Ep. 273: TCG Grading Live from Melbourne Hobby Hangout

Live from the Hobby Hangout Melbourne, John from TCG Grading is taking us deep into the world of grading. From the basics of card grading, TCG custom labels to the strict standards that define a perfect grade. No fluff, just the raw reality of what it takes to lead the grading game in Australia.

The Breakdown

• The Cleaning Trap: Why your "restoration" might actually be destroying your cards.
• Label Security: A look at the design and security tech behind the TCG slab.
• Consistency is King: How they maintain rigorous standards across thousands of submissions.
• Community Connection: Why local engagement and trust are the backbone of the Aussie hobby. 

Transcript

What's up everybody? Welcome to the Hobby Hangout. I am Russell Gibson, your host of the Yukon Compius MBA Trading

0:07

Podcast. We got a very special show today. We're here with John Marin from TCG Grading. John, how are you today?

0:13

Yeah, I'm doing pretty good, thank you. Great. How's your day been so far? Yeah, it's been uh pretty busy. We uh

0:18

have the we turned five this year and we've got a special at the moment. So, uh it's driving a lot of people to come

0:24

and talk all things grading. Well, happy fifth birthday. Congratulations on that because that is a massive milestone in the area that

0:30

you're working in. So why don't we just go back right to the start? Give us an introduction. What is grading? How it

0:35

helps collectors and what you're doing for the community? Yeah, sure. So grading is the process of

0:40

assessing a card, a booster pack. We now do Funko Pops and video games, but essentially assessing an item's

0:46

condition based off a set number of criteria and then the actual item. So with TCG grading we have one which is

0:53

all the way down to to pore which is something that's heavily used has a lot of creases or dents right up to 10 which

0:59

is flawless. Talk to us a bit more about the grading submission process how you get Yeah. So when it comes to actual cards

1:05

we look at four things. We look at the surface the centering we look at the corners and the edges. And those four

1:12

elements of a card are then given subgrades and those subgrades then all form a whole grade which is applied to

1:18

the card overall. That's where even if a card say has a nine out of 10 for centering, if everything else is a

1:25

perfect 10, that could still be considered what's called a gemmin 10, which is still a very talk to us about pregrading cuz I think

1:30

this is sometimes a little bit overlooked from collector's point of view. You can't just take any old card

1:35

out of your how do you preassess a card and also talk about cleaning the card and presenting it properly to the

1:41

graders about that because that's really important. The best advice we can give anyone is not to actually try cleaning the card.

1:48

We have done quite a lot of analysis with a lot of cleaning companies around Australia and every cleaning company

1:55

that that we've been able to test has failed um our quality and assurance

2:00

checks. So the best advice we can give people is don't try cleaning it. If you need to apply just a microfiber cloth

2:06

just to gently sort of rub out fingerprints and things like that, you definitely can do that. But actually

2:12

cleaning it, we just haven't found the right company or the right approach that still retains the cards integrity

2:18

overall. From my perspective, I'm really surprised to hear that because for me, it seems that you have to get your cards

2:25

properly clean before you send them off for grading. And there's actually huge companies out there like Kurts Card Care that have

2:30

made a whole industry around preparing your cards before you send them off to grading. I think Kurts have been in the news for

2:37

maybe the wrong reasons after PSA boycotted any cards that are found to have Kurt's card care products on them.

2:43

Yes. And then also I think Kurt himself has been banned from submitting cards to PSA after restoring cards or altering cards

2:50

or you know whichever word you'd like to use. So can you please talk us through a little bit about that because I think that is a very relevant conversation

2:56

when it comes to card grading. Absolutely. So when we've actually submitted cards to some cleaning

3:01

companies particularly in Australia and restoration companies whenever they've come back they've either uh we've been

3:07

able to see residue on the actual cards or the cards sometimes smell of the solvents. We can also see what's what we

3:14

call the sandpaper effect which is where some of the cards have been so the surface has been removed from the

3:19

card. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, and there's one company in particular where we sent off eight cards and all eight

3:25

cards came back as if um they they haven't been like they weren't touched at all in terms of the creases and the

3:32

dents that we were hoping to get uh ironed out and and the card restored never eventuated. So, our advice is um

3:39

we can't stand by any cleaning or restoration company in Australia at the moment because all the ones that we've

3:44

tested don't pass the buck in terms of the return on investment that you're supposed to get with the amount of money that you're putting in. Some of these

3:50

restoration companies can charge anywhere from 50 to 200. Yeah. And sometimes we also find that it

3:56

depends on where the card grading is at. So if the card is already like an eight

4:01

or a nine and you're hoping to get it from a 9 to a 10, that's much harder from a cleaning than getting a card

4:06

going from I think in true you can't comp this fashion, we've already gone off the run sheet already, but actually I want to keep talking about this. So my

4:13

thought process around the hobby is okay, these are the things you can't do, but what should you do? So you need to So now you need to tell us

4:19

what should collectors be doing because I think at the end of the day that's the most important thing. Absolutely. Putting them in pennies. The

4:24

number one thing to do add into a top loader straight out of the pack. One of the things that we always recommend for people to do as well is to jump on

4:30

Amazon and buy a UV light and a magnifying glass. The UV light is great because what the UV light does is that

4:37

it actually reveals a lot of the whiting and a lot of the corner and edge imperfections. And you can also see some

4:43

of the dots as well. um some of the print dots and some some of the print lines. So, we always recommend that for people wanting to do a bit of

4:49

pregrading, a UV light is going to be your best friend. Yeah. Followed by a really decent magnifying

4:55

glass that has a backlight and has a good degree of magnification. What are those little magnifying glasses

5:01

that you put up to your eye? So, there was called jeweler's loops. Yeah. And with a jeweler loop, we

5:06

actually use those quite a lot to actually test particularly Pokémon cards for the tear test. So when it comes to

5:12

is they have a black in between the two pieces of card. And one of the ways that that you can tell whether a card's

