Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

Blog Comments

  1. jasonod84's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by rg3isthebeesknees
    When I sell on ebay, in my description, I always state, cards will be mailed in penny sleeve, top loader and bubble mailer....if i'm buying if I do not see a similar description I do not buy, always assume the worst. I learned the hard way when I had an autograph card come in PWE. If you are looking for some cards in bubble mailers, find me on ebay jtayne23 hahaha....anyways sorry that you got burned on shipping like that, but good thing you did the neutral feedback and brought it to other buyers attention. I usually charge 2.99 shipping for a bubble mailer transaction, but It's because 1.69 for postage, then 50 cents at walmart for bubble mailer. then 10 cents for top loader and 1 cent for the penny sleeve, I try not to factor in tape but that cost money to, so when its all said and done I might make a few pennies off of shipping but no more than that. if it is a small flat rate box I charge 5.50 postage cost 5.15 I make 45 cents but I usualy use these for 50 or more cards so that is 10 cents x 50 cards for top loaders...so I lose money on these types of transactions...I don't understand how people can offer free shipping on things, maybe if I were rich and ™™™™ted out bubble mailers and tape....unfortunately I lose out on sales with the same cards to people who offer free shipping. Anyways what this guy was doing is just bad practice, glad your card made it to you safe though

    You hit it on the button with the "card made it to you safe." remark. as long as you got the card in the condition that was described, leave a positive feedback and if you arent happy with the shipping charge, leave something other than 5 stars on their DSR.
  2. jasonod84's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by kr0n
    I did read the description and whatnot, each of his auctions were listed as $5.00 "Economy Shipping", or something that didn't sound impressive. My first thought was that it sounded horrible. That didn't stop me from buying, but it did throttle my bid. I've been around on eBay as both a buyer and seller for a while, and I understand that people usually charge whatever they want for shipping. because it makes them a lot more money that way.

    I don't know the precise numbers/formula to be able to post it here, but;

    Selling an item for $10 ($9 bid, $1 shipping)
    vs.
    Selling an item for $10 ($1 bid, $9 shipping)

    The latter will leave you with a lot more (proportionally) in your Paypal account than the first example. (To my understanding) Final Value Fees from eBay are a percentage based off of the final bid, the shipping amount is not fee'd. This is why sellers generally jack it sky high, to try and pull one over on eBay. So all you eBay haters keep in mind that there are plenty of people out there scamming dollars out of eBay's pockets as well, no matter how much you think they make or deserve it.

    It may have come across as sarcastic, but when I said "It's my fault for assuming that people have standards." I was actually admitting my own error. I should have questioned how it would be shipped, but I had checked his feedback and it was all positive, one other neutral in the 12 month range for an "Item not as described" issue which didn't really apply here. He had sold a fair number of cards before so I just assumed he knew what he was doing, or at least justify the $5 shipping. This is the precise reason I told him I was leaving neutral feedback and drawing attention to the shipping charges, so others in the future could see my feedback and ask him what's up with his $5 charge. If someone before me had left feedback similar to mine, I certainly would have asked. Hopefully his future buyers will now.

    To restore some faith in the eBay world and whatnot, around the same time as this purchase I bought a baseball Prizm gold card which I paid $3.50 in shipping for. It was shipped very quickly, and came in what looked like a barely-used 35pt magnetic one-touch. Those are usually around $1.50 bare minimum (in bulk) so with all factors considered I'd say that seller lost a few cents on the shipping side of things.

    Thanks for the read and comments so far guys.

    There is a 10% fee that is applied to both the final sale price and the shipping charge.
  3. kr0n's Avatar
    RG3: jyosi mentioned earlier in this thread that eBay has since changed their policies and charges and whatnot so supposedly people are having the shipping price factored into their Final Value Fees. I can't confirm this, just repeating what he said.

    The part that annoyed me (at first) was that this guy attempted to charge $7.50 for the two cards. The only reason I went after the second card was because I assumed (my fault) that with an initial $5 charge there'd be free combined shipping. I won the second card for $1.31, he wanted to slap on an additional $2.50 in shipping. Yeah, no, lol. This is why I asked for the possibility of cancelling the second auction altogether.

