Wall Street has always had a deep love affair with the antiques and collectibles trade. There is no shortage of headlines about certain antiques and collectibles fetching serious sums of money at auction. Art, antiquities, rare coins, luxury watches, and even wine have long been the target of wealthy investors looking to venture into other asset classes that are not tethered to the traditional financial markets. In the 1980s, when third-party coin grading took hold, it was Wall Street that attempted to convince Main Street that antiques and collectibles could be good long-term investments. It was also during this time that the high end art market started its monumental rise as the preferred alternate asset class of the ultra-rich. During this time, many acquisitions and consolidations started to take place among auction houses in the trade. By the 1990s, with the advent of eBay and the overall failure of Wall Streets fascination with rare coins and antiquities (check out the history of the Merrill Lynch Athena Fund for more on this), it would appear that part of the antiques and collectibles trade was returning back to its humble origins of belonging to the collectors and dealers who cherished these precious artifacts. The advent of the internet and eBay transformed the antiques and collectibles trade more than any amount of Wall Street manipulation and financial capital ever could. And for a time being it seemed to have worked. I was an early seller on eBay, and I can tell you in the beginning there was no greater feeling. Both buyers and sellers were in total control, even among some of the horrible decisions that eBay was making at the time. However, smart investors and collectors knew that the good times would not last. eBay at first helped level the playing field among established auction houses that controlled the trade with an iron fist, but auction houses and wealthy investors had an advantage that no average collector ever had. The era of cheap money was just beginning, and as the Dot Com Bubble caught fire, it ignited, not only renewed financial interest in the trade, but also new ideas as to what should be the next big thing in the collectibles marketplace. By this time it was apparent that the third-party grading of coins was massively successful. Thanks in part to companies like PCGS and NGC, coin grading was adopted not only by dealers and investors, but also the average collector who, instead of taking a chance by purchasing an ungraded coin, could get some level of protection by buying a graded specimen. NGC, which stands for Numismatic Guaranty Corporation (get used to acronyms if you are into graded collectibles), provided very tough competition to that of PCGS. Today, as was the case back then, both companies are highly reputable in the third-party grading market. It was the massive success of NGC that caused the company to start to look into other collecting markets that could benefit from third-party grading as well. The parent company of NGC, known as the Certified Collectibles Group, or CCG for short, already had their next target in mind. Reports began to surface in the late 1990s and early 2000s that the company was ready to make an announcement soon about the prospect of grading comic books. CGC, or Comic Guaranty Corporation as it is known, would premier in early 2000 and attempt to replicate the magic that its sister company, NGC, brought to the world of coins, but would comic book collectors care, and, more importantly, would it even matter if they did? At first, some collectors and dealers were not impressed with the idea of third-party grading and encapsulating comic books. Many collectors remarked that unlike coins, the whole point of collecting comic books is to be able to read them, and as long as they are permanently sealed in a plastic enclosure that is nearly impossible to do, unless you happen to be from the planet Krypton and have x-ray vision. Nonetheless, CGC was undeterred, as most dealers and investors believed that the market for vintage and graded comic books could explode if the market would simply accept and understand the third-party grading of comic books. Auction houses like Heritage Auctions and others were waiting in the wings to start promoting the concept, and along with the spectacular handling of the Marvel cinematic universe that started with the release of the first Iron Man movie in 2008, the rest is history. Today, certain collectors are looking at comic books as investments just like Wall Street viewed coins in the 1980s. Today, the Certified Collectibles Group has many multiple different grading companies under its direct control that grade and encapsulate everything from stamps to movie lobby cards to collectible trading cards. One of my favorites is PMG, which stands for Paper Money Guaranty. If you collect paper money, there is a chance that you know who PMG is, as they are one of the leading third-party grading companies devoted to the preservation of collectible paper money. On July 1, 2021, it was announced that an investment group led by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities will acquire a majority stake in the Certified Collectibles Group and all its subsidiaries. When the news broke I was buried in an avalanche of emails asking about my thoughts on the acquisition, which led to the creation of this article. Repeating the very first sentence of this article sums up my sentiment exactly: Wall Street has always had a deep love affair with the antiques and collectibles trade. I do, however, understand that this is not the answer most of the people asking that question want to hear. They want me to speak on how this is possibly wrong or controversial in some manner. For those of you expecting me to answer in that manner, I would ask that you do your own research over how we ended up where we are today in the year 2021 where certain pop culture collectibles are routinely selling for high six and seven figures. We even have high profile auction houses investing into and creating their own grading companies to exploit the value of some of these speculative collectibles at present time. Do you really think an item created fewer than 30 years ago should be worth close to seven figures at auction simply because someone says it is rare and encapsulated in a piece of plastic? In conclusion, I only report on what is, not on what should be. So ask me again what my thoughts are on Wall Street financiers coming into the collectibles trade, and Ill simply answer with the truth. Your answer lies there in the 1980s with the advent of coin grading. Thats when it started. Until next time, I thank you for reading. Shawn Surmick has been an avid collector since the age of 12. He currently resides in his hometown of Boyertown, Pa., and is a passionate collector of antiques and collectibles. His articles focus on various topics affecting the marketplace.