5:18

authentic the card and you and you see that black film and for Japanese cards it's a light blue film. Now with a

5:24

jeweler's loop what you can do is you can actually use the jeweler's loop on the edge of the card to see if you can

5:29

spot the actual black film that's supposed to be in between the two pieces of card. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. And again, like

5:35

that's $10 $20 on Amazon and that'll actually tell you whether there's black film or not. That is being replicated um

5:43

through fake cards as well. So with some of the high-end fakes that we're seeing at the moment, what people are doing is actually drawing the line. So when you

5:50

use the loop, it looks like the black film, but the fundamental difference and is that it's a bit sort of dotted,

5:56

whereas when they're trying to fake it, it's actually a solid black line. And it's never a solid black line because of

6:02

the way that the Pokemon presses actually cut up the cards. Yeah. Right. So, just to summarize, you suggest that

6:08

people get a really nice cloth, a jeweler's lube, and a UV light. Is there anything else they need to do?

6:14

And the magnifying glass with it with a backlight will be your best friend, you know, because it's one of those things where we always get a lot of people say

6:20

to us, "Oh, but this was pack fresh, you know, I just took it out of the pack." And that just doesn't mean anything

6:26

these days. It's the most heartbreaking thing though when you get an amazing card out of a pack and you're like fantastic. This is pack fresh. I put it

6:32

straight into a penny sleeve and it still doesn't come back as a 10. Like that that is heartbreaking for people. It is. Yeah. I I I pulled the Charizard

6:39

Mega Ultra Rare myself and it I was just so amazed and I gave it to the team to

6:44

to have a look at and it was an 8.5 straight out of the packet. I was devastated.

6:50

Devastated. And so I just want to really quickly close this loop out and then we'll talk about something else. But yeah,

6:56

you have to clean your cards before you send them to Grady. Talk us through. You don't have to clean the cards. No. So, who will clean So, will the graater

7:03

clean it before they look at it? No. The majority of our cards we get um or a pack put into a penny. So,

7:09

I could be wrong about this then, but I thought that part prepare them properly first and part of that was remove any is

7:14

that something you you can definitely use a microfiber cloth for that. Um particularly fingerprints like they're your worst

7:20

enemy, particularly with some of the holo foil pattern. um a microfiber cloth is is really all that we recommend.

7:26

Yeah. We have also seen people try to color in some of the whiting and we detect that straight away.

7:31

Yeah. Through it a magnifying glass, you' pick that up straight away. Oh. And and you and and that's where the UV light really comes in handy as well.

7:38

Particularly if you're buying third party car like cards through the um third party market trying to see whether

7:43

someone's altered a card. Um UV light will detect that straight away. I want to talk about now just the general

7:48

market and landscape that grading currently is because in the last 12 months we've actually had a huge change

7:54

in the landscape. So collectors which is a a huge investment company if you want to call it that. They now own PSA, BGS

8:01

and also CGC all under one umbrella. Some people believe that's a monopoly. Talk to me about your perception of

8:07

those unfolding events and also how your company fits into the worldwide grading community. Yeah, and this is one of the

8:14

questions that we get asked a lot. Where does Australian grading sit in relation um in relation to the rest of the world?

8:20

We we kind of liken it like currency. The Australian dollar is not the same as the American dollar or the pound or

8:25

anything like that, right? It is absolutely not. So, and it's it's devastating when you go for an overseas holiday. Yeah.

8:31

Yeah. Exactly. So from a grading perspective, we say that there's kind of an exchange rate with Australian grading

8:36

in comparison global market, which is at the moment sitting at around 80 to 100% of what the PSA market rate is. We do

8:43

have vendors that are consistently telling us that they're able to get closer to 100% at the moment, but the

8:49

global landscape has really changed a lot in four months. I mean, we we had the tariffs land, then we had US

8:55

politics also impact. We then also had what's happening more recently um with

9:00

PSA and and some potential antitrust legal uh issues that that they're now being presented.

9:06

Just I just pull you up there for two seconds cuz you need to flesh that out a little bit more. The issues with PSA at the moment is increasing costs and blown

9:13

out return times because of the huge volume of cards. They they PSA just can't get enough. So that's what you're

9:18

referring to. Yeah. Yeah. And and also just some of the reported quality issues. So, um, and I

9:24

think that just comes down to doing a million cards a month. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and there

9:29

are plenty of YouTube clips out there with former staff members making all sorts of allegations around just how

9:34

many cards they were required to do a day and what equipment they were what equipment they had to use and that type

9:40

of thing. And it's a lot. If those accounts are true, that's I can absolutely see why there'd

9:45

be some quality issues. It was really interesting. We had an independent who tested us and another

9:51

two Australian grading companies against what PSA had graded and TCG grading was by the most consistent and through that

9:58

study. Our 9.5s and 10s were slammed up. Are you able to name the YouTuber who that was or is that something you're not

10:05

happy to discuss? Yeah. No, so they are going to publish their own um the it was it was a

10:10

six-month investigation that they did into Australian grading. We had no idea until we were tagged in a

10:15

Reddit post. Yeah. So I think that really goes off the back of American Instagrammers who have taken

10:21

the same card and submitted to all the different grading companies grades that come back. like there is a I still want

10:26

to talk a little bit more about how you fit into the landscape because I saw on your Instagram recently that you're talking about your customer base which

10:33

was predominantly customers and I think the main question I wanted to ask you today are people choosing you over PSA

10:38

because at the end of the day PSA has got the absolute market share and generally people use PSA for comps on

10:45

cards like yeah like that's the reality I I personally think you taking on a a giant such as

10:50

that you have to like tip your hat to you because it's a the task you're taking on is monumental So how you

10:55

compete with those guys and how you fit into that is I think talk more about that. Yeah, look I I and I really do think it

11:01

comes down to consistency. So our grading is very consistent. We're one of the only grading companies

11:06

in Australia that publish our grading methodology. We're access provide advice in shows where we're right there at arms

11:13

length. Like that's that's the first thing. Um the other thing too is when it comes to our grading, the black holof

11:19

foil label uh is very hard to forge. It's a five layer label. Yeah. Um the printing on holo foil

11:26

presents its own challenges and Americans in particular love the black holo foil label. Yeah. Right.