    Mike - Congratulations on your Nintendo business and great feedback. It sounds like your service justified the price you charged.
    Also, if I went to a restaurant that charged me say $8 for a fountain soda and did not have refills, I would accept that I have no recourse at the time and not pursue a refund - but you better believe that's the first thing I'm gonna tell anyone about that restaurant lmao. What am I just supposed to stay silent? "Haha SURPRISE pal! $8 sodas!" But no one should tell anyone about that in advance right? It's all on the individual buyer at the time of purchase. That's what I'm getting out of what you're saying.

    You sound like you're encouraging him to get away with it as long as he can. Since no one is allowed to mention any problems/issues after the fact, it is up to every single buyer to assess every single facet of the transaction every time. If nothing else I would be happy if that's what future buyers get out of my feedback I left for this seller.

    So again, I am back to the cycle I mentioned. For me to say anything about it after the fact would be unethical. So that's another point in the column for doing away with the every feedback system everywhere, apparently if a transaction happens, it must be positive.

    Would it have been better in your eyes if I gave positive feedback and wrote "ASK QUESTIONS OR GET PUNISHED"? The caps being for the sake of getting attention of course. And that would be an accurate or fair thing to say, correct? It's just a factual statement of the seller in general, and not specific to my individual purchase.
  4. rg3isthebeesknees's Avatar
    And I don't think it's a coincidence that everyone agrees with you except 1 person. You were not wrong in this situation, and it is good of you to bring it to other buyers attention that this guy is making money off shipping, and not protecting the card as much as possible when sending it to you.
  5. rg3isthebeesknees's Avatar
    I often combine shipping for people, I do not say I will in my description but I think it is good common practice. And usualy they wait until after they bid or buy an item to ask. It's true I do not have to do this, but as an ebay seller if you want positive feedback you need to work for it and keep people happy. Sometimes that means doing things you do not want to do. The fact that the guy paid 1.12 and not 1.69 shows that he used the crapiest sub standard shipping available. If he didn't offer first class, there is no harm in asking him if he will send first class exspecially if he is charging 5 dollars. Also ebay has it in there regulations and guidelines that if a seller is charging above fair shipping that you can report them. and it will be looked into. I believe a seller has to do it several times to get in trouble, but say he wanted to charge 20 dollar shipping and used 1.12 postage...that is unfair, to the buyer and to ebay, because they are making money off ebay and not paying fees on it, as you do not pay fees on shipping. I see things listed for 1.00 all the time with 100.00 shipping, so that people can get around paying the fees on a 100 dollar item. This is what I would consider unfair to ebay. I don't think you did anything wrong, It never hurts to ask for an upgrade on shipping, or if a seller will combine. LIke I said I don't offer it, but if people ask I will do it, because it is just good practice.
  6. rg3isthebeesknees's Avatar
    When I sell on ebay, in my description, I always state, cards will be mailed in penny sleeve, top loader and bubble mailer....if i'm buying if I do not see a similar description I do not buy, always assume the worst. I learned the hard way when I had an autograph card come in PWE. If you are looking for some cards in bubble mailers, find me on ebay jtayne23 hahaha....anyways sorry that you got burned on shipping like that, but good thing you did the neutral feedback and brought it to other buyers attention. I usually charge 2.99 shipping for a bubble mailer transaction, but It's because 1.69 for postage, then 50 cents at walmart for bubble mailer. then 10 cents for top loader and 1 cent for the penny sleeve, I try not to factor in tape but that cost money to, so when its all said and done I might make a few pennies off of shipping but no more than that. if it is a small flat rate box I charge 5.50 postage cost 5.15 I make 45 cents but I usualy use these for 50 or more cards so that is 10 cents x 50 cards for top loaders...so I lose money on these types of transactions...I don't understand how people can offer free shipping on things, maybe if I were rich and ™™™™ted out bubble mailers and tape....unfortunately I lose out on sales with the same cards to people who offer free shipping. Anyways what this guy was doing is just bad practice, glad your card made it to you safe though
  7. Mikecouil's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by kr0n
    I don't mind any comment that has some logic behind it. By no means did I expect to post this and have everyone agree with me haha.

