Hi Grey There are obviously good arguments for and against slabbing but I certainly don't think those who are against slabbing should be accused of being resistant to change. I'm not being at all critical of the fact that Heritage has slabbed lobby cards in the auction. I am more interested in how slabbing will affect the hobby and whether or not it will catch on.
Lets look at the practicalities of all of this. I have a large collection of lobby cards from Hithcock films and a good number of them are high value cards. If I wanted to get my cards slabbed, I would have to send them all to America and spend a great deal of money on getting them all appraised and slabbed by CGC. There is always a risk in sending these things overseas and then getting them returned safely, not to mention the time it can take. I sent a poster over to the US to be linen backed 6 months ago and still waiting for it to be finished. There is no way I would waste my time and money in getting my lobby cards slabbed. Many dealers have large inventories of high value lobby cards and I can't see them wanting to incur additional expense in slabbing the cards when there is no guarantee of a return. If auction houses decide that slabbing is the way to go that may dissuade potential consignors because they will see an additional cost that will be deducted from their selling price along with premiums, tax, postage, etc. These are just a few of my concerns. Regards John Website: www.moviemem.com JOHN REID VINTAGE MOVIE MEMORABILIA PO Box 92 Palm Beach Qld 4221 Australia ----- Original Message ----- From: Smith, Grey - 1367 To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 3:46 AM Subject: Re: [MOPO] Slabbed Lobby Cards at Heritage Thank you, Cory, for a voice of reason. This is a small hobby and for it to grow or that matter for any hobby, business, or enterprise of any nature, often one must try to embrace or at least realize that there will be change. To try to ignore these changes is like living in 1980 and believing the personal computer couldn't be good for much unless you were an accountant! I cannot help but believe many young people would love to be involved in this wonderful hobby, yet there is such a strong contingent of "older" people in this field that perhaps they feel intimidated by or believe that unless they know more they would never be accepted. And I include myself in that older group! This will help give the newer buyers more confidence and will inevitably bring more material and buyers into the market. How can there be a damaging effect by removing the owner from the grading of a lobby and turning it over to an accredited group who have no financial gain in how a card grades, hurt anyone but perhaps the seller wanting to pass off a lesser card? Confidence is what we are addressing here. I am not sure how many have bought a poster that was not graded as they felt was fair, but I dare say, a large percentage of buyers. At Heritage we have constantly tried to improve our grading and in contrast to what some of our competitors will claim, we very rarely get any complaint or return for grade or quality, I am proud to say. Now, bear in mind that so much of what is bought in posters is now purchased over the internet and a buyer is going by an image online only! I cannot help but believe that by taking the grading out of the seller's hands where lobby cards are concerned and putting them in the hands of a company that is highly qualified in the grading fields, who has nothing to gain but the cost of grading and has been in that field for comics for over ten years and in the other hobbies for, I believe, over 23 years, will bring a great lot of credibility to this hobby. I hear some say, "Oh, I can't touch it so I wouldn't want it!" Do you not have a pair of scissors? Cut the card out of the slab and frame it with the saved grading label put on the back of the frame! You know what you have bought!! If you go to sell it, either the potential buyer or seller could have it re-graded. On one other note, I see where there is concern that if something is bought and the graders have missed a "forged" card, what sort of recourse is there? First of all you must believe that CGC has been fully appraised and is aware of the forgeries and yes, they do stand behind what they grade, financially. It is called a guarantee. From: MoPo List [mailto:mop...@listserv.american.edu] On Behalf Of Cory Glaberson Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2010 7:50 AM To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Subject: Re: [MOPO] Slabbed Lobby Cards at Heritage The point of slabbing is exactly as Bruce writes - its designed to assure people new to the hobby that the cards are real and graded properly. These new collectors don't know Bruce or Rich, don't know how to grade lobby cards and don't know who to trust. But they still are interested in collecting and investing. CGC has been around long enough in enough different hobbies to maintain credibility. These new collectors might be speculators and might drive up prices to amazing levels - but I am having a hard time thinking that's a bad thing. So slabbing will bring in more customers, some of who might actually become real collectors, drive up prices on the better material and make the dealers more money and the worth of collections higher. What's the objection? If it works out like it