Now this grading company is interesting

Moose#11

Moose#11

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i preface this by stating i've never graded a card of any kind in my life.i think it has it's place in the hobby but it is not something that i have implemented into my collection.the main reason i have is that pesky human factor.people have differences of opinions on every single aspect of life,reality included,so why wouldn't they with a piece of cardboard(or acetate).this company popped up on my facebook feed and i'm now intrigued.

https://hybridgrading.com/

what do you guys think about taking the "human" aspect out of it and leaving it to a more stringent digital non subjective grading system?

i like the color coded slabs and the turn around time is incredible.not to mention the "value" equation for charges is also eliminated.

thoughts?
 
You'll all laugh but I contacted someone in the US that owns super high def cameras to see how feasible this was! I knew it wouldn't be long before a company figured this out. There is NO doubt in my mind that this will be the wave of the future and that PSA and BGS have better change their strategies. Taking subjectivity out of the grading process HAS to be done. I'm sure the price won't stay down forever, but I might send a few of my cards in for the fun of it....how will the market react folks???
 
I submitted a nice mix of 11 cards at the 60 day service for my collection. When they are back in my hands I will post with my thoughts/results...

Jeff
 
They have a threshold of how many orders they will accept on a weekly basis. I believe it restarts every Friday night at 9pm EST!!! I was testing the waters on their site and I wouldn't have been able to submit any card tonight...that means they had already reached their peak after only two days (probably less). Good sign??
 
dahabs26 said:
They have a threshold of how many orders they will accept on a weekly basis. I believe it restarts every Friday night at 9pm EST!!! I was testing the waters on their site and I wouldn't have been able to submit any card tonight...that means they had already reached their peak after only two days (probably less). Good sign??
Click to expand...

Not sure I understand how that would work. So if they receive 100 orders of 100 cards each all on one day do they send them back to the people? Or keep them backlogged? How do people know when they submit if the order will be accepted?
 
sjw241 said:
Not sure I understand how that would work. So if they receive 100 orders of 100 cards each all on one day do they send them back to the people? Or keep them backlogged? How do people know when they submit if the order will be accepted?
Click to expand...

I have not looked, but presumably orders for submission are done are online, and they only accept 100 per day. After that the ability to submit online is turned off. That should keep the average arrivals per day at their site to a reasonable level.
 
I've been saying a company should take this avenue for years. Take the human objectivity issue right out of the equation. The technology to do so has been in place for a long time, we've built automation with built in vision systems for measuring and sorting going back over a decade. The hardest part would be establishing a master library of what is considered "perfect", then everything else is compared to it. Glad to see someone has made the leap into this!
 
bwmechtech said:
I've been saying a company should take this avenue for years. Take the human objectivity issue right out of the equation. The technology to do so has been in place for a long time, we've built automation with built in vision systems for measuring and sorting going back over a decade. The hardest part would be establishing a master library of what is considered "perfect", then everything else is compared to it. Glad to see someone has made the leap into this!
Click to expand...

Yep, I've been saying the same. Plus, wouldn't this automatically detect trimmed or altered cards? It's time to bring automation into grading. In fact, it's been long overdue.
 
I haven't watched the video, but my only concern would be they've come to the dinner table a little too late. Collectors are habitual old curmudgeons and could avoid this option only because it's not what the the hobby has always used.

I wish the company well, I think it's long over due as well. I can't fathom the folks that submit the high volume of submissions liking this option since they would now be treated like anyone else (their cards would simply be a pure digital evaluation).
 
These guys are doing pretty good, financially at least. I believe they are up to 2500 submissions a week. Let's assume all submissions are middle of the road (30 days, 20 - 49 cards @ $31 a piece) That would be 2500 x $31 = $77500 per week or $4 million per year. They have stated that they want to keep adding more slots ideally being able to handle 10000 + per week, which would average $310000 per week, $16000000 per year.

Now, I know they have expenses, and these numbers are guesswork, but I don't see how they will fail at current or better submission numbers unless they are idiots with how they spend their money.

It's been 3 weeks of unsuccessful trying for me to get a submission in. Maybe this week will work out for me.
 
oiler8 said:
These guys are doing pretty good, financially at least. I believe they are up to 2500 submissions a week. Let's assume all submissions are middle of the road (30 days, 20 - 49 cards @ $31 a piece) That would be 2500 x $31 = $77500 per week or $4 million per year. They have stated that they want to keep adding more slots ideally being able to handle 10000 + per week, which would average $310000 per week, $16000000 per year.

