PSA enters the photo-matching arena 🏟️

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Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

• PSA enters the photo-matching arena 🏟️

• Collector uncovers hidden stash of 1989 Upper Deck Baseball 📦

• Auctions ending soon 🔎

• People to follow in the hobby 👥

• Meme of the day 🃏

PSA ENTERS THE PHOTO-MATCHING ARENA 🏟️

PSA’s been hitting us with non-stop bangers lately — they recently announced that they’re expanding their services to include photo-matching for game-worn items. Photo-matching is a process in which collectible items are compared to high-resolution images from the game(s) they’re claimed to be used in, to verify whether they are game-used.

PSA previously introduced photo-matching for game-used bats in 2019, but never expanded much past that, until recently. PSA hasn’t released detailed pricing for their new photo-matching service, but it’s expected to be based off of item value + turnaround time.

The value-add of a conclusive photo-match is immense — just as an example, this Lewis Hamilton race suit sold at auction for $83k last September. The buyer then photo-matched it to Hamilton’s first Grand Prix victory and flipped it for $241k less than 3 months later. That’s almost triple the price, for the exact same item.

My take: More competition and optionality is always a good thing. Photo-matching standards are fairly opaque and antiquated right now, so hopefully PSA can bring some transparency to the space. Most serious game-used collectors are die-hard fans of MeiGray — it remains to be seen what PSA will do to convince that audience to switch over.

COLLECTOR UNCOVERS HIDDEN STASH OF 1989 UPPER DECK BASEBALL 📦

A collector on Facebook recently posted a stash of sealed 1989 Upper Deck Baseball cases — they’d been collecting dust in a warehouse for 35 years and were recently uncovered. The photo was posted by Nathan Burns, the owner of well-known hobby shop Grand Slam Collectibles in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

The 1989 Upper Deck Baseball set contains one of the most famous (and most printed) baseball cards of all-time, the Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card.

The lot contains both high series hobby cases (20 boxes) and factory set cases (15 sets). The asking price for a hobby case is $5k (last sale on eBay was $4.6k), and $2k for a factory set case (last sale was $2.15k). If you do the math based on the picture, it looks like north of a hundred grand in wax!

AUCTIONS ENDING SOON 🔎

• Rockhurst Auctions: ends April 26

• Detroit City Sports: ends April 27

• Galaxy Auctions: ends April 27

• Heritage Auctions: ends April 27

• Fat Apple Auctions: ends April 28

• The Collector Connection: ends April 28

• Pristine Auction: ends April 28

PEOPLE TO FOLLOW IN THE HOBBY 👥

• Mr. Enfuego: Baseball card content + podcast

• JD’s Sports Cards: Data-driven hobby content

• Spitballin’ Cards: Podcast about hobby happenings

MEME OF THE DAY 🃏