When I was growing up as a collector in the 80’s, the 1981 Topps Joe Montana Rookie card was one of my prized possesions.

Montana was my favorite player, and since the Patriots weren’t all that great, I gravitated to the 49ers.

That Joe Montana to Jerry Rice connection was a thing of beauty and Montana was my idol.

Montana’s rookie card was hot in the 80’s, but back then we didn’t know about production runs or have access to daily updated pricing.

Armed with what we know now, let’s take a closer look at Montana’s 1981 Topps rookie card, one of the hobby’s most valuable football cards.

I discuss grading a lot on this blog, since it’s a big part and often controversial topic in the hobby.  I also discuss the concept of investing in vintage baseball cards.  Thus, I figured it might make sense to take a closer look at Collectors Universe, the company, which is traded under the symbol CLCT on the stock exchanges.  Of important note, Collectors Universe is the parent company of Professional Sports Authenticator (or PSA as many of us are most familiar).

In this piece, I’ll examine the operations of the company, how they make money and how successful they’ve been in doing so, along with what the future prospects of the company look like.  This is by no means investment advice and I do not own any shares of CLCT nor am I being compensated by anyone to write this article.  This is all being done for my own enjoyment and to give collectors some future insight in the big business behind sports card grading.

The 1951 and 1952 Berk Ross “Hit Parade of Champions’ sets have started to gather more interest from collectors in recent years.

The massive star power across each of the 72 card sets is one reason for the popularity.  The cards are also scarcer than any of the popular national issues from the era.

I’ve always like the Berk Ross cards; something about the grainy images has always appealed to me.

Yet it wasn’t until I started diving into some the population reports when I recognized that the Berk Ross cards were significantly undervalued.

Of course, values are often subject to collector interest in a particular issue.  However, the Berk Ross scarcity combined with the star power make these sets one of the better buys for vintage collectors.

In this piece we dive into the background of the sets, more details about the issues, along with the players in the sets and the corresponding availability and values.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the scandal that has rocked the sports card hobby. If not, the quick and dirty is that a notorious card doctor and trimmer was buying lower graded cards, trimming them, and then resubmitting to PSA.

All of this was done with the help of PWCC, the big eBay auction house, although to date, the company has denied any wrongdoing.

Let’s face it; PSA, SGC and Beckett are just third party authenticators.  There is no guarantee, whether intentional or not, that the graders will get it right.  It’s now on us, to be a ‘fourth party grader’ of sorts to ensure that we are not getting scammed.

Yet the graders provide a level of ‘certainty’ in what used to be a very uncertain marketplace.  But with the recent events, should we still trust the third party graders?  Is there any sort of indication that PSA or any other graders have knowingly graded altered cards?

In this piece I review the history of the grading companies, what has transpired in recent years, and whether we as collectors should continue to rely on the graders in providing this consistency to our beloved hobby.

I’ve also surveyed All Vintage Cards followers for their own feedback and will present the results at the conclusion of this article.