    I don't feel I attempted to change any terms of a contract, since no terms were disclosed. (If I really wanted to push it, couldn't I say I agreed to pay for $5 worth of shipping, but did not receive it?)
    The lack of term disclosure was a two man fail, I didn't ask, but he also didn't tell.
    I should have sought clarification on the terms, but didn't think it would be necessary.
    I was wrong and that's no one's fault but my own.
    Does this now mean I have to take it on the chin, and give this person a super-cool 5 star feedback? Absolutely not.


    For whatever it may be worth, my precise feedback was "$5 shipping charge, cost him $1.12 in postage, didn't even use a padded envelope". So I touched on both postage and materials.

    Also, anyone who does any amount of trading/shipping will be able to tell you immediately at a glance that this is sub-standard shipping. A domestic 1-3oz first class package costs $1.69 in online shipping. He spent $1.12 which indicates that this was not sent as a package, and therefore it most likely went through a sorting machine making it more prone to be damaged. Again I cite sub-standard shipping.

    Hopefully my feedback will let people know what the $5 shipping charge will get them. Working as intended.

    This is one of those instances where you are confusing very good customer service with a seller feeling guilty.

    You absolutely did try to change the terms of the agreement and actually succeeded. The auction very clearly stated the shipping charge. The fact that it did not state that there was combined shipping means that in legal terms there is not. It's a straight 5.00. This is akin to getting a soft drink at a restaurant and assuming you get free refills because you paid for the first, and then getting upset when there isn't. The issue is very easily avoided by asking if there is free refills.

    I've been on both sides. Personally I know that the 5.00 shipping caused the price of his cards to go for less than they would otherwise have gone. People do look at shipping charges and any logical, reasonable person would have figured that price into the total bid. I think 5.00 is outrageous and probably costs the seller more business than a nominal 3.00 or so charge would, but that's his choice.

    The seller in this instance didn't "buckle" to you. He tried to make you happy. There is no weakness in that. This is what we as consumers used to expect and voted for it with our dollar until the Walmart mentality of low prices beats all pretty much eliminated it.

    Way back in the day I used to sell refurbished/rebuilt original NES systems. I'd pick them up at garage sales, local video game shops, flea markets, etc. , clean them up real good, replace the 72 pin connector (the part that goes out and makes you have to blow in the machine) and sell them. My systems sold for over twice what others were getting. Why? I sold them with a no questions asked money back guarantee and full tech support. In return for that I got about 80 bucks per system and near christmas time over 100. The reason was simple. I had excellent feedback and I know customer service. Your seller knows customer service and he really tried to do right by you. The fact that you were so distraught over this as to call him a bafoon is bothersome.

    I wish you well and hopefully both you and the seller learned something here.
  8. kr0n's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mikecouil
    You probably won't like my comment but I agree with the seller. Dude bent over backwards for you and all you've done is piss and moan. His shipping prices are out of line, so if you didn't like them you should have contacted him prior to purchase. You don't enter a contract and then attempt to change the terms of said contract. This is equivelant to buying a house near an airport and then demanding they stop flying planes after dark.

    I don't mind any comment that has some logic behind it. By no means did I expect to post this and have everyone agree with me haha.

    I don't think it's fair to say he bent over backwards for me, though I can somewhat see where you're coming from. Though instead of "bent over backwards" I would say "buckled easily" because he wanted to avoid conflict/questions. It's all a matter of perspective. He dropped from a $7.50 reaming to $6.50, then $5.00 which is what I was originally on board for when bidding. I thought a $5.00 charge would be justified, but it wasn't even close, so again I refer to my "pulling in both directions" comment from the last post.

    I don't feel I attempted to change any terms of a contract, since no terms were disclosed. (If I really wanted to push it, couldn't I say I agreed to pay for $5 worth of shipping, but did not receive it?)
    The lack of term disclosure was a two man fail, I didn't ask, but he also didn't tell.
    I should have sought clarification on the terms, but didn't think it would be necessary.
    I was wrong and that's no one's fault but my own.
    Does this now mean I have to take it on the chin, and give this person a super-cool 5 star feedback? Absolutely not.