11:31

And then most recently what we've seen is an explosion in custom art. So we have we're very blessed to have Kai

11:37

Christian who and Kai is one of our resident artists, a renowned artist from Hawaii who's worked with all types of

11:43

major brands and now Kai's come on board and she handdraws those labels that go with the cards and we've done close to a

11:49

thousand cards with a custom art label in just under. So, your benefits are very competitive pricing, very

11:55

consistent grading, and you've also got the custom art component of it. All that mixed in together.

12:00

And talk about your international customers, cuz for me, I'm really interested in that. And how do they find you? How do they submit their cards to

12:06

you in an easy manner? Because one of the issues at the moment is people to pay taxes and tariffs and

12:12

international shipping is blowing out of proportion at the moment due to the the crisis in in Hmoose. Like, it's

12:18

Yeah, it's interesting at the moment. Yeah, absolutely. So yes, so we have seen a real big rise particularly from

12:24

America but also parts of Europe. So France, Italy and Spain we're seeing a they just submit them just as per

12:29

normal. They do take advantage of the exchange rate because for them it's a lot cheaper even though we're already very competitive and the same time

12:36

frames uh and everything else applies to them. Yeah. talk to us more about the custom art and then we'll talk about

12:42

graders and their training and how you quality control your graders and you're talking about transparency too and I

12:47

definitely want to talk about that but yeah talk about custom art first because I I think that's a really good selling

12:52

point of your product in that it lets people customize their appearance of their cards particularly if you're

12:58

encapsulating something for your own PC. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, so Kai is

13:03

absolutely brilliant at her at her role and when you sort of watch Kai because they're all handdrawn, she will actually

13:10

start telling a bit of the story and and I think that that's that's where we probably start first. Is each one done individually or are

13:16

they done on a bulk platform? No. No. So there's no AI that's used. Kai is literally handdrawing all of

13:23

these on an iPad using Procreate. And is each one different or or are you doing them say there'll be a thousand

13:29

print run of each one or something like that? So so say for example we do the bubble mw from power fates once the bubble mu

13:35

label is handdrawn and done then that's the actual label for that card right. Yeah. Yeah I understand now. Sorry I thought

13:42

initially I thought you meaning um each customer gets their own personal one drawn. Yeah. The only exception to that is if

13:49

there's a flawless 10. So if it's a flawless 10, then Kai will actually design an an extra special handdrawn

13:55

design for that label because it is a which is equivalent of a pristine card. And so so yeah, so Kai will will

14:01

actually take a step back and re and try to imagine the the Pokémon for the one piece of Dragon Ball for whatever is in

14:07

the card. And she'll actually try to imagine it. And one of my favorites is the One Piece card we have on our

14:12

website where she just imagines that monkeyy's uh hat was flying off. And you

14:18

you would never know that from looking at the card, but that's what Kai's imagination and creativity brings to the

14:23

label where it just adds another dimension to the card. And I think that's what people are just absolutely

14:28

loving about Kai's approach. Creative and she's bringing some of these cards to life on another level.

14:34

I think if you're looking at your cards in terms of art and a collectible as opposed to an investment, I think that

14:40

makes total sense. in terms of the aesthetics, displaying it on your desk or in your if you maybe got a special

14:45

display made, it's almost logical step that you would do that. There was another grading company that was doing custom

14:52

labels, weren't they? In the UK. What? Yeah. What company was that? Yeah. So, uh, Ace grading. Are they still kicking around and doing

14:58

that? Cuz I remember that was a really big thing when they first came out, but it seems to have peted off a little bit.

15:03

I'm not I'm not really too sure to be honest. I think um, you know, the grading landscape is changing so much

15:08

it's kind of hard to keep up. Yeah. No, for sure. Talk to us about training for graders because I think this is allegedly PSA

15:15

has a grading manual and it's almost like a a secret bible that people have access to, but it's never been released

15:22

to the public. Yeah. Have you ever seen that firsthand? No. Can you confirm that this document

15:27

exists? I suppose that's the the question to ask. Look, I I have no idea whether that document exists or not. Just like I

15:32

don't know what's in the Vatican archives, right? Like I the PSA Vatican archive. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. you know, but what I

15:39

can tell you is that at TCG grading, it is a very extensive process. It's about a good 6 to 8 months before someone

15:46

who's trained for a grading role actually is able to grade cards on their own. So, I can bet you that's longer than not

15:53

that this is a whole thing about you versus PSA, but I couldn't imagine they would be interning people for six months

15:58

at PSA. Yeah. Look, and one of the things too is that we actually want our graders to be multi-disiplined. So we we want them to

16:05

understand how to do the card research. We need them to understand how to grade vintage right through to modern through

16:12

different lines. And then they actually developed their own subject matter expertise as well. Okay. So all of your graders do across

16:18

the board. They're not specialized into they are specialized but they are also trained to do across the board. And when

16:25

there's a card that's borderline or if there's a high value card like we did a first edition Charizard 2 3 weeks ago

16:31

then we also have a very strict process in place where for some cards and for some TCG lines two graders must provide

16:37

an independent grade for that particular card. Yeah, I think that's fair enough. Particularly on high value cards or

16:43

something that you're not too sure about. I love to hear those stories of how you're validating that a card is

16:48

what it is because in my personal opinion I do value a high-graded card, but actually for me it's I'm more value.