Now, I know they have expenses, and these numbers are guesswork, but I don't see how they will fail at current or better submission numbers unless they are idiots with how they spend their money.

It's been 3 weeks of unsuccessful trying for me to get a submission in. Maybe this week will work out for me.
Click to expand...

For clarification, if the math is ballpark correct, that growth would put them on par with PSA 'last year'. The last reported earnings from Collector's Universe (they were a public company, so their filinings are public) has PSA contributing ~$18.6M in annual revenue. If HGA can get to that level without stumbling, it will be impressive and could push PSA.
 
frankiefives said:
Yep, I've been saying the same. Plus, wouldn't this automatically detect trimmed or altered cards? It's time to bring automation into grading. In fact, it's been long overdue.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more. High-quality image analysis software has been available for quite some time, and at the very least obvious things like centering and corners could be done quickly and reproducibly with such a process. And reproducibility is a major failing of every company right now.

I like the look of their slabs. I have seen a lot of laughable errors posted up. I think once they get this ironed out AND their grading is "proven valid" they'll do well.
 
So, I have a few thoughts on this. First, unless you're at your computer at precisely 9pm EST every Friday, you're not going to get your cards graded by them. Period.

Second, they mention that they change the color of all of their labels to reflect the team colors. While, in theory, this would be really cool, for me personally, it would make my collection, which includes RC's of players who didn't start with the Caps, look very...not pretty. I wonder/hope they will allow that to be customized in the future. I do like, though, if they could make everything clean like PSA, but keep the substats, like BGS. That would be primo in my book.
 
capsfan30 said:
So, I have a few thoughts on this. First, unless you're at your computer at precisely 9pm EST every Friday, you're not going to get your cards graded by them. Period.

Second, they mention that they change the color of all of their labels to reflect the team colors. While, in theory, this would be really cool, for me personally, it would make my collection, which includes RC's of players who didn't start with the Caps, look very...not pretty. I wonder/hope they will allow that to be customized in the future. I do like, though, if they could make everything clean like PSA, but keep the substats, like BGS. That would be primo in my book.
Click to expand...

They have actually changed the way you "get in" to get cards graded. A waiting room opens 10 minutes before the timeframe opens. Everyone in the waiting room then gets a random spot in line at 9:00 PM EST and they take orders from people in groups of 10. In theory you could get in the waiting room at 8:59;59 and end up first in line.
(On Friday I was in the room at 8:50 EST and was given spot 1888 with only 1500 card spots open.)

As for labels you can choose to have the colors that of the team, to match the card, or a Light Neutral label or a Dark neutral label. They ARE making changes based on feedback from customers.
 
I am genuinely interested in this company. Using tech to remove most of the human biases is a huge win in my book, and those customized labels look sharp!. Feebay listings have been growing as of late, so it will be interesting to see how the market responds in the weeks/months ahead
.
 
This sounds really good to me.

I've never been sold on the idea of grading. Of course I recognize that card will sell for much more with a higher grade. If I was buying up single to hold, and flip later - I'd be looking at PSA 10s as the way to maximize profits..... but 99% of what I buy is for my collection, and I've never really felt the need to have it graded.

For years, it seems to me that grading is far too subjective. As the grader changes, so does the grade. As far as I'm concerned: The condition a card should be in to get a 10: The year it was issued should not matter. 2020, 1990, 1979. It should all be the same. Edges aren't perfect? Dock it points. Corners? Centering? Same thing.

The recent Gretzky PSA 10 that sold for $1m+: it don't look like a perfect 10 to me. Amazing condition, considering the printing & cutting tech at the time (plus the age) ?? YES! That doesn't make them a 10 though.

If someone is going to come along an use a computer, to remove all subjectivity from the grade: I think that's a great thing.
 
BigBarracuda said:
I haven't watched the video, but my only concern would be they've come to the dinner table a little too late. Collectors are habitual old curmudgeons and could avoid this option only because it's not what the the hobby has always used.
Click to expand...


Agreed! There will always be that pop will never want to change bkz that's all they've ever known. However, I do feel the younger collectors will be more open to change, especially when they see the improved turnaround times + secondary sales volume.
 

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