    The variety of opinions in this thread lead towards a cycle;

    1) I should have questioned his shipping and background-checked his feedback to look for warning signs.
    2) Since I OK'd the transaction in the first place, I'm "not allowed" to give neutral/negative feedback.
    3) Since Buyer A wasn't allowed to leave neutral feedback, Buyer B sees no warnings signs or reasons to question the seller.
    4) Buyer B has a less than impressive experience and is also not allowed to give neutral feedback, since they OK'd the deal, because there were no warning signs, right?

    To those that think it was wrong of me to leave neutral feedback since I was ok with it enough to proceed with the purchase, do you think eBay should entirely do away with their feedback system? And no that is not sarcastic or rhetorical, I am sincerely curious. The sentiment seems to be that if a transaction happens, everyone must be fine with it on both ends, therefore it must be positive.

    For whatever it may be worth, my precise feedback was "$5 shipping charge, cost him $1.12 in postage, didn't even use a padded envelope". So I touched on both postage and materials.

    Also, anyone who does any amount of trading/shipping will be able to tell you immediately at a glance that this is sub-standard shipping. A domestic 1-3oz first class package costs $1.69 in online shipping. He spent $1.12 which indicates that this was not sent as a package, and therefore it most likely went through a sorting machine making it more prone to be damaged. Again I cite sub-standard shipping.

    Hopefully my feedback will let people know what the $5 shipping charge will get them. Working as intended.
  9. p8030103's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by kr0n
    To restore some faith in the eBay world and whatnot, around the same time as this purchase I bought a baseball Prizm gold card which I paid $3.50 in shipping for. It was shipped very quickly, and came in what looked like a barely-used 35pt magnetic one-touch. Those are usually around $1.50 bare minimum (in bulk) so with all factors considered I'd say that seller lost a few cents on the shipping side of things.

    Thanks for the read and comments so far guys.

    I have a recent story like this as well. I grabbed two Dominion (hockey) cards at very nice prices (Peerless Patches of Anton Lander, Horizontal RPA of Cody Eakin), as in $18 before shipping for the pair of them. The seller charged me $3 total for shipping, but sent Xpresspost (usually about $10) in a bubble mailer with both cards in brand new 130pt one-touches. To say I was shocked when I opened the package is an understatement. Although I do agree that there are a lot of crackpots on eBay, there are a number of good sellers as well. My advice to those who are wary of bad sellers, is, when you buy on eBay, buy from sellers who own card shops (Player's Choice, CloutsnChara, etc), as they understand how to ship properly.
  10. Mikecouil's Avatar
    You probably won't like my comment but I agree with the seller. Dude bent over backwards for you and all you've done is piss and moan. His shipping prices are out of line, so if you didn't like them you should have contacted him prior to purchase. You don't enter a contract and then attempt to change the terms of said contract. This is equivelant to buying a house near an airport and then demanding they stop flying planes after dark.
  11. kr0n's Avatar
    The problem isn't the actual dollar amount paid for shipping, it's what you get out of it.
    I understand no one forced me to bid lol, we've been over that. I admitted my mistake in that I did not question the $5 charge. After seeing the results, I think other potential buyers deserve some warning that they should inquire about the shipping charges when buying from him so they don't have the same experience as me which left me saying, "Man, wish I asked bout that $5 shipping." I didn't really blink at the shipping charge because it's so common for sellers to overcharge.

    There are generally two things that could go wrong in terms of shipping in relation to shipping charges.

    1) You can blindly overcharge.
    2) You can use sub-standard shipping methods.

    This person did both, they are pulling in both directions, that's the real clincher for me.
    Through my actions and proceeding with my purchase, I condoned #1. I did not condone #2, nor did I condone the combination of both #1 and #2.

    "The actual shipping cost stamped on the envelope or package doesnt reflect the true cost of packaging, handling, shipping supplies and fees." - I could just as easily turn this around and say "The actual shipping charge on eBay doesn't reflect the true cost of packaging, handling, shipping supplies and fees.". Those both have extremely different connotations lol.