16:55

I've said this a million times. I I do cards every day. Like this is not my job, but this is something that I'm very passionate about

17:01

and I do it all the time. I think if someone went through my collection, I wouldn't be shocked if I had a fake card

17:06

in my own collection because I I think these days the fakes are so good. Yes. And so what I value from grading

17:13

companies maybe more than anything is that are they authenticating cards? Are they weeding out the fakes? And when I

17:20

buy this particular actually what I'm paying for. Absolutely. And we had a whole range of

17:26

first edition cards where people were buying shadowless cards but stamping them with a first edition stamp after

17:31

the fact trying to sell them and pass them off as first edition. And to the fraudster's credit, they're getting better and they're getting very

17:37

good at it. And I think this is also part of the problem. Well, as I said before, they're now being able to replicate that black line that you can

17:43

see under the jeweler's loop. They're able to replicate first edition stamp, you know, and and so you need to have a

17:49

very keen eye and you need to have a solid experience to be able to pick some of these up. You know, we just in the last two

17:54

months, we've taken in about three first edition Charizards that were all fake and we're able to trace them all back to the same seller.

18:00

So, if your graders have to have a very keen eye, what chance does a regular punter have to try and pick up these

18:06

fake? It is. It is very, very hard. very hard, you know, and and this is where our heart breaks sometimes when we hear

18:12

stories of people say, "I spent $2 and a half thousand dollars on this card. I spent $3,000 on this booster pack." And

18:18

we're like, "Guys, we just don't know what to say." You know, particularly booster packs, we're seeing more and

18:24

more vintage booster packs come through resealed and they're very good. They're Well, there's factories in China now

18:29

just like pumping them out and and resealing packets. I think that's the other big scam at the moment. They've got fantastic I mean really their the

18:36

machine is the same as what they're using when they're manufacturing them in the first place. Yeah, that's right. That's right. You know, which abs the whole buyer

18:43

confidence just takes a massive hit because it's like who do you trust, you know, um there was there was also Kmart

18:50

had to, you know, resend their whole refund policy because people were sort of melting down the glue on the sides of

18:55

the boxes, taking the packs out, emptying the packs, resealing it all up and handing it over for a refund or

19:01

exchange, you know. So people are getting more and more savvy. So So I think again people are getting better at running the scams, aren't

19:07

they? There was a massive thing recently with Lego where someone was taking the Lego out of the boxes and filling it

19:13

back up with macaroni to the exact gram amount, finding the loophole on Amazon that they don't actually examine the

19:20

boxes. They only weigh them. So when they were coming back through, they were weighing the boxes that was all checking out. The person would get

19:26

their refund back and then just like rinse and repeat this whole process. So like that's the level of of scam that

19:32

we're dealing with. And so I'm going to put this back on to you. So how are you keeping collectors safe? Like what are you doing in the collector space to

19:38

educate people, help people identify fakes? So one of the key So there's a number of things that we do. As I said before, um

19:45

we we provide reports and information to the police whenever we whenever we get that information. Yeah.

19:50

One of the other things too which I know a lot of other companies don't do is we actually give the customer a call. So,

19:58

we give them a call and we explain that the card has failed authentication and we talk through the reasons why.

20:04

Yeah. And that really helps build awareness around the next time that they're going to buy cards or the next time they want

20:10

to go through their binder. A lot of the time it's just about they found their binder from from when they were a kid.

20:15

Mom and dad at the time didn't realize they were buying fake cards for their kids and then they bring their binder

20:21

up, you know, thinking that they're landing on a gold mine and unfortunately it's not. So we get a lot of people

20:26

actually giving us some really good feedback about that process about the fact that we actually give you a call,

20:32

you talk to the grader, the grader actually walk through some of the issues that we've had around failing authentication and we also allow you to

20:39

provide a substitute card. It's amazing that you have the capacity to deliver that type of customer service

20:44

though. And my follow-up question to that is do you record that and then make it available for people on social media?

20:51

Because PSA has just recently begun putting post out where they're actually educating people about this particular

20:58

card has got a flaw in it. Yeah. When you're submitting this particular card, look out that type of content where you're helping the community grow

21:04

their knowledge base. Yeah, look, it's definitely on the horizon. That's something that we definitely want to do more of. Um I

21:10

think at the moment with the volume of submissions and and with our focus on customer service,

21:15

there's a lot of beasts for you to tame in this area. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. Can we just go back to your staff

21:20

training and how you regularly and ongoing do you assess them? Do they get promoted? Do you have senior graders and

21:27

Yeah, in the middle and junior graders. Yeah, we absolutely do. Yes. So, we've got um a senior grader uh her name is Tena and

21:34

Tena will come and do a grading demonstration later today. Looking forward to meeting her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um and then we also have

21:40

mainstream graders which are which are called grading and service specialists and Yeah. And you know, Riftbound was a

21:45

really good example. We spend a lot of time understanding the t the the actual TCG line. We open packs. We reach out to

21:51

the manufacturer. We get um relevant sort of knowledge bases uh online. We

21:56

look at other types of cards, card databases. Um so we spend a good 2 3

22:01

months uh trying to understand it and confident enough to say yep we can we can grade it.

22:07

Can we please talk about slab integrity? So what I mean by that is one of the criticisms of PSA slabs is that you can

22:14

either break them very easily. Yeah. Remove the card out and then send it back for grading because you weren't

22:20

happy with the grade. Yes. That's one scenario that people do. People have also worked out how to open

22:25

take out the card because it's PSA 10. Put in a card that say PSA 6. Yeah.

22:30

Reseal that slab so it's got the PSA 10 grade on it. Sell that off. Take that PSA 10. Send it back to PSA.

22:37

Now they've got another me personally I I think that's a massive problem for PSA to manage because how do you

22:44

accurately document populations of cards again how do you keep collectors safe I

22:50

want to know what I'm your card and then I think the biggest player in this very niche part of the market is

22:56

tag they've produced a slab that almost looks like it's bulletproof glass and to

23:02

remove the card out of the slab you actually have to destroy the slab to the point that you be worried about damaging

23:08

your card to try and get it out. So, it makes those cards impossible to remove. So,

23:13

can you please talk to me about that concept and how you fit into the marketplace within that?

