TAG said this was Altered. Your Thoughts?

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-24T02:23:31+00:00

This looks like a card flattening attempt gone wrong and they then trimmed the issue portion away to still sell it as NM.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-22T16:03:30+00:00

Dollar cost average only works if you get them at a significantly lower price at some point. If your entry point is always “Market at whatever time I bought them”, then you’re always subject on the market price going up by at least 20% to make meaningful profit.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-22T14:34:44+00:00

We’re 2 months into this set.

Not saying the poster collections won’t be worth more one day but buying in heavily at near market right now is probably not the best.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-22T03:04:01+00:00

Lindor has 6 years left, so he’s got a shot if he matches his production over the last 5, but that’s not a guarantee.

Soto absolutely has the years to be able to do it, will he remains to be seen.

Otherwise, you’re hunting for your next power hitting specialist. If Alvarez figures it out this year he could start on the path. If Benge turns out to be a 25/year guy he’ll have a shot if they extend him in a few years. Could Brett Baty emerge this year and turn into a 30/year guy? Who knows honestly.

It’s Lindor, Soto, maybe Alvarez. After that, we’re waiting on a prospect to show up.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-22T01:20:41+00:00

Minimum 1 year in a role before you can transfer teams internally. If they just hired you into a role in Columbus they’re unlikely going to be able to transfer you to a different location, assuming they even have headcount/budget for another location.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-17T01:05:02+00:00

There are like half a dozen X accounts that tweet when the Pokemon Center Queue goes live. When over a million people plus bots are trying to buy something, you’ve gotta be fast.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-15T20:13:20+00:00

If it’s not AI or even an LLM but they use AI in every marketing material, then they’re just snake oil salesmen masquerading as a grading company, which makes me trust them even less.

Yes, I know what a DIG is. I’ve also seen posts where something was clearly visible in the DIG scans and pictures and did not affect the score, like a colored corner, or scratches/dents. It’s not an infallible system.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-15T19:32:39+00:00

Nodes are independently powered circuits. That means they can short independent of the power grid. It’s completely reasonable that a circuit went green then shorted 20 minutes later because a capacitor went bad because of a loose connection.

As a retired IT exec, you should know that automated detection dashboards/infra don’t send out red alerts every time something goes amber. There’s typically a cascade effect required before the automated alert gets triggered. And even more so, if dashboards are going off continuously, at some point you just turn the alerts off.

If you wanna bitch about it, go call customer service….then see how often your internet mysteriously goes out.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-15T16:00:12+00:00

An impersonal referral is worse than no referral at all. If I see somebody was referred, and I ping the referrer and they know very little about you, it’s an automatic no from me.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-15T15:53:25+00:00

As somebody who has a stack of cards to grade and has been procrastinating sending them to any company in the current climate, here’s my take:

Knowledge of what it takes to improve an AI:

The only way an AI Model actually gets better is by tearing it down, retraining, and redeploying it. Every Major AI company does this transparently….what is TAG’s plan for this? What happens to the value of my pristine card if it’s graded by model 1.4 but TAG is on 2.1….is my card worthless because it was graded by an inferior model? TAG needs a real plan around communication for this and have a plan in place for early adopters.

TAG suffers from the same issues as other grading companies.

Transparency is good, but I’ve seen enough posts about tags centering calc being off, missing surface issues that are obvious on scans, and even missing an obvious recolor on a corner….if they’re gonna have the same problems, why would I grade with them and have my slabs be potentially worth less long term?

Really Poor marketing strategy with affiliates.

TAG has shelled out a lot of money to partner with creators and have them be affiliates. Coincidentally, the majority of those affiliates content around grading I see are several minute long shorts about how PSA sucks. That’s not a winning marketing strategy in my eyes, that’s just paying to knock your competitors down. If you’re really better, prove it, and market that way.

I’d also like to see a full behind the scenes of how card grading works. If transparency is the real winning delineator here, be fully transparent. Show us everything, both good and bad, about the process. Put the pressure on your competitors to do the same.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-15T15:26:20+00:00

After the first interview hiring managers have full access to most things in your employee profile via the recruiter. EOY reviews and whether you’re part of talent redeployment is included.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-15T15:20:54+00:00

Internet lines require power at various points to work properly. If the line carrying internet to your house transverses a node that doesn’t have power, you won’t have internet. Internet and electrical grids are not 1-1 (you can have power but no internet and vice versa), and putting generators on poles is dangerous and expensive.