    Trueduck, it's hard to take you seriously with all your frivolous use of caps lock and whatnot, you're just coming off as angry internet white noise. I'm not trying to be offensive, but that's how your stuff reads.
    How did your feedback get annihilated to the point of being capped in such a way without you taking notice? Did you get 50 surprise feedback in a single day that totally bombed your DSR?
    From the information you provided (which is not every detail of your selling history, so understand what I'm basing this off of) it sounds like you may be a seller that is behind the curve, possibly by quite a bit (didn't know shipping charges/changes, didn't notice "negative" feedback accumulating). Why do you feel you deserve the same feedback as someone who may have Top Rated Seller credentials? It also sounds like you went on to dig your own grave much deeper, which only would have harbored more negativity and lead you to be more inclined to negative/poor feedback.

    On another note, I do relate to your hobby-crushing sentiment. I had something similar happen with a grading company which lead to me basically avoiding all facets of the hobby like the plague for 3-4 months.
    I also have not done a single card-for-card trade since January 27th of this year.
    Updated 05-01-2013 at 04:26 PM by kr0n
  12. Trueduckfan's Avatar
    I say to everyone out there who is looking to purchase on Ebay. If you dont agree with the shipping price, DONT BID OR BUY THE ITEM! Noone is forcing you to buy it and when you agree to bid on what you see, thats your fault and you are agreeing to the asking price and posted shipping charge. The actual shipping cost stamped on the envelope or package doesnt reflect the true cost of packaging, handling, shipping supplies and fees.

    I used to sell cards on Ebay everday, I never cut any corners on shipping. I always shipped above and beyond to insure safe professional shipping with sleeves, loaders (or hard-case if the card was over 25.00 BV), sealed team baggies, extra padding if I felt it was needed, padded bubble mailers w/DC via Priority Mail for fast safe shipping at an avg. shipping price of about 2.50 per card or so. I wasnt educated or aware of the PayPal shipping label discount so I was paying over what most were and I eventually got too many LOW SELLER RATINGS in S&H prices category and EBAY restricted my sales per month which basically shut me down,.

    I then went on a spree where if my card didnt sell for atleast 50% BV or enough to make it worth my while (which I never ever did before!, I always followed through with the sale as planned even when I LOST MONEY!) I canceled bids, sales and took my sweet time shipping the cards because EBAY DESTROYED MY HOBBY AND STOLE ALL OF MY MOTIVATION TO BE A GREAT SELLER. I always strived to be one of the top dogs on the site and it was fun for me as it supported my hobby and ability to pay for new cards for my collection or hobby boxes which I ABSOLUTELY LOVED OPENING about one-two boxes per week. I spent 90% of what I made from EBAY back on EBAY!!!

    Now I dont spend anything here, nor do I even have a passion for what I love to do becuase I have no outlet thanks to the rediculous scoring method kept by (EBAY SYSTEMS) and cheap picky buyers. Yes, ultimately it was my own undoing and maybe I could have recovered my account back up to par but I tried for about 5 months to bring my SELLER RATINGS back up enough to allow me to sell more than 10 items per month or $200.00 in sales per month but I didnt feel like giving FREE shipping on my nice autos that sold for less than what I needed to make a descent profit as EBAY suggested.

    Way to go EBAY. Destroyed another small time seller and cracked the door open a bit more for power sellers.
    Updated 05-01-2013 at 01:19 PM by Trueduckfan
  13. jyosi's Avatar
    They do charge a FVF on shipping now to prevent exactly what you just described. No one gets anything over on ebay anymore. They get you on the FVF on price and shipping, they get you on Paypal fees and I am sure they get a cut when you use their shipping app now. You get hosed selling on ebay, but it is the only place to move things.
  14. kr0n's Avatar
    I did read the description and whatnot, each of his auctions were listed as $5.00 "Economy Shipping", or something that didn't sound impressive. My first thought was that it sounded horrible. That didn't stop me from buying, but it did throttle my bid. I've been around on eBay as both a buyer and seller for a while, and I understand that people usually charge whatever they want for shipping. because it makes them a lot more money that way.

    I don't know the precise numbers/formula to be able to post it here, but;

    Selling an item for $10 ($9 bid, $1 shipping)
    vs.
    Selling an item for $10 ($1 bid, $9 shipping)

    The latter will leave you with a lot more (proportionally) in your Paypal account than the first example. (To my understanding) Final Value Fees from eBay are a percentage based off of the final bid, the shipping amount is not fee'd. This is why sellers generally jack it sky high, to try and pull one over on eBay. So all you eBay haters keep in mind that there are plenty of people out there scamming dollars out of eBay's pockets as well, no matter how much you think they make or deserve it.