23:19

So, before we weld any cards, we go through the process of actually testing all of our Sonic welders to make sure

23:25

that that that the seal is tight and that the actual slab can fuse properly. Your slabs look similar to PSA. Is that

23:32

fair to say that? Yeah, they do. Yeah, absolutely. And there is this really weird thing at the moment where a lot of people are sort of

23:37

going, "Oh, the the heavier the slab feels, the the more durable or safer it feels." But that's

23:43

the BGS slabs do feel stronger. I I know what you're saying when you mention that. Yeah. Yeah. And with all the stress testing

23:50

that we've done, we know that that's probably more psychological than actual reality because our slabs are quite

23:56

durable. Sure. And I kind of liken it to back in the early 2000s when everyone wanted the smallest phone, everyone wanted the

24:02

lightest phone, and now we're all carrying around mini iPads, you know? So, it's like those types of aesthetic

24:08

things sort of eb and flow and change. But when it comes to to our slabs, like

24:13

I said, we test the welders before we weld anything. We make sure that it's airtight and our slabs are hard to to

24:20

crack open. Yeah. Having said that, we tagged though, I have seen posts about

24:25

other grading companies and their bulletproof slabs being popped right open. I think there was a an Instagram

24:31

post I saw where someone was using a bottle opener to help try to crack open those. People are very resourceful and they'll

24:36

work out ways to open them up. So, yeah, I just wonder, but even if they open them up, it's very

24:42

very hard to get them looking like they were just sealed because soon as you pry them open, acrylic scratches, you can

24:48

see stress marks on the edges. And even if they try to glue that that glue will turn up and you'll be able to see that.

24:53

I do agree with that. But I think also too there's like there's ways around that. People can go into Teimu and buy slabs off that.

24:59

Yeah, they can. So they could open it up, take the card out, take the label out, chuck it into a teu slab.

25:04

Yeah. Spend half an hour trying to seal it up and you know whatever way they But those slabs, the majority of those slabs are also they're really easy to

25:11

spot in terms of their forgery. Yeah. Great. So can we please talk about that? So, the most common card in maybe

25:18

the most common card in Pokémon that's forged and then maybe others. Pick some other thing and let just sort of walk us

25:24

through what you would need to be looking for. The most common commonly forged card in basketball is the Jordan

25:29

Fleer rookie card. I was going to say the first year Jordan rookie card depending on your opinion of the world.

25:35

That's right. Yeah. Talk to us about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, definitely Jordan cards are the cards that we see the most in

25:41

terms of failing authentication. In terms of Pokemon, it's definitely the first edition, the shadowless, and the

25:47

baset unlimited cards. Those cards to cation, we are seeing a little bit more One Piece come through as well. And with

25:52

the one piece cards, it's because the holo foil is not right and the backs have off coloring. And one of the most

25:59

hardest ones, the and the line that takes the most time to authenticate is Magic the Gathering. Particularly Magic

26:05

the Gathering cards from the '9s and early 2000s. It can take us anywhere from half an hour to 45 minutes just to

26:13

authenticate a Magic the Gathering vintage card. Extra checks and baler card in particular.

26:19

Is there any cards that you can walk us through about tips you can give to collectors what to look out for,

26:24

especially the Jordan rookie? Cuz I know there's some like there's some dot issues with that. There's the arrow that people always look out for. Can you walk

26:31

us through some examples like that? Yeah, generally speaking, things like spelling errors, textures, [laughter]

26:36

you you'll be surprised how many cards, you know, spell Michael wrong or or or fleer is is spelled in a really weird

26:43

way. Definitely color. Looking at some of the reference points online to the card that you've actually got. It sounds

26:49

like a really simple step, but it's probably the most effective, you know. No, not at all. I I think sometimes the basic things is good to talk about. And

26:55

also, too, because you're a professional, this you do this every day. It seems simple to you, but for regular collectors like myself, it's

27:01

great to hear this type of hint. So, absolutely, front and back, check with a number of different sources that are

27:07

being sold online to just check for the color, the texture, spelling, the imagery, and also just making sure that

27:14

the whole series and all the card information is correct. So, for Pokémon in particular, we were asked to help

27:19

provide some support around some booster boxes that were coming through that were fake. And sure enough, they were

27:25

Fantasmal Flame boxes, but they had Silver Tempest on the bottom of the box. Could have been worse. Could have been

27:31

G.I. Joe cards, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's [laughter] right. That was I really felt for the value of there. Yeah. Yeah.

27:37

I mean, it's Logan Paul. I don't mind if Oh, look, he's made a lot of money. So, yeah, it can happen. It can absolutely

27:43

happen. And so, that's why there's absolutely no guarantee there. There never can be a guarantee. But what we do is we try to be as thorough as we

27:49

possibly can. So UV inspection, magnification, using forensic level technologies. One of the things that

27:56

we've always been asked as well is around AI and AI grading. And every time we used it, it's failed. We're terrified

28:02

of it. We don't want to replace greater with an AI version. What we try to explain to people is, and I know for me

28:09

personally, I would never fly in a plane that's just by AI, or I'd never go into an operating theater that's just purely

28:15

run by AI, but I would fly on a plane with a pilot that's supported by technology or by a surgeon that's

28:21

supported by technology. Our graders are supported by AI and other technologies, but they're not replaced. And I think

28:28

not to mention other global grading companies, but there were two grading companies in particular globally that

28:33

proud of using their AI grading and then they had to receive that. Yeah. One thing I did see recently about

28:39

AI grading is that you could go to a vending machine drop off point, put your card into it, come back in 2

28:46

hours, it's been graded, it's been labeled, it's all been done automatically by a machine. I think I'm

28:51

with you. I think that AI has to play some part in grading. And it has to in the sense that it will actually help