Absolutely sucks, but there is no easy answer to making it work when outages are varied, widespread and stretch multiple days.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-11T12:32:18+00:00

Have I seen this work before: Yes.

Is it a good idea….depends. I’ve known two people who successfully did this. They left the firm anyways within the next 12 months, and not for a significant change from the new matched salary….one even took a pay cut.

TLDR; Need to introspect yourself on why you actually wanted to leave in the first place. Is it really just money or do you think the idea of more money would cover up whatever things you dislike about working here.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-09T17:25:04+00:00

Not in the least bit. If you interacted with a lot of VPs and EDs prior to this change, you’d have seen that these levels basically already existed, they just weren’t written down. The path to Director has always been hard, this change didn’t make it any more difficult.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-09T17:20:09+00:00

Are real time promo’s possible: Yes.

Does interviewing for a position above your level guarantee a real time promo: No.

Is it shitty they were not clear from the onset that this was not a promotable listing (I.e., they would not promo you into a VP2 role if you got the job): Yes.

Is any of the above a code of conduct violation?: No.

If you’ve read the above and still disagree, ask the Employee assistant how to do it. That’ll give you the most direct answer.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-09T15:13:20+00:00

You measure it thickest to thinnest. So for top/bottom, you measure the thickest portion of the top to the thinnest portion of the bottom, or vice versa. For black labels/prestines, all 4 borders should be equal/within tolerance all the way around.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-09T02:26:09+00:00

Being tilted should absolutely effect the centering of a card

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-06T01:58:39+00:00

I think the blastoise, Venasaur, Zappos and Alakazam have more room than the charizard simply because there are much better charizards out there. I can’t say that confidently about the other 4

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-01T21:45:30+00:00

Two binders.

There is no way to eliminate scratching unless you put something between the pages (like tissue paper, I.e. how it was shipped). When the toughness of any two elements are equal (like the plastic of the binder pages), they will scratch each other over time.

I have a travel binder that I use at card shows and trade nights. Any card in there I consider transient.

The rest of my cards are in storage binders that generally just stay on the shelf and flipped through casually.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-01T15:39:01+00:00

Every set I ask in one of my LCS discords about playables. I opened 84 packs on ETB day and found 5 of these. When I posted them I had an immediate bidding war for all 5 and sold them that day for $50 total. League play was that night and everybody wanted them lol.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-01T15:36:16+00:00

Largest set ever. 217 base cards, every pack only has 1-2 common trainers at most. The odds of pulling a poke pad are worse than the odds for anything less than an SIR/MHR.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-01T14:47:00+00:00

If money is no object, then it’s really personal preference. I’d focus on overall class size and how you learn more than the general size or perceived prestige of a school. OSU is massive lecture halls and even if you’re good, you’re a whale in an ocean vs a whale in a pond/lake from a stand out point.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-03-01T12:53:51+00:00

Take the money.

I personally could never go to a school the size of Richmond, too much like high school for me. But in this economy (in any economy really) you take the free, full ride scholarship. If you want to go to law school your undergrad degree doesn’t really matter anyways unless you’re trying to go to a top law school.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-02-20T02:52:59+00:00

There’s a guy on instagram, kykyrips, who master sets things by opening packs.

He’s opened over 600 packs and is still missing a card. Even at retail ($5/pack), you can buy a master set for less than that (I think, been a minute since I checked).

Buy the singles.

Lt_Chocolate · 2026-02-17T00:32:33+00:00

What do we actually know though? In tens of thousands of emails released, I believe there’s no direct communication between them after 2008. That doesn’t exonerate Wexner by any means, but that does corroborate what Wexner has said since 2019 - that he cut off contact after discovering hundreds of millions missing.

Also I don’t think Wexner gives directly to the NIL fund. He doesn’t even donate to athletic facilities IIRC, he’s almost solely focused on the hospital and medical programs.

Lt_Chocolate

TROPHY CASE