Its A Beckett World, We Just Live In It.

After an awesome comment by "Gary in AZ" on Charlie's Allen and Ginter first look post, I think its about time for me to go over a few things here. First off, I am pretty sure that all the people I savage on a daily basis read this blog, and that makes me happy. They need to know that there are more people with voices besides Ben Henry and Mario Alejandro. Mario has a great blog, probably the best there is when it comes to card blogging, but I don’t think he necessarily has the avenue to express any true issues he has with the people in the industry itself (Zack Hample aside). When it came to starting my own blog, I wanted to make sure that there was nothing held back about the people who are making this place a shithole for the collectors. I have no connections, my posts arent published anywhere, and there is a minimal amount of exposure for what I write. That doesn’t mean that what I say means anything less than blogs with thousands of hits per day.

Secondly, I have also encouraged the people I hate on to come on and answer for the accusations and commentary I make. That has happened... somewhat. Upper Deck has agreed in principle to an interview detailing what we can expect in the future from them, Donruss has been interviewed, and Beckett seems to like leaving weirdly placed comments on random posts rather than writing anything that could even be considered a mental fart.

Thirdly, I wanted to go over a highlight reel of sorts for people who don’t necessarily want to read through the 300 or so posts there are to read, and all the comments that go along with them. Since Beckett just thinks of me as "So young and so angry" lets put the pedophilic and homoerotic comments aside and begin this by saying what there is to say.

To start, we cant forget what happened with the year worth of video box breaks we have had to painfully endure. Despite being a complete conflict of interest, Beckett accepts free boxes from any and all companies for their editors and employees to open on camera. Since about 2006, they have pulled 5-6 cards from less than 40 boxes of product that would be considered "pulls of a lifetime" with 2-3 being $1000+ in value or more. Lets recap:

1. Joe Dimaggio Cut Signature 1/1 from Topps Sterling
2. Vince Young Exquisite 3 Color Patch Auto RC
3. Adrian Peterson 1/1(!!!) Exquisite Auto Patch RC
4. Brady Quinn 1/1 National Treasures Logo Patch Auto
5. Walter Payton/Brian Piccolo Exquisite dual cut auto 1/1
6. Ladanian Tomlinson Exquisite 1/1 Base card
7. Matt Ryan/Brian Brohm/Andre Woodson Topps RP Triple Auto /10?
Plus other cards from the multiple boxes they are sent.

That is a bat-shit crazy list of cards to think that something isnt up. Upper Deck swears to me that it was all a big misunderstanding regarding the Exquisite fiasco, but that shit-eating grin on Hackler's face when he pulls those cards says otherwise. Granted, most of these cards were probably given away, but the fact remains that this type of stuff should NOT have been sent to the hobby's biggest magazine instead of collectors. We know for a fact that they are sent cases at a time, so who knows what else is out there that we havent seen.

Beckett also produces a magazine full of advertisement to boot, and to think that this magazine is responsible for setting the price on cards for a sickening 75-80% of the industry, it seems a little out of place to buy millions worth of advertising space, send them cases of product, and also shirts, hats, and anything else they desire short of a BJ. Well, not entirely sure they havent gotten the latter at some point. Let me break this down in an equation for you.

High Beckett Prices = Product more valuable in collector's eyes = more product sold

Or

High Prices = Freebies+ Ad revenue

See what I am saying now? As a private publication with no reason to provide accurate numbers other than ethics and morals, they can do whatever they fucking want to. Plus the fact that it shows with their prices in general, but Ill get to that in a minute.

Basically, its not fair for the collector because they really have no one to answer to. The are considered the foremost authority on the hobby by millions of stupid people who don’t question what they say. If they say its just luck in their box breaks, that becomes gospel. If they say your card is worth thousands, that’s what its worth. No one has had the balls to publically stand up and say, "THIS IS BEYOND FUCKING CRAZY!!!"