28:58

collectors and it will keep the community safe. So the example I'm thinking of that is I think it's PSA

29:03

what they're intending to do moving forward essentially is take a photo of every card that they grade and their

29:08

belief is that every single card is a little bit different and you can actually almost take a fingerprint of

29:13

each card. So if it does come back for a second time to be graded, they can automatically pick that up and eliminate

29:19

that from the grading process to try and which is kind of difficult in itself, right? to try and cut down on that sort

29:24

of repeated grading process that will help keep down their numbers again keep collectors safe from

29:30

the thing with that is is that a card isn't a fingerprint. So a card by it natur

29:41

some some type of damage over time whereas a fingerprint is a fingerprint you know and so I think that's one of the challenges people will have with

29:46

that. That's actually a really interesting thought point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're definitely supported

29:51

by AI. One of the challenges that AI grading has, it just can't capture all the different angles that the card needs

29:58

to be seen under in order to capture all the imperfections. Where AI works really, really well for us is to help

30:04

with the card research. So for the label, when we're trying to find different parallels, uh where we're

30:10

trying to find old arts, where we're trying to find card data, particularly for vintage card sets, AI does an

30:17

incredible job of trying to find all the relevant card data that we need to put on that label. Keep talk to me about AI

30:23

though, how you're going to use it more, use it in the future because I think we're now living in an AI world. It

30:29

Yeah, there has to be more about it. So, how are you preparing for the world? How you use it, right? So, for us, it's

30:34

it's garbage in, garbage out. So, as I said, I think the whole label design and the whole label inputting AI really

30:42

helps with that. AI can also help with centering as well and and help nail some of the centering that we need. Outside

30:48

of that, I I would much rather rely on the training and the skill of our grading team to be able to deliver.

30:54

Will you use it for the labeling? So, I think that's something that Yeah. How do you manage errors on labels if

31:01

that ever does happen? How do you what's Oh, it does happen. What's your customer service process around that and

31:06

it absolutely does. Yeah. So whenever there's a a label issue, we always encourage the the customer to send back

31:13

the card and then we will fix the actual label and send it back to them free of charge. So we'll do the reholstering,

31:19

we'll reissue the label. And look, the no grading company is perfect. Every single grading company has issues where

31:26

they sometimes can pinch a card in the welding process, can sometimes get an error on the label. It's just one of

31:32

those things that happens in grading. some type of customer service process around the PSA guarantee because for me

31:38

that's benefit of grading with PSA is that if it is a fake card in that but you pay the PSA upcharge for

31:44

Yeah. How do you manage that type of scenario? We've never come across an issue where

31:50

we've graded a card that wasn't found to be authentic. Yeah. So, we're more than happy to work with

31:55

the customer on a case- by case basis. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to us about your credibility and talk about your

32:01

accredititation because I've got down here that you're accredited with the AVAA. Yeah, that's right. Explain to us that for someone like me,

32:08

I've never heard of the AVAA. Talk to us about that. Absolutely. So, all this came about was because we were approached by an

32:14

insurance company and they needed help valuing and appraising a collection that had gotten stolen. And so I approached

32:21

the Australian Valuers and Auctioneers Association and they didn't have anybody accredited

32:28

as a licensed valuer for TCG lines. So I went I got to say I wonder if this is going

32:33

to be like a growing thing in the future because we are seeing a huge spate at the moment sealed theft obviously from

32:39

trading card shops like a lot of breakins at the moment. Yeah. And then also too, they're they're pinching high-end and very specific

32:46

singles. Like the people who are breaking into these shops, they know what they're looking for. They know what they're and what's happening with insurance

32:52

companies is insurance companies are knocking back some of these claims, right? I bet you they are. I bet you they are. And so we went through a very intensive

32:59

process. We are the only company um in Australia to have AVA accreditation,

33:05

which means that we actually write detailed valuation and appraisal certificates and reports for the

33:10

purposes of insurance. Uh we're now being asked more and more to help with family court proceedings. So where where

33:16

one spouse has gone, "No, my collection's worth 20 bucks." The other spouse has gone, "No, it's actually worth 200,000." And then I sort of have

33:23

to come in and appraise it and go to court and say, "Uh, actually, yeah, the these Star Wars figures, they're uh

33:29

they're worth 400k. Sorry." Oh my god. Um, so I mean, there's enough pain with divorce, let alone losing your

33:35

collectibles at the same time, isn't there? you know, and we're also getting asked a lot more for advice on self-managed super funds, um, and having

33:42

these alternate asset classes being considered part of SMSFs and trusts and also working with financial planners

33:49

because, you know, gone are the days where people are just settling on gold, silver, jewelry, art, and property.

33:56

Yeah, we're now seeing a massive rise in collectibles and these alternate asset classes in delivering much stronger

34:02

returns than any um investment in property or cash would. I'm really feeling like a light bulb is

34:09

going off my head at the moment. It So, are you the only person in Australia who's doing this? I'm the only person in Australia that's

34:15

accredited with AVA. Correct. This has to be a growing market for people to do. So for people at home that

34:20

aren't aware of this, we got Dennis Ori who's very famous for being on Shark Tank and a whole bunch of sort of other

34:26

TV appearances that he does. He's been buying up high-end MB focused on oncard

34:32

autographs, one of Logman's, high and low grade, but he's also been walking

34:38

around with them on the red carpet with Tiffany necklaces on. um he's really

34:43

raised the whole profile around high-end investment and his the ultra high-end

34:48

products are actually in the same conversation as like a Monae or a Rembrandt.

34:54

Yeah. And so my belief about this guy is that ultimately you can like or dislike him, but he's doing a fantastic job at

35:00

bringing eyes onto the hobby. Absolutely. And there is a trickle down effect that's very real for this. And I so

35:06

let's bring this back to the local market when you're doing evaluations for the family court or for insurance

35:12

claims. I I think that's the trickle down right there. So there is value in stuff that's not a Michael Jordan one of

35:18

one logo. Maybe that's another market for people to walk into become an accredited valuer start working with the

35:24

family courts. It's a horrible play to to sort of say out loud but and it's not as easy.

