Slab Sharks

[slabsharks]

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for the kind words and private messages lately — hearing that our auctions are helping collectors reach their goals truly means a lot. It’s a privilege to curate cool stuff for you each week, and I’m grateful for your trust.

I have some exciting updates — a little insider scoop.

Auction Format Expansion (4-6 months)

We’re rolling out some new auction formats designed to better serve different segments of the hobby:

-Saturday Night Auctions: Featuring non-sports, TCG, and hockey cards under $250

-Release Day Auctions: Quick-hit, 1-day auctions. Starts Wednesday, ends Thursday

-Apex Auctions: Our monthly premier auction for items $1500+

-and of course; our popular Thursday Night Auctions.

Consignors will be able to choose on the consignment form.

This will take time to fully implement — we’re curating and transitioning gradually — but development is officially underway.


A Note on Image Quality

We've internally discussed image quality, namely, our flatbed scanner having scratches, as well as, consignors submitting old or damaged top loaders/one touches. We’re working to address these with long-term solutions. Unfortunately, it is easier said than done when handling 4000-5000 items per week on a quick turnaround basis. Sometimes we get caught in the whirlwind of day to day operations, it takes a pause in the action to implement new procedures.


Here’s the reality:

-We spend over $1,500/month on scanners. We use flatbeds for optimal slab imaging. But top loaders and one-touches? Tricky. The scanner bed picks up everything. We rotate our our scanners every month to ensure a fresh scanner glass.

-Scanning thousands of cards weekly causes wear and scratches on the scanner glass, even with constant rotation.

-We’ve encouraged clean holders being submitted from our consignors, but speed and convenience often take priority for submissions (and that’s okay). We’re a service that’s meant to be easy to sell, we understand swapping out cards into new holders would be costly and time consuming for our consignors.

-Swapping every scuffed loader in-house? Not scalable — too slow and costly given our Tuesday drop-off → Thursday auction model. We’ve tried this model before, and it just didn’t work with where we are right now. We’re a small team. We would need full-time staff solely to swap out damaged holders. Add on the cost of having top loaders, thick top loaders, one touched and thick one touches - it becomes tricky.

We could remove holders, image raw, and re holder - but we’re still trying to figure out the best way to do this.

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Solutions We’re Implementing

We’re making real progress to improve image quality:

-High-end photography system: We’ve purchased a high production photo product, this is now used for our super high end cards, our goal is to start using this technology for every $1000+ cards (like the Ultimate Bedard Shield 1/1). Goal: eventually use for all high-end cards. This includes a 360 video of the card.

Example:

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/205570452495

-Flatbed scanning robotics: Automates slab scanning, reduces scratches, and improves consistency. The robotics will remove human intervention and allow for gentle and consistent placement of slabs on the flatbed scanner. We’ll be receiving this technology in August. It’ll speed up our scanning operation, and give us much needed time to work on raw card imaging.

-DSLR station testing: We’re exploring DSLR cameras at scan stations to cut through top loader scratch noise and improve card clarity.

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Why We Aren’t Like Greg Morris (Yet)

We’re often inspired by companies like Greg Morris Cards, who’ve nailed pre grading and image presentation at scale. But to be completely honest, we do not know how they do what they do. It must be sheer labour. They have the following;

-They operate with 40+ staff and 8,000+ sqft. We’re still growing into that. We are a 4th of the staff, and a half of the sqft.

-Most of their cards are owned by them. We’re 99% consignment-based. Having ownership of cards allows you to spend more time prepping the items.

-Vintage is easier to handle. Modern has fingerprints, thick stock, autographs, etc. Vintage is easier to take out of top loaders and card savers.

They have cited issues with modern cards and their business model, and I completely get it.

When it comes to assigning condition to cards, it’s not an exact science. We’re trying to get there as best as we can. As Greg himself said:

“It’s just the nature of the subjectivity… There are a million things that could be wrong with the cards. Not only do you have to see it… you have to interpret it consistently. It’s really hard.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Final Thoughts

On our standard conditional ratings: eBay recommends we label most cards as “excellent” due to AG policies.

Full pre-grading (SSG/SSA - Slab Sharks Gold and Slab Sharks Average stickers) is a future ambition, but we’re not there yet. We’ll have to hire pre-grade staff at scale.

Blanket listing as “Excellent” allows us to ensure 99% of our cards pass eBay AG, and gives us a minimum standard to adhere too. Meaning, our cards are atleast excellent, and usually near mint.

We’re proud of what we’ve built — from quick turnaround times to curated weekly drops — but we’re also honest about where we can do better. The good news? We’re actively investing to improve across the board, from automation to imaging. I think we do a lot of things other companies don’t, but still need to master a few foundational things. We’re three years in and not close to rounding out our product.

And yes, on top of all of the above, we are working on making our portal better, shipping faster (and cheaper), and hopefully one day our rates even better.

Appreciate everyone reading!