What’s going on with TAG?

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by Grid

Doing in house is a big difference. As Fanatics is already running Fanatics breaks.

They will make the cards, pack the cards, you pay for them to break the boxes and hand the best cards to the guy in the next room, who will grade the cards.

Then, you can put them directly in the Fanatics Collect Vault. And list them for sale with Fanatics as well.

Soup to nuts.

But the only difference the user feels is the decreased turnaround time for grading. In the old model, the user never touched his cards. In the new model, the user never touched his cards. My point is that bringing CSG in house is not a needle mover unless you are desperate to sell your card graded by CSG very quickly. I don’t think there are going to be many takers for that.

Current Fanatics weekly total CSG: 94 cards
Current Fanatics weekly CSG green labels: 40 cards

This is a service (all direct through Fanatics) nobody is using now, and it will stay that way. Are there any Fanatics breakers opening Pokemon?

[hoi_ming]

Weekly Update

[hoi_ming]

Originally Posted by varjakpaul

If I were running a large enough operation in bulk, it would make sense to have cards sent to regional fulfillment centers to save on the costs of shipping to customers directly - Connecticut would make sense for east coast orders, certainly. Perhaps there's more to be looked into if a large quantity of orders come from a handful of central locations, for example. Or there could be a situation of a company whose Japanese experts may be more centralized - I do know in many, many cases, Japanese holographic cards can be purchased much more affordably than their US counterparts.

While I have been as skeptical as anyone regarding TAG's growth feeling inorganic, that's simply not the only way to do business - making bulk submission partnerships (most likely at extremely competitive pricing) may be the most sensible approach to getting a massive amount of slabs to customers quickly, and it does put a band-aid over TAG's biggest hurdle to adoption - their extremely limited submission guidelines. If you're working with someone who'll send X thousand Pokemon cards and follow your guidelines closely, you don't run into the issue of a less-informed customer getting disappointed when they find out TAG's the only grading company who won't accept a thick card or a relic card or a card from 1988.

If you're rooting for TAG, you're in the position of needing to see these sort of products succeed and hoping they don't carry the stigmas attached to the Omega Mystery Boxes.

They actually have a program for bulk and group submitters, that allows for the submitter to submitted at discounted prices for volume.

If you go to the bottom of this page: https://taggrading.com/collections/g...c-4bfbf9181108

They have some details on how to apply. I think they have said they they for people submitting to a group submitter, they get their own separate dashboards to follow their cards on their own, and not have to rely on the group submitter for updates.

[varjakpaul]

Very helpful! Would it be possible to get a graph which shows the last year’s growth for Baseball / Football / Basketball / Hockey only? The presence of Pokémon in the first chart really makes the data around it difficult to see trends in.

[hoi_ming]

Originally Posted by varjakpaul

Very helpful! Would it be possible to get a graph which shows the last year’s growth for Baseball / Football / Basketball / Hockey only? The presence of Pokémon in the first chart really makes the data around it difficult to see trends in.

[hoi_ming]

Weekly Update

[hoi_ming]

Weekly Update

[KhalDrogo]

2500 cards a week and 90% of it is Pokemon. This company is cooked.

[hoi_ming]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

2500 cards a week and 90% of it is Pokemon. This company is cooked.

That's cool

[varjakpaul]

according to the charts on their discord, TAG's at 34 basketball cards last week and 47 football cards at the kickoff of the season - the de-emphasis on sports is really showing

[Scottish Punk]

Originally Posted by varjakpaul

according to the charts on their discord, TAG's at 34 basketball cards last week and 47 football cards at the kickoff of the season - the de-emphasis on sports is really showing

That is crazy low. Could just be a couple of orders per sport. So bad news for them when/if repack orders move onto somewhere else. If CGC stays at $10, I can see repackers getting a $9 price tag. That is pretty darn cheap and tougher to turn down. I don't know how fast TAG is turning this out.

[hoi_ming]

Weekly Update

[rfgilles]

The addition of the table with weekly totals is a nice add Hoi. Thanks for doing this.

[hoi_ming]

Originally Posted by rfgilles

The addition of the table with weekly totals is a nice add Hoi. Thanks for doing this.

No problem!

[hoi_ming]

Weekly Update

[pumpkinescobar]

Nice uptick this week in the numbers, with a bump in sports.

[hoi_ming]

Weekly update

[discodanman45]

87% Pokemon cards and still won't grade prior to 1989. They should just kill grading sports and be a 100% TCG grader.

[hoi_ming]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

87% Pokemon cards and still won't grade prior to 1989. They should just kill grading sports and be a 100% TCG grader.

That's cool

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by hoi_ming

That's cool

What improvements have they made recently? Adding the ability to get your pets on a card? If they want to grade sports cards, they really need to put any effort into it to show customers they are serious. In the sports world if you can't grade acetate, die-cut, thicker than 50 pt or mem cards, you are not a grader. It is also ridiculous they haven't moved backwards from 1989. I am not saying they need to do all 1980's sets, some of those sets have 0 cards that should be graded IMO. However, not having iconic sets like 1986-87 Fleer Basketball and 1986 Topps Football is inexcusable.

[Scottish Punk]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

87% Pokemon cards and still won't grade prior to 1989. They should just kill grading sports and be a 100% TCG grader.

You can say the same thing with CGC. At least as far as the percentages go. CGC does actually grade all things of course.

I still hold to my original opinion with TAG. They are not interested in being a big boy grading company. They want to prove out the technology and hope somebody buys them out. The pokemon repack stuff is just there to keep the lights on.

[hoi_ming]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

What improvements have they made recently? Adding the ability to get your pets on a card? If they want to grade sports cards, they really need to put any effort into it to show customers they are serious. In the sports world if you can't grade acetate, die-cut, thicker than 50 pt or mem cards, you are not a grader. It is also ridiculous they haven't moved backwards from 1989. I am not saying they need to do all 1980's sets, some of those sets have 0 cards that should be graded IMO. However, not having iconic sets like 1986-87 Fleer Basketball and 1986 Topps Football is inexcusable.

Super inexcusable!

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by Scottish Punk

You can say the same thing with CGC. At least as far as the percentages go. CGC does actually grade all things of course.

I still hold to my original opinion with TAG. They are not interested in being a big boy grading company. They want to prove out the technology and hope somebody buys them out. The pokemon repack stuff is just there to keep the lights on.

CGC is almost half the price. They are also actually trying on the sports side. Recently they added the ability to have some vintage cards slabbed in appropriate holders. For a new company, TAG is just not making any improvements. I agree that they want to sell their technology of grading Pokémon cards to someone like PSA. They are 100% focused on that and nothing else.

[discodanman45]

Originally Posted by hoi_ming

Super inexcusable!

Not having a 1986-87 Fleer Jordan in a TAG slab is inexcusable. The advertising and eyes on a card like that is great marketing.

[rfgilles]

Originally Posted by discodanman45

CGC is almost half the price. They are also actually trying on the sports side. Recently they added the ability to have some vintage cards slabbed in appropriate holders. For a new company, TAG is just not making any improvements. I agree that they want to sell their technology of grading Pokémon cards to someone like PSA. They are 100% focused on that and nothing else.

Back to not being a grading company.......