eBay acquiring Goldin? 💼

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Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

• eBay acquiring Goldin? 💼

• BGS announces a nothingburger 🍔

• Auctions ending soon 🔎

• People to follow in the hobby 👥

• Meme of the day 🃏

EBAY ACQUIRING GOLDIN? 💼

In yet another M&A event in the hobby, eBay is reportedly close to finalizing the acquisition of Goldin, a high-end auction house for sports card and memorabilia. Although not officially reported, the news initially surfaced on Twitter and was subsequently corroborated by a number of independent sources.

The motivation for this acquisition on eBay’s end is clear — they’ve historically struggled to capture the high-end collectibles segment, something that Goldin has done well. With eBay recently introducing a 3% buyer’s premium on vaulted items, it seems like they’re slowly moving closer to a traditional auction house experience.

The rationale on the Collectors side is less clear, especially given they’ve owned Goldin for not even three years. There’s speculation that there’s an internal rift between Ken Goldin and Collectors’ leadership, which led Collectors to divest. It’s also possible that Collectors is cleaning house to focus on its core competency, grading, possibly in preparation for a public offering. The market might look more kindly to Collectors if it’s not a direct competitor to eBay, which is the case if they own Goldin.

With this announcement and Fanatics recently acquiring PWCC, the auction market is seeing some consolidation. It’ll be interesting to see what changes come as a result of a new eBay + Goldin entity.

BGS ANNOUNCES A NOTHINGBURGER 🍔

After a full year of silence and speculation, BGS officially announced that there will be no changes to their grading scale. This decision comes after an image made the rounds last year, suggesting a big overhaul to their scale, particularly upgrading BGS 9.5’s to 10’s.

The response to the proposed change was mixed. Many collectors worried about the impact on the value of existing cards graded a BGS 10. People also had questions about the logistics of the change: would 9.5’s get re-slabbed to 10’s? Would cards that get re-submitted be subject to a new grading inspection? With all the confusion, BGS quickly backtracked and postponed the change, but didn’t officially scrap the plans until now.

Outside of just this controversy, it’s a bad look that it took Beckett an entire year to put out a formal response. This is just one of a larger set of operational and reputational problems that Beckett has to address to remain competitive — customer service, security, pricing, turnaround times, the list goes on.

BGS sticking with their existing scale is the easy decision, but not necessarily the right one from a business perspective. Like it or not, collectors aren’t fans of 9.5’s and much prefer a nice, round 10 like they get with PSA and SGC. Even if the cards are identical, there’s meaningful difference in the perception of a card if it’s a BGS 9.5 versus a PSA/SGC 10. It remains to be seen whether Beckett is willing to make the difficult decisions that will be necessary to revitalize the company.

AUCTIONS ENDING SOON 🔎

• Fanatics Auctions: ends April 8-11

• Steve Novella: ends April 9

• NBA Auctions: ends April 10

• Clean Sweep Auctions: ends April 10-11

• Goldin: ends April 11

• Alt Liquid Auctions: ends April 11

• Bagger’s Auctions: ends April 11

• MeiGray Auctions: ends April 11

• NBA Auctions: ends April 11

PEOPLE TO FOLLOW IN THE HOBBY 👥

• The Mangini Collection: Unique collection and great source of hobby knowledge

• Stryker Breaks: Ultra-modern baseball content

• Baseball Collector: Baseball content with a focus on HOF cards

MEME OF THE DAY 🃏