660K Mario - what is going on?

[Dumars2001 | 164]

3 hours ago, Amermoe said:

Imagine if Heritage decided one day that they would no longer deal with PSA graded cards, from now on they will only deal with SGC, the hot new emerging card grading company. And suppose they say, well, you have only 2 choices to market your items on our platform, (1) you can convert it to SGC, or (2) you can send it us raw and we'll still market it ungraded. Imagine then how the PSA market would react. Granted, this is not the best example, because the PSA market doesn't need Heritage to set prices, but for a fairly new/emerging market it certainly skews perception one way over the other.

Clearly, Heritage and WATA have some kind of exclusive agreement in place, and clearly Heritage has purposefully decided to stifle their competition. Every other major auction house, including eBay, acknowledges and accepts VGA as an established grader in that market, let alone one that held and still holds at least 50% of that market share, even if that share is dwindling. Ups and downs aside, consumer confidence in VGA was established long ago. The market has not chosen WATA over VGA, but rather has accepted WATA as a viable alternative to VGA. Ideally, you would put both products side by side and let the consumer chose which one they prefer. At the very least it's unethical behavior, and is a large reason why there is a large disparity between WATA sales vs VGA sales for the same items.

With few exceptions, I have little confidence that Heritage buyers do their research before making purchasing decisions. Every indication points to impulsive buying and spending, price adjustment and re-adjustment, high swings, then low swings, creating complete chaos and volatility in the market. They can't seem to correctly price anything, because none of the past sales for comparable items are being considered, and the availability and population of these items is not clear to them. I do think once this 'trial' period ends, and Heritage/WATA establishes some price history, prices will eventually stabilize. At least for older collectors, they can rely on memory for population counts and condition rarity, and make more informed decisions.

Perfectly said! Right on the money!!

[T-Pac | 7,539]

On 4/4/2021 at 3:47 AM, GPX said:

I’d already be impressed if they can get through 1st level of Mario..

 

On 4/4/2021 at 3:51 AM, OptOut said:

Watch out for that first Goomba, he's a tricky little b**** that one! 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

On 4/4/2021 at 12:41 AM, tidaldreams said:

Someone wanted to funnel their GME profits into something more tangible.

This wouldn't surprise me at all.