As for Book Value, it is the standard by which all cards are living. For every collector like me, there are 50-100 that swear by this false bible of card values. Before the internet, there was no global marketplace for peope to sell their cards, so shops and card shows were the norm. Since shop owners and dealers at shows did not have the collectors at heart, Dr. Beckett did some "market research" and released the first guide of prices for the cards on the market. There were articles and reviews, but everyone bought it for the guide. Within a few years, the guide was the status quo at any shop and any show table. After the internet was created, things started to change because people had a more viable way to get what they needed. Plus with cards becoming exceedingly rarer, this became the way to go. When eBay was created, collectors had a huge marketplace to buy within months. These days, eBay conducts millions (if not billions) in sales of cards each year. What is great, is now collectors have a free way of seeing exactly what their cards are worth. By putting a card up for auction in the eBay marketplace, the seller is forced to provide the item at the price it is sold. People do not have to pay to join, and sellers pay relatively nothing for selling their item. It is a true free marketplace, and no longer does book value even have a smidgeon of relevance.

Does this put a hamper in Becketts plan? No. They try to make the guide more important because they say eBay is too volatile to price cards. They are 100% correct, pricing is volatile on eBay because value changes on an daily if not hourly basis. Putting out a guide for cards on monthly basis is like releasing a magazine guide for stocks and bonds - CRAZY FUCKING TALK. Plus, it would be one thing if the guide was even CLOSE to what the price actually was. Despite changing daily, it usually stays within a certain range that could be updated on an online guide. Yet, for some reason, Beckett doesn’t even consider that an option. Instead they do their own market research to determine prices, or instead they just pull out the almighty "pricing hat."

What's even more disturbing, is this: Beckett has the time and resources to make their online price guide a way to disseminate CORRECT prices for cards to collectors. But, like their actual magazines, it is not updated daily, or even weekly, it is updated monthly. Even funnier is that the guide now comes out Bi-monthly, making it even more disconnected with reality. This begs the question as to why these guides still exist? I would say mainly because the industry is a recession proof billion dollar venture. Companies know that by advertising in the magazine and having high prices for their cards in that magazine, they will generate more product buzz than eBay or any blog could give them. This is because 99% of the collectors don’t think about what could actually be happening. They have no clue that they are the Joe Collectors I talk about almost daily. Now, with the creation of the idiot bomb message boards on Beckett's website, this idea has grown to epic proportions. Who cares what evidence is thrown in front of them, they stand by the hobby's number one authority on douchebaggery.

The funniest thing of all: Beckett utilizes eBay to sell their own cards and cards for collectors.

Lets move on to the Beckett Grading Service Business, or the other part of the industry Beckett was a needless pioneer in. Grading was created so that people buying on the internet knew exactly what condition a card was in before buying. It has since morphed into the only way to increase a card's value beyond what it is normally worth. Again, collectors pay Beckett as a third party to evaluate their card on a 10 point scale. Why Beckett? Well, of course, because they are the ones that make the price guide. They would know! Seriously though, this is a huge industry for the magazine, and it is pretty obvious that people who submit enormous amounts of cards on a frequent basis get favorable treatment. After publishing my post on the matter, I got 10 different emails from people who had experiences with this. I could break it down in another equation, but instead, just read the post.

This grading business has also led to Beckett selling graded cards on eBay. What the hell? That is a giant conflict of interest in every way. Yet, for some god forsaken reason, no one seems to mind other than a select few.

Still think Beckett is the greatest thing? No?

Lastly, they have also started a blog where they detail hobby news and post incidentals about the hobby. On the blog they have taken a medium that collectors have used to post their own viewpoints and made it a place where they can interject what they think. I hate to launch accusations at the blogosphere, but I think that a lot of people stay off the Beckett topic so they can be a part of this blog for traffic reasons. I wont call out people specifically, but I think you can tell yourself. The problem here is that now people wont spend the time talking about the miscues that happen on a bi-daily basis over there in dallas, because they could be made to be a black sheep on their blog. Links removed, posts taken down, no more guest authorships. That’s a log of traffic to miss out on. Personally I don’t care about traffic, so fuck em.

(Note: this is not a shot at Mario, who I respect very much. Please go check out his site here)

Hopefully people begin to see the anger is a little bit deeper than just a random dart thrown at a random target.

More later.