PSA is the biggest name in trading card grading and has been trying to make inroads with comic-book grading. They have some competitors, in regard to cards, with Beckett and CGC being the bigger names that serve as other options. When it comes to comics, Beckett has CBCS for comic grading and it has always been the smaller company compared to CGC. Things are getting interesting, however, with PSA's parent company, "Collectors," wanting to buy Beckett (and Beckett only too happy to oblige).
If Collectors/PSA purchases Beckett, they claim that the Beckett card grading and CBS comic grading will continue to operate independently, but I doubt it that will be the case for long. Mergers are all about cutting extra stuff, and having two card grading companies and two comic grading companies is textbook redundancy. Something/s will probably be eliminated, and competition will continue to shrink, which isn't that great for the consumer. It is an era of mergers, however, with companies acquiring others every other week, lately (look at Netflix with Warner Bros. Discovery). The current Trump administration and the in-power GOP care little about monopolies or oligopolies as long as they get their cut through donations from wealthy backers or straight-up paid through questionable business deals.
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| It'll basically be PSA versus CGC for cards and comics. |
A Democratic Congressman named Pat Ryan has called for the sale of Beckett to be investigated by the FTC, and that's good! I doubt much will come of it, however, in this era of Trump and his cronies doing whatever they want, whenever they want, with little repercussions. As long as somebody at Collectors says something nice to stroke Trump's ego while also stuffing his wallet with a nice and fat check, this deal will probably happen. So it goes.
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