    It may have come across as sarcastic, but when I said "It's my fault for assuming that people have standards." I was actually admitting my own error. I should have questioned how it would be shipped, but I had checked his feedback and it was all positive, one other neutral in the 12 month range for an "Item not as described" issue which didn't really apply here. He had sold a fair number of cards before so I just assumed he knew what he was doing, or at least justify the $5 shipping. This is the precise reason I told him I was leaving neutral feedback and drawing attention to the shipping charges, so others in the future could see my feedback and ask him what's up with his $5 charge. If someone before me had left feedback similar to mine, I certainly would have asked. Hopefully his future buyers will now.

    To restore some faith in the eBay world and whatnot, around the same time as this purchase I bought a baseball Prizm gold card which I paid $3.50 in shipping for. It was shipped very quickly, and came in what looked like a barely-used 35pt magnetic one-touch. Those are usually around $1.50 bare minimum (in bulk) so with all factors considered I'd say that seller lost a few cents on the shipping side of things.

    Thanks for the read and comments so far guys.
  15. jasonod84's Avatar
    Quite honestly, and this is just my opinion, but its the buyers responsibility to do their due diligence. Ask questions and review previous feedback. However, the $5 shipping charge is a little high. What did it say in the auction listing about shipping? Alot of the time buyers don't even read the description or anything. They just see the picture of the card they want and wrecklessly click on the bid button. I'm not saying that you didn't read the listing or anything, but why the heck bid on a card where the seller is charging that kind of money for shipping? If someone want to charge whatever they want for shipping to compensate for the fees and cost of shipping, I understand. Wgen it comes to lower end singles it difficult as heck to make anything other than a few pennies, so to SWOWannabe , that .87 is a big deal. If you sell something at .99 and charge 2.95 shipping it comes out to 3.94, after ebay and paypal fees it drops to 3.13. Minus the 2.07 it costs to ship, were now at 1.06. Then deduct the .69 for the bubble mailer, .20 for a toploader and penny sleeve, your left with a WHOPPING .17!!! And that doesnt even take into the consideration the cost of fuel to get to the P.O. (which isn't always close) or Delivery confirmation if its offered. Ultimately its a wash or a loss most of the time. Nobody wants to pay more than they have to and that is totally understandable and reasonable. But, on the other hand, nobody wants to work for free or for pennies either. Bottom line, If its a card you want, and it gets to you in the condition it was described, wasnt the extra buck or two worth it?
  16. yazfan71's Avatar
    It's crazy anymore how they try to make an extra buck or two. I was looking at an auction the other day for a pennant that the seller was charging $27.15 for shipping. It's a vintage pennant that usually sells for around $30-$40 plus shipping, but people are avoiding this one as last I checked the bid was under $1! LOL
  17. TheGinterGodfather's Avatar
    Love it. I try and stay far, far away from eBay these days. It's not even worth the hassle. For those that try to navigate those treacherous waters, there is the occasional steal to be had. And I'd say about 75% of the eBayers out there are folks like you or I. Good, honest, hard-working, decent people. We're not trying to gouge anyone on shipping, or skimp on packing to make an extra eighty seven cents (would be a buck but eBay fees and all...). But then there is the 25% like this joker. Or any other number of jokers that I've dealt with. I had a nice stretch where I couldn't get a flipping card delivered that wasn't damaged. I'm sure it left their house in fine shape, but they couldn't figure out how to package it and they end up damaged. Though one I think left their house with the world's biggest crease in the card.

    Like I said, you're a brave soul to venture into those waters. Noooo thank you here.
  18. kr0n's Avatar
    Yikes, just seeing this now.
    There's a rather long list of things that are wrong or outright horrible with SGC.
    First and foremost, their cards rattle a lot after they've been encapsulated. That pretty much defeats the entire purpose of having it graded, if it can still depreciate after the grading process, a 98 today could bang around and quickly become a 94, 92 and so on.
    There's 4 pictures in my bucket of the same card where I tried to show how it can move, every picture I moved the holder so the "gap" was in a different corner.

