Goldin Auctions Acquired by eBay From Collectors Holdings

[mindcycle]

Goldin Auctions, one of the major sports auction houses in the sports collectibles industry, has been acquired by eBay, Goldin Auctions announced Wednesday morning. This was part of a series of transactions between eBay and Collectors Holdings, the group that previously owned Goldin Auctions.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ken Goldin, CEO and founder of Goldin Auctions, will remain the head of the company, and it will continue to operate independently.

https://www.sportico.com/business/comme ... 234774703/

eBay enters trading card commercial agreement with Collectors

As eBay continues to invest in the trading card space, the e-commerce company announced Wednesday three significant commercial transactions with Collectors, the parent company of PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator), the third-party authentication and grading provider in the collectibles industry.

The transactions include a trading card commercial agreement that aims to provide trading enthusiasts a seamless buying, selling, grading and storage experience. As part of the partnership, eBay and PSA plan to introduce a “customer-centric product experience” over the coming months. Plus, PSA is launching a new service for customers to list trading cards on eBay as soon as the card is graded in order to accelerate the selling process.

Additionally, eBay acquired Collectors’ auction house Goldin, a significant move that will greatly benefit collectors. The sale helps eBay expand the range of inventory for buyers as well as give Goldin sellers a wider audience.

eBay is also selling the eBay vault to Collectors, creating a new offering that merges the existing vault services. Launched in 2022, the eBay vault allows collectors to store trading cards that are valued at more than $750 in a secure, temperature-controlled vault.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/10/ebay- ... es-goldin/

Definitely a monopolistic move here. I don't think anyone would deny that lol.

My guess is the lower end cards in the Goldin weekly auctions were becoming more difficult to deal with financially with weaker margins in the past year or so. eBay likely has the infrastructure in place to take that over easily.

The whole PSA acquiring the eBay vault means they can more easily shift more cards into their grading services, thus getting more people to sign up for Collectors Club and the like.

The only benefit I see in all this for collectors is there will be more inventory on eBay that might have never been seen by those who weren't using Goldin. More saturation could potentially be a good thing as mid to lower end cards could come down in price a bit due to more competition. Otherwise it seems like it's just more consolidation of the big guys that the end collector will likely end up paying for at the end of the day.

[AbraCalabro]

I mean, anything that's good for PSA is bad for the hobby in my opinion. I'm hoping that BGS comes back in a big way and it seems like that's what they're aiming for. Neither company is perfect, but by grading with BGS I'm not funding a two-face's purchases.

Forgot to add, yes, more inventory on eBay is not a bad thing at all, eBay and COMC are barren wastelands of overpriced cards. Everyone thinks they're sitting on the Hope Diamond now after the recent hobby collapse / market boom.

[SacKingsCards]

Lots of consolidation of major hobby companies lately. I'm never a fan of major players of any industry getting into bed with each other; like you mentioned nothing is better when you approach monopolies.

One thing that was mentioned on Blowout that I found interesting was that all stuff in the eBay vault will soon follow eBay's standard fee structure whereas before there were no selling fees (soon to be 3%). To be transparent, I've never used the ebay vault, but it seemed like a great concept akin to COMC where you can buy and sell cards without taking the major fees hit that exist everywhere else. Seems like there's no good place to sell cards and trading is virtually impossible nowadays.

[AbraCalabro]

Lots of consolidation of major hobby companies lately. I'm never a fan of major players of any industry getting into bed with each other; like you mentioned nothing is better when you approach monopolies.

One thing that was mentioned on Blowout that I found interesting was that all stuff in the eBay vault will soon follow eBay's standard fee structure whereas before there were no selling fees (soon to be 3%). To be transparent, I've never used the ebay vault, but it seemed like a great concept akin to COMC where you can buy and sell cards without taking the major fees hit that exist everywhere else. Seems like there's no good place to sell cards and trading is virtually impossible nowadays.

I was going to comment on this, looks like Rat Turner loves your money and wants to exact it from you any way he can. I still have a hard time believing that other grown men thought Rat was going to actually 'fix' the hobby when he's one of the biggest enablers of the problems that killed it in the first place.

Going back to more inventory being on eBay, that's going to be interesting. I have found eBay and COMC to be barren wastelands for the most part and any time a decent card shows up, the prices are sky high. So this may help being more cards over and possibly due to more availability, lower prices, although this is an inadvertent byproduct, neither one of these conglomo companies want to help you save money.