did in comics - it actually DROPPED the prices of lesser material. Only the very top pieces maintained the huge "overguide" prices. It does mean that the people who now are at the top of the hobby will have to adjust to the new reality and that means winners and losers. It will complicate bragging rights as well. A Collector will have a killer card, but these newbies won't be impressed until its slabbed and graded professionally. But its a good thing to shake up move memorabila collecting once in a while (in a good not the Haggard way). Adrian on the other hand does have a point - can these comic book guys be trusted to grade lobby cards? Some of my friends say absolutely not. The CGC guys will get it spectacularly wrong in the beginning, but after a while they conqueror the learning curve. Then slabbing will take off even with established collectors when they see their best stuff triple or quadruple in value. Cory -----Original Message----- From: Bruce Hershenson <brucehershen...@gmail.com> To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Thu, Jul 1, 2010 6:15 am Subject: Re: [MOPO] Slabbed Lobby Cards at Heritage I too hate slabbing, especially on comic books where it makes them unreadable. Why not start slabbing particularly fine examples of food, so it will become un-eatable? But here is how it will likely go: An unnamed auction house or two will start auctioning more and more of these monstrosities. They will auction for two to ten times the regular prices (we will never see the high bidders, so we won't know if the results are real, or if it is a house bidder "buying" from themselves). But people will want in on this "free money". and they will start submitting their own lobbies to be slabbed, and for a while they will get great results, and that will encourage them to slab lots more, and others will start doing the same. Then an unnamed dealer will have an "all-slabbed" auction on eBay, and the results will be amazing, and everyone will start to sing the praises of slabbing (except for a few old fogies like me, Phil Edwards, Rich Halegua, and others) and we will quit selling lobbies altogether, and they will be purchased by the same investors who have overrun other hobbies, and before too much longer a lot of the new "collectors" will say, "I only buy slabbed lobbies, because I KNOW what I am getting", as if buying an item that some paid employee looked at for a minute is more trustworthy than buying an item from a dealer who has collected and bought and sold lobbies for 20 or 30 years! At least that's how it played out in comic books, baseball cards, and coins. Some questions: 1) WHO owns the grading service who slabs these (and if a major auction owns even a small percentage of them, then isn't that a massive conflict of interest)? 2) Every top dealer (except for one) has admitted they would have been fooled by the Haggard fakes, and in fact most were, and a leading restorer was fooled by a recreation of an ultra-expensive one-sheet. Isn't that proof that the last thing we need is some new people being paid to authenticate and grade lobby cards? 3) In other hobbies (comic books, baseball cards, and coins), slabbing has siphoned millions of dollars out of collector's hands, and has driven out lots of the collectors who have a love of the items, and brought in a lot of "investor" types, and has created a "bubble" in prices not unlike that seen in the stock market or real estate markets. Is that what we want for our hobby? Bruce On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 1:45 AM, Phil Edwards <p...@cinemarts.com> wrote: I would never bid on a slabbed anything. The reasons are painfully obvious, aren't they? Phil E. ----- Original Message ----- From: JOHN REID Vintage Movie Memorabilia To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2010 1:03 PM Subject: [MOPO] Slabbed Lobby Cards at Heritage I have been browsing through the latest Heritage catalogue and once again it is very impressive. One thing that will be of interest to many is that amount of "slabbed" lobby cards that appear in this auction. A great many look to be sealed in some sort of plastic with a grading by CGC whoever they may be. I have never been too keen on the idea of slabbed lobby cards and wonder what you guys think about them. My concerns are: a.. Slabbing and grading the cards would add to the overall cost of the cards and surely it would be hardly worthwhile on lobby cards of medium value - say $200.00 b.. What materials are used when slabbing the cards? Is the plastic and materials used to slab the card acid free, uv protected, etc? c.. It looks as though the plastic may be flexible ie it could be bent or creased. Does slabbing protect the card from any damage? d.. How does slabbing affect framing? e.. What happens if sunlight affects the card? f.. If damage occurrs whilst the card is slabbed can the card be regraded? g.. How will this "trend" affect lobby cards that have not been slabbed? h.. Will the value of lobby cards be increased or decreased by slabbing? I know that some collectors will prefer to have the card in its original state and will avoid purchasing cards that have been slabbed. No doubt, there will be others who will like the idea. Regards John Website: www.moviemem.com JOHN REID VINTAGE MOVIE MEMORABILIA PO Box 92 Palm Beach Qld 4221 Australia Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