    They also misnamed one of the cards, misnaming it to a set that is actually scheduled to come out tomorrow. On another card, there was a scratch from top to bottom on the back of the holder, also pictured.

    Also, they refuse or can't grade thick cards (don't know the exact point size). But I sent a non-patch card from The Cup (Exquisite in every other sport) and they sent it back ungraded citing it was too thick to encapsulate.

    They gave a parallel card the "Rookie" attribute, while leaving it off of a "true rookie", which even THEN is inconsistent to their own system.
    i.e.:
    "2009-10 SP Game Used Ed. #122 Riku Helenius Rookie Silver Spec. 04/10" (parallel)
    "2009-10 UD Black Diamond #162 Riku Helenius Rookie Triple Gold 06/10" (parallel, and the card name is absolutely butchered)
    "2009-10 SP Authentic #203 Matt Duchene Rookie Auto. 354/999"
    "2010-11 SP Authentic #264 Nino Niederreiter Autographed 232/999"

    Their labels are inconsistent, and they don't seem to want to resize the font of their labels, leaving things half named/half-detailed. Even the ones they do get "right", their naming doesn't match that of Beckett. That's not a BGS vs. SGC issue, as far as I'm concerned the Beckett naming system is the system, and I have a touch of OCD. Additionally, the placement and use of their gold brand name label is inconsistent. Sometimes its on the back, sometimes its upside down, sometimes its not even on there.

    Going on with the inconsistencies, they put some cards in sleeves before encapsulating them, but not all. It seems that they only do that with GU cards, which is a shame because that prevented them from bumping around entirely. So perhaps if they splurged a little and used a penny sleeve in every single encapsulation I wouldn't have this opinion.

    Also, and this may be a matter of me starting with BGS, but they have no distinguishing features for cards with exceptional grades (i.e. BGS' gold labels for 9.5 and 10). To my knowledge BGS is the only place that has variety amongst their labels, PSA and SGC do not.

    According to SGC and their labels, a SGC 98 is equivalent to a 10 (in BGS? PSA? Any place that uses 1-10?) and given all of the aforementioned, I have a hard time taking that claim seriously. What is a SGC 100 equivalent to?

    The couple positives I will give SGC is I do actually like the look of their holders (when they're correct and accurate) the black filling they use really adds to the aesthetic appeal of the overall final product.

    I also like that they automatically included the serial numbering on the label, it would cost you $3 per card to have Beckett add that.

    All in all, it was an absolutely horrid experience. Going through this actually killed my desire to do anything at all in the hobby, I think I took a 2 month break from everything cardboard after I received my SGC order.

    I can't remember the exact number, but the breakdown was roughly along the lines of:
    33 cards sent in.
    4 Not graded (1 too thick, the others didn't meet minimum grade).
    22 cards that rattle.
    7 that did not rattle.
    4 of the 7 that did not rattle were in sleeves inside the encapsulation.

    The next step, whenever it may be, is to get some of these crossed over to BGS and we'll see if I really got 10 Pristine (BGS 10) cards in my 29 cards that were graded. That'd be 34%, damn impressive.


    That should sum up pretty well why I would never use SGC again.

    Cheers,
    Adam
  19. kr0n's Avatar
    Very unlikely I'll be moving the Torquato, collecting Canada stuff is kind of my latest thing :P As for prices on the RNH and Landeskog, that'll all be determined by the grade I receive on them and the interest they receive. Cheers!
  20. awgdawg's Avatar
    Hi,
    I'm interested in the 2007-08 ITG O Canada Numbers #GUN22 Zack Torquato How much is the asking price for it? I have been searching for it for some time!! Also would like prices for the Landeskog and Nugent-Hopkins Upper Deck YG RC cards!! Thanks and hope we can do some business I just buy and don't really have anything to trade!!!
    Anthony
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
SCF Sponsors


About SCF

    Sports Card Forum provides sports and non-sports card collectors a safe place to discuss, buy, sell and trade.

    SCF maintains tools that will allow collectors to manage their collections online, information about what is happening with the hobby, as well as providing robust data to send out for Autographs through the mail.

Follow SCF on