>>47636026I'm basically agreeing, yes. I think if I was buying an Illustrator Pikachu or a JP promo with an extremely limited pop I'd want a third party/middleman involved, but I don't see the need for it for any card that had a regular print run.
There's a hilarious problem here, though. By definition, only a handful of people will have cards of sufficient rarity as to justify grading. PSA never would've gotten into grading Pokémon cards if it was only going to be doing 1-2 cards a year. Clearly at some point, high value collectors memed everyone else into grading their cards as well.
if you were to think back to who told you grading was a good idea, and that guy in turn thought back to who told him that grading was a good idea, and so on, and then you drew a diagram, you'd find a fucking pyramid. at the top of the pyramid is either;
1. the aforementioned guy who got PSA to grade his festa pikachu
2. the guy who runs PSA
3. or else
it's the same fucking guy 
