Once every year, Toronto and Montreal hold a four-day card and memorabilia expo that sees tens of thousands of people come out, everyone from observers interested in taking a trip down memory lane to the most fanatic of collectors. It is also one of the few times that the world’s most popular grading services fly-in from America and set up shop in Canada to provide in-person grading services, with the most popular being Professional Sports Authenticators (PSA). Auction houses will also attend these expos, should someone want to offer up a rare item for consignment and have it put up for auction. Both the grading and authenticating, as well as the auctioning-off of cards and memorabilia, have their own schematics, one making more sense than the other.
Getting an item authenticated and graded is an elaborate process that sees the item verified for its authenticity, then graded, photographed, and then recorded into a database. Depending on the rarity of an item, costs for authenticating and grading may range from $15 to $10,000. Having an item authenticated significantly increases the value of the item if someone decides they want to sell it, especially if it is graded a “10”. If the item is a paper-thin item or a fixed-size item, it will get encased in a hard plastic case. Otherwise, if there are no suitable cases, as is the case for many signed items, the item will receive a sticker and letter of authentication.
For some items that are extremely rare, grading services companies may not provide on-site grading and will request that the item be sent to their main offices to get examined and encased in hard plastic. If the extremely rare item is a signed item, then the item will be verified, photographed, and recorded into a database, and returned right away, but the sticker and letter of authentication will be mailed to the owner. No payment is processed in either instance until a follow-up call is scheduled sometime after the event. Despite that it may seem sketchy, this is often done when the extremely rare item that is being authenticated and graded has a fee closer to $10,000.
Unless an item is authenticated and graded, serious collectors are unlikely to pay large sums of money, and auction houses do not like to take non-authenticated or non-graded items on consignment. Unlike the straightforward process with PSA, auction houses have an approach to doing business that is not for everyone. That process often involves an auctioneer having a one-on-one conversation with the owner of a rare collectible that sees a “realistic” price, were it to get put up for auction, be attributed to it.
Whatever that “realistic” price may be, bidding always starts at 25% of it, and only on the rarest occasions will an auction house offer to guarantee a 50% minimum payout. Once an owner signs the agreement papers to put their collectible up for auction, if the item sells for 50% or less, the owner will be out of their collectible, selling it for much less than they were led to believe that it could sell for. For such circumstances, the owner has no course of reparations. The power behind those signed agreements is why so many small-time collectors feel they have been “cheated” out of collectibles that are now selling for many times more than what they were paid when they auctioned them.
Today’s authenticating and grading services primarily came about because of deceptive and fraudulent practices including the counterfeiting of cards and signatures. These activities have been featured in Netflix documentaries, detailing how the FBI arrested and charged individuals involved in the hobby and game shop ecosystem for everything ranging from counterfeiting cards and signatures to the opening and resealing of cards packs after the rarest cards get taken out and swapped. So, it is probably not a coincidence that that the story behind many mega collectors who were super lucky with the cards they pulled or purchased at a “great deal” is that they also happened to be in the hobby and game shop business.
Arguably the most famous instance of someone buying an altered card is the Honus Wagner card (1909), which was authenticated and graded an “8” (1991) – shortly after the first card grading service was established in 1991. After nearly a decade, the owner of that card, none other than Canada’s most famous son, Wayne Gretzky, who bought it in 1991, found that it was altered. Today that same card is on display in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, referred to as the “Gretzky Wagner” or “The Holy Grail” because of who it involved and how it all transpired. As recently as 2019, more altered cards were identified, with the FBI getting involved to arrest and charging individuals, like always, but it has also resulted in many grading card services shifting to incorporate AI to automate the authenticating and grading process.
I’ll tell you what, those PSA Californians got personality, and they can joke.
What makes the Toronto card expo quite cool is that it has been organized in a way that makes it an event for everyone. Little kids get to attend at no-cost, and events are organized so that parents who might not be able to afford to buy their children anything at the card show can see their kids play trivia games and win prizes. For those seeking entertainment, occasionally collectors will gamble on opening card packs, ranging from singular packs to thousand-dollar boxes, and whoever opens the pack with the most expensive cards wins the other person’s cards. Watching card collectors gamble and lose with at the thousand-dollar box challenge was different compared to seeing someone lose money at the casino because these collectors had a child-like innocence to them, and it was clear as day that they were holding back tears.
Most of the vendors are great and are happy to talk cards and memorabilia with everyone, including small children and those just taking a trip down memory lane. But the buying, selling, or trading that occurs at these tradeshows is not the same kind of light-hearted fun that someone may recall the playground as being, and everyone is looking to get the upper hand. A few of the vendors may be sketchy and may refuse to provide a price or a straight answer on specific items. One such vendor tried to pull wool over my eyes regarding a signed photo of my favourite Prime Minister, Lester B. Pearson, before I called him out for being deceitful. After detailing the item for him, he turned red and refused to give me a price for it.
My reason for attending the Toronto card expo was to have a few items be authenticated on-site by PSA, since I did not feel comfortable mailing them to the U.S.. After seeing the uniqueness of my items, two PSA staff inquired about what other items I might have had in my “vault”. After naming a few items, the PSA duo was caught off-guard, and a fun chat ensued. Near the end of our fun chat, I inquired about the possibility of sending my “summer’s blunt” for them to verify, as less reputable grading services were expanding what items they would grade and authenticate. The PSA heads explained that they did not grade and authenticate specific types of items and that drug paraphernalia fell into that category, nor was it likely that they would start doing so.
A point was made how grading blunts could make for a slippery slope and that there would be nothing stopping someone from potentially requesting that other kinds of drug paraphernalia, like those that belonged to “Pablo Escobar”, be authenticated. I concurred, pointing out that it was a great rhetorical thought, so long as we forgot about the existence of the world’s premier police service, the FBI, alongside its younger brother, the DEA, and their 99.9% conviction rate against narco-traffickers. Without missing a beat, one of heads joked, “Forget the FBI and DEA, those kinds of “goodies” would go missing on every occasion. We would have a big problem on our hands. It’s California after all.” We went a few more rounds and I can confirm that those PSA Californians have personality and they can joke.
Unless President Trump decides to abolish the FBI, like some of his biggest endorsers have suggested, and if he decides to pardon Silk Road founder, Ross Ulbricht, like he has suggested he will, then PSA might change their stance. Of course, if both of those outcomes occur, then we might need some eccentric, ballsy and great Canadian hackers to save the day, so long as they are mature, of course. Because Canadians are the most eccentric, ballsiest, and greatest hackers to walk the digital world (it’s not even close), while also being the hackers who mature the slowest (it’s also not even close).
All of it had me thinking, imagine if I had decided to follow all the digital footprints that I came across during my Lincoln-loving Harley-hating days (2010/11). I may not have been able to snatch up any memorabilia belonging to Pablo Escobar, but five-fingering a discount of something that belonged to “El Chapo” or “El Mayo” may have been a possibility. Thank goodness, however, that “teenage Alek” had just enough sense to him to realize how bad of an idea that would have been, after reaching an A2 level in Spanish, to get a summer job at one of the resorts in Mazatlán, Mexico.
Maybe I missed out on cool piece of memorabilia, I know I definitely missed out on a cool story, possibly something along the lines of Kenny Powers in Mexico (Eastbound and Down, 2009-2013). But I was a gamer and the furthest thing from being about “that life”. Oh, my teenage cyber escapades.