35:29

There has to be a market for this, right? It was a very long process um because the actual board have to approve

35:35

your application. You have to to be able to be considered a member of AVA because what insurance company employee

35:41

would know what the hell they were looking at what they're talking about when it comes to collectibles. That's the fundamental problem. And so

35:47

with TCG valuations, which is a bit of an offshoot of TCG grading, what we're doing with that team there is is not

35:53

only doing valuing and appraisal certificates and reports, we're also trying to drive advocacy. One of the

35:59

biggest issues is provenence. One of the biggest issues is is trying to get people to save the Facebook messages, the receipts to be able to prove the

36:06

chain of uh of ownership right back from when it was originally bought. And when you think about that GI Joe box, it was

36:13

a classic, oh, it was kept in dad safe all those years, you know. Well, it was but there were no receipts. There were there was no evidence, no documentation.

36:20

The person who sold that on eBay before it was sold onto Logan Paul had a zero eBay rating, though.

36:26

Yeah. Yeah, like the providence of that particular box was terrible. Yeah, it's a massive issue. Massive issue. So,

36:32

one of the things we're trying to do as well is drive a lot of advocacy around getting insurance companies, financial planning firms to recognize TCG and

36:40

other mainstream collectible lines from LEGO right through to be bare bricks right into action figures as asset

36:46

classes that can deliver solid returns that should be protected and recognized. I'm going to mispronounce this word, but

36:52

give the listeners at home three tips of how to prove providence. Did I say that right? Yeah, you did. Yeah. Yeah. The first one

36:58

is just to keep receipts. It sounds really, really stupid. I never do that. I throw all my receipts

37:03

in the bin straight away. Keep the receipts. Keep screenshots of all the Facebook messages where you've exchanged um you

37:10

know where you bought things off Facebook or eBay and that type of thing. And the other thing too is always ask

37:15

the question. And when when I buy anything for my own personal collection, my very first question, I don't care how

37:21

much you bought it for. I just need to see where you bought it from. Yeah. And that's always a flag. And if they

37:26

get a bit nervous, I walk away from the deal alto together. Yeah. Any other tips you can keeping documents, providing proof, just try and

37:34

sort of like reel off like two or three dot points cuz actually I've never thought about this before and I think it's a really interesting conversation.

37:40

Yeah, look, definitely try to document things as much as possible when it comes to actual transaction, keeping those

37:45

screenshots, keeping those receipts, all those things really go a long way in helping prove provenence. And one of the

37:51

things that we do with the TCG valuation database is whenever we do a valuation and appraisal, the customer actually

37:57

signs off in the terms and conditions that we can actually publish in the providence database. So eventually what

38:02

that means is is that if someone knows that something has been valued and appraised through TCG valuations that we

38:08

want to jump onto the website and look it up through the valuation certificate. Yeah. I think that's a really important

38:13

part for great is what they should be doing for the community. They should be a resource for people to tap into. Yeah.

38:19

And that's my biggest complaint with PSA. It's like they're a billion dollar company that provides very little

38:25

customer support. Yeah. And provides very little education for the community. So I I think what you're

38:30

talking about there I would love to see more of that and frankly I hope that's sort of being baked into everything that

38:36

you know absolutely you know and we are rolling more and more out around the value. We do want to raise awareness around the

38:41

need to to value and appraise things properly. It's not just about jumping onto collector app and just seeing that

38:46

your portfolio is worth an x amount of dollars. Insurance companies um and financial firms, financial services firms, they

38:53

need to see someone like us being able to come in and provide an independent assessment. Yeah, I think that's a

38:59

really interesting one. So, we're down to about the last 10 minutes of the show. So, why don't we do some rapid

39:04

fire questions, some sort of quick hitting questions. You have to do it quickly, but we'll just sort of run through a bunch of stuff.

39:09

Yeah, no worries. Australian grading is worthless. PSA is the only standard. Yeah, honestly, whenever I hear that, I

39:16

just chuckle because I know through the network of vendors that we have and even talking to other grading companies in

39:23

Australia as well, the Australian grading market is growing. people are recognizing Australian graded slabs uh a

39:30

lot more these days and that's reflected just in the sheer amount of submissions that we take all day every day and

39:36

approximately how many cards are you grading a month? H it kind of in let's say in a week we can do anywhere from

39:43

200 to 2,000 cards a week you know so last year we did close to about

39:48

70,000 cards and that's we are one of the biggest you know and there's potential to do more there you know

39:54

um when you're growing a business your first five years are the the pinch point isn't it so you made it to year five you

39:59

should be seeing a lot more growth I'm sure if you did 55,000 last your next 12 months is going to be fantastic so

40:05

absolutely you know um no I think I I didn't I didn't emphasize this enough at the start of the show. I

40:10

really think you're competing against a Goliath. So, I really do tip my hat to you in that sense. It's it's an amazing

40:16

competitive space that you've put your hat into. So, honestly, from all collectors, thank you so much for the hard work that you do.

40:22

No, look, it's all good. And, you know, from from our perspective, it's not we're not really It sounds weird, but we don't we're not what what we're doing is

40:29

we're just we're just providing a consistent and quality product for Australians. No, that's that's a fair that's a fair

40:34

response to that. I I do think though that you might not be competing with them, but you're in the same space as them. So that's why I sort of said it

40:40

like that. But I one thing I will say to you is that it's becoming unreachable for some people. Yeah. And I think the two parts Yeah.

40:46

because there's no point sending a $2 card that you want to be encapsulated because you love it.

40:52

It's going to cost you essentially $100. By the time you pay shipping back and forth, you pay the grading fee.

