do the grading? It's one thing to be able to knock out 10,000 cards a day but what happens when 100,000 start showing up a day? PSA had issues because grading exploded during the pandemic to the point they raised their prices to deter people sending in cards because every day the backlog grew bigger and bigger.

That's why I'm surprised to hear they think of Canada as big part of their focus. It shouldn't be in my mind as the amount of extra work that will be involved will be more challenging than they think. Having been involved in a lot of business that work tightly with customs on both sides of the border I think it's a really big risk on their part. No matter what happens sooner or later someone will get charged with import taxes on this and will not be happy about it. That would likely lead to a negative customer experience and negative feedback. Now the same thing can be true about PSA but they are established so nobody would care about a Canadian giving bad feedback. These guys are very new so a poor review is much more impactful.

 

[gomaz]

We have strategies for both volume submissions and Canada/US business that alleviate Katoy’s above concerns.

The fact that Katoy is surprised, is proper because he has no inside info into our strategies, due diligence, planning and execution and his assumptions are either false or incomplete.

Everything TAG does is meticulously researched and planned.

I think many people will be pleasantly surprised.

 

[SNobles]

My 40 card order is currently in route to TAG.

I am extremely excited and will do a separate post when I get them back. I am on the same 60 day turnaround so likely not until late November or early December.