HGA Big News on July 5

[HalfNipponese]

What was the big announcement?

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by HalfNipponese

What was the big announcement?

No update yet. I think it is amazing their website still works and you can still submit cards. I don't think anyone here thought they would last this long.

[The_Reverend]

Originally Posted by JeremyNick

I’m shocked that this has turned into a TAG thread.

Shocked, I say.

I am not!!! TAG needs all the help it can get. I did not support HGA at all, but at least they had a very significant following doing the boom! TAG is still not able to take normal submissions.

[varjakpaul]

From their Facebook Page:

"HGA Announcement Time! ✨✨
As a company we always strive to improve and innovate. We have two fantastic announcements with some big changes coming your way.
✨ First we are excited to debut our Premier Label Library.
This fantastic new system will allow you to pick individual labels from our massive library of predesigned premier labels for each card you grade.
✨ Second we are removing our Tiered Membership grading pricing.
All grading will be available for the same price for all membership levels including our free members for all turn around times. Starting at $14 per card.
Both Gold and Platinum members will still receive heavily discounted Premier and Custom label pricing.
For more information regarding our new grading and label prices check out our website for a full breakdown.
https://hybridgrading.com/our-pricing/"

[CardGoonies]

Originally Posted by varjakpaul

From their Facebook Page:

"HGA Announcement Time! ✨✨
As a company we always strive to improve and innovate. We have two fantastic announcements with some big changes coming your way.
✨ First we are excited to debut our Premier Label Library.
This fantastic new system will allow you to pick individual labels from our massive library of predesigned premier labels for each card you grade.
✨ Second we are removing our Tiered Membership grading pricing.
All grading will be available for the same price for all membership levels including our free members for all turn around times. Starting at $14 per card.
Both Gold and Platinum members will still receive heavily discounted Premier and Custom label pricing.
For more information regarding our new grading and label prices check out our website for a full breakdown.
https://hybridgrading.com/our-pricing/"

There's something both beautifully and tragically mom & pop about this whole announcement.

[Tails01]

"Thanks for buying our expensive membership packages, but you're no longer special."

[jplarson]

Originally Posted by Tails01

"Thanks for buying our expensive membership packages, but you're no longer special."

Savage!

+1

[discodanman45]

$14 per card still. Who is actually using this service? Just use CSG, um now CGC, for the same price or much cheaper and bedazzle your slab.

[JeremyNick]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

$14 per card still. Who is actually using this service? Just use CSG, um now CGC, for the same price or much cheaper and bedazzle your slab.

SlabDazzle.

Too many TPGs in the marketplace and not enough TPG Accessorizing Companies.

How is your PSA 10, BGS 9.5 or TAG 954.785 going to stand out in a crowd? With our proprietary SlabDazzle technology we can tint your slab, create custom print graphics, add LED lights or make it smell like the mojotastic money hit it is.

SlabDazzle taking orders soon.

[SupermanBrandon]

I've said it from day one of HGA...they are just a bad SNL skit. They're actually just trolling the hobby, seeing what idiots will actually send them their cards and their hard earned money.

[KepCards]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

If the average Joe can’t afford $99 a year for a PSA membership that pays for itself after submitting 10 cards, the average Joe is too poor to collect cards.

Precisely what i was thinking

[dunkindutchmen]

Originally Posted by HalfNipponese

What was the big announcement?

Tyler is coming back and his lead grader (Uncle Kenny) is out of the slammer and ready to slab!

[collective]

One of the first things HGA should do, is find a location outside of the nearly abandoned shopping center space they currently occupy. Another, is hire experienced graders, at least one. (and obviously, don't pass fake/altered sh*t)

Knoxville is a decent area. Cost of living is affordable, there's plenty of things to do in and outside of the city, outdoor recreation is great in the surrounding area, not a bad place if you're a single dude/chick, Fridays/Saturdays are booming during football season and the local food scene is pretty damn good and growing

[varjakpaul]

Originally Posted by collective

One of the first things HGA should do, is find a location outside of the nearly abandoned shopping center space they currently occupy. Another, is hire experienced graders, at least one. (and obviously, don't pass fake/altered sh*t)

Knoxville is a decent area. Cost of living is affordable, there's plenty of things to do in and outside of the city, outdoor recreation is great in the surrounding area, not a bad place if you're a single dude/chick, Fridays/Saturdays are booming during football season and the local food scene is pretty damn good and growing

Makes you wonder if HGA was able to bring on anyone at any point with prior grading experience from a reputable company. I've always viewed the HGA grift as a truly magnificent one - by claiming AI technology (which they didn't actually have), they could then get away with operating without graders with immense prior experience.

Oddly enough, every HGA slab I've ever owned was graded fairly - in a way, they illustrated the frivolity of "experienced graders" as a whole (although I do recognize the values of expertise in identification/labeling/training in counterfeit detection, et. all)

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by collective

One of the first things HGA should do, is find a location outside of the nearly abandoned shopping center space they currently occupy. Another, is hire experienced graders, at least one. (and obviously, don't pass fake/altered sh*t)

Knoxville is a decent area. Cost of living is affordable, there's plenty of things to do in and outside of the city, outdoor recreation is great in the surrounding area, not a bad place if you're a single dude/chick, Fridays/Saturdays are booming during football season and the local food scene is pretty damn good and growing

The first thing they should do is dissolve the company and sell off what little assets they have. The company is a joke and always has been. Their 21k followers, almost all of which are bots, garnered 98 likes on their BIG announcement post. It’s over.

[Cards and 401K]

When PSA shut down it was the only company accepting slabs, would not use again.

[Y2Hood]

HGA is a more expensive version, with pretty slabs, of any other lower tiered TPG that I would use for my local Facebook marketplace card sales. Newer or lapsed collectors will happily pay $13-15 for a graded card of one of our local players, no matter the brand of the TPG. There is a definite niche for the $8-12 slabbing services if you're okay with profit margins of $3-5. HGA's draw would be the +$x to say "oh look T-Cajun, the label is black and gold AND it's a 10." But other than that, I can send 50 base rookies to Golden Grading in Baton Rouge @ $7 per and put them in my "$10 slab" box at a show and boom $150.

As a guy that operates out of my spare bedroom, that's a nice profit. If I was operating at the levels of the bigger hitters, that'd probably be laughable.

But at my level, HGA doesn't make sense for "local player" show inventory, it doesn't make sense for my bigger cards, and all of my PC and registries are too entrenched in preexisting companies. IF they did enough to sway me into their services, I could potentially start a PC of 2022 - onward rookies for my teams (Chris Olave perhaps). But even with Olave, his bigger cards I'll send to a PSA/SGC/BGS/CGC for PC purposes (I'm still figuring out who I want to use for my RC autos). His base Score type cards I'm making a small timer version of a killing slabbing them with the boutique graders like Golden ($7) or GMA ($8-10), pricing them at 12-15 and letting my buyers talk me down to $10-12 (and that's if they don't just go straight to the bargain box).

I just don't see HGA fitting into the model for my small timer position or my peers. I also don't see them being a fit for the big names either, short of some cross promotional agreement.

Finally, for my sales on the bigger parts of the internet, I'm fortunate to be a member of the Myslabs platform and HGA isn't an approved brand, so it wouldn't behoove me to use them. I'm trying to gravitate away from eBay where HGA is accepted, and focus on the ebay alternatives, like Myslabs.

In the end, there are people that like HGA and good for them, I'm glad they're able to enjoy the product provided. I don't have to understand it, I do feel bad for those collectors if and when HGA does eventually end.