40:57

And I think the other wait time, even though they're telling is actually there's not that many people that are

41:02

happy about waiting that long to get their card back. So, and you know our I think that presents opportunity for

41:07

other grading companies. Absolutely. But can I just say that our biggest concern is what we're seeing in

41:14

Australia, not necessarily what's happening overseas. So what we're seeing is an increase in the amount of grading

41:21

companies that are coming out working out of mom and dad's garage going and

41:26

trying to sort of offer an Australian grading service. So just within the last we've seen six of these small grading

41:32

companies fold. We've seen another two come online. And so what we're absolutely asking Australians to do is

41:39

to make sure they do their checks and balances. A lot of these grading companies don't have terms and

41:44

conditions online. They don't have their ABN and ACN published. They don't have contact details. They're not visible.

41:51

They're not transparent. But you know, they claim to be the best of the best. And that's one of the biggest things to

41:56

look out for. I would personally say that's the nature of the beast. I think you're always going to be having grading companies popping up.

42:02

Yes. And in America it's the same thing too. And it's actually almost comical in some ways of how many will pop up. So Rob

42:09

from Burbank did a video of this and he's actually purchased a card from as many grading companies and he did this

42:15

whole it was like about a 25minute video of him going through all these different grading companies that have popped up.

42:21

Hundreds if not thousands. Right. I am very much pro-choice right around grading very much. But from a community

42:29

service perspective, my very strong advice is do your research because a lot of these companies don't offer the

42:36

transparency and they don't offer the consumer protections and you're handing over your cards either for investment or

42:42

personal collection. Could be thousands of dollars worth of stuff. It could be thousands of dollars and you don't know who you're handing. Why are there so many Australian grading

42:48

companies? You might have Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I I don't know. I sometimes think that it's it's just the

42:54

culture that we all have around well maybe we can do it better but then six months at tw you know 12 months down the

42:59

track these grading companies are nowhere to be seen you know and that's why we're proud of the fact that we've been here for 5 years

43:05

138,967 cards we've done in 5 years I think probably for me at the end of

43:11

the day part of the hobby is that it is an unregulated space so anyone can act as a grader anyone can

43:19

act as a buyer and a seller anyone can be a breaker for that point. And so, and this is my message to other grading

43:25

companies in Australia that want to be serious. I am very serious about sharing our grading methodology. I am very

43:32

serious about publishing our grading methodology for all grading companies to use as an Australian standard.

43:37

I I think if the hub is going to grow, that's actually what needs to be done too. By the way, I'm very happy to to step forward and be

43:43

the first to say I'm happy to share, guys, because I think we've got to stop competing on the grading methodology.

43:50

The grading methodology needs to be consistent. There needs to be a standard for grading. I'm very passionate about

43:56

that. We can compete on customer service. We can compete on the slab design. We can compete on the label,

44:02

color, texture, but the actual grading mechanics should be something that is

44:07

universally shared across all grading companies. And I'm very passionate. How do you handle stolen cards?

44:13

Yeah. Um, uh, it's it's one of those things where very often than not, we get submissions where they're missing

44:19

customer information. People just send their cards in in tissue paper with no

44:24

name, no number, no nothing. Um, and so we do have a quarantining process where

44:30

we we catalog them, we keep them in the vault, and we grade them so we have we they're

44:37

all ready to go. Um, and then we wait have to wait for the customer to actually reach out to us. Yeah. On the flip side, there's also a

44:44

whole range of customers that actually don't pick up their cards. It is perplexing to us. We have a handful of

44:50

submissions where it's where we've been consistently contacting these people for 12 to 14 months and their submission is

44:58

now, you know, being charged. I don't actually think that's isolated to you though. I've heard that happening at PSA too. So that's and other

45:05

submitters that happen. Beck at PSA the only way to max value. No, definitely not. Definitely not. you

45:11

know, and from what I've seen with the Australian market and through what vendors have told me, TCG graded slabs

45:17

can get up to 100% of the PSA market value. So PSA, BGS, CGC or now all one

45:25

and the same. That's not the only answer these days. And I think the scrutiny on the global landscape has into people's

45:31

trust about and has shifted people's thinking now into trusting more local options like us.

45:37

There's so much negative publicity around PSA at the moment. the sports guy is doing a boycott PSA month. Yeah.

45:43

That's his whole Yeah. boycott PSA in May. Yeah. And it's really I think there's a strange

45:48

dichotomy in the hobby where even if you get it's actually not a bad thing. I think actually what's most likely going

45:54

to happen from him saying boycott PSA more people are going to be submitting their cards into PSA. Like it's such a

46:00

strange sort of thing around and I kind of liken it to utility companies. Like no one wants to pay

46:06

Telstra or Optus for their mobile phone and they love to hate the whole telco

46:11

business, but it's a utility. We need to use it paying those bills and we keep paying those bills and you [laughter] know people love to hate

46:18

grading, right? They don't like the idea of having to send their cards and money to someone that tells them how much it's

46:24

worth, right? But it's a utility and people love to hate it. All right, last one here. Aren't you

46:30

just another slab company? No, I really don't. Like I said, five years we are seeing more submissions

46:36

coming from overseas. The custom art labels, the 180 point, we now do Funko Pops, video games. We're truly evolving

46:43

and and we and we've been the on this evolving trajectory for the last 12 months. Yeah, we're pretty much at the hour

46:49

point now. What have we not discussed that you wanted to walk through with me today? To be honest, I think we've covered

46:55

quite a fair bit of ground. So, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much, mate. That was a very enjoyable conversation. Yeah,

47:01

if you ever do decide to do some educational pieces on content, if you would reach out to me, I would

47:07

love to work on you on this because that's one of my passions in the hobby, positive content that teaches people the

47:13

fund card collecting. So, I would love to work with a grading company in that capacity. Fantastic.

47:19

If you ever do reach out to me, I would love and so absolutely. Thank you so much for your time today. You're so generous with me. I spoke to

47:25

you before we came on for the podcast, so thank you so much. No, all good. Thank you.