Congressman Pat Ryan Urges FTC To Investigate Collectors Holdings' Beckett, SCG Acquisitions

The Hobby was abuzz this week with news that PSA parent company Collectors Holdings is acquiring Beckett, sparking monopoly and antitrust concerns that have now reached Congressman Pat Ryan who is calling for an FTC investigation.

The announcement dropped on December 15th with Collectors quick to say that Beckett will "remain an independent brand within the Collectors family of companies, continuing to operate with its own operations, customer experience, and standards around grading, marketplace, magazines and price guide."

Collectors to Acquire Beckett

Collectors, a leading provider of grading and marketplace services in the collectibles industry, announced they have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Beckett, one of the most respected companies in collecting.

But that did little to assuage trading card enthusiasts' fears about market consolidation and that Beckett may suffer the same fate as SGC, which was acquired by Collectors in in February 2024 and has seen a significant drop in grading submissions since.

Sports Collectors Digest spoke to two prominent collectors who also happen to be legal experts in this area, raising monopoly and antitrust concerns.

Collectors concerned over Beckett acquisition, legal experts raise monopoly question after purchase by PSA

The purchase of longtime grading company Beckett by card-grading giant PSA has sent shock waves through the hobby, leaving collectors concerned and legal experts questioning the deal.

Sports Collectors DigestGreg Bates

Plaintiffs’ litigator for Lesko Law LLC, also known as "The Hobby Lawyer”on X, Paul Lesko, told Sports Collectors Digest:

“I would differentiate between an illegal monopoly and a monopoly. You can have legal monopolies. The antitrust law is not there to knock out all monopolies whatsoever. It’s to knock out monopolies that interfere with competition or hurt consumers."

“So, would I say that they’re just a monopoly, period? With that market share, yes, I would definitely say that they’re a monopoly. Now are they to the grounds of illegal monopoly where antitrust should step in? They’re really close. As a plaintiffs’ attorney, I’m looking at it.”

And collector Chris Harris, who previously worked for the Federal Trade Commission as a bureau of economics research analyst for over 12 years, told SCD:

“I think if this gets approved under normal circumstances, I’ll preface it this way, some of my old colleagues at the FTC might cause a stink about it and maybe force Collectors to spin off either one or both of BGS and/or SGC—ideally both.”

Now it appears those concerns have reached Congress, as Rep. Pat Ryan of New York has written a letter to the FTC requesting a formal investigation into Collectors acquisitions of Beckett and SGC.

CONGRESSMAN PAT RYAN DEMANDS FTC INVESTIGATION INTO COLLECTORS HOLDINGS’ ATTEMPT TO MONOPOLIZE TRADING CARD GRADING

Collectors’ dominance is compounded by vertical integration; it controls grading capacity, pricing analytics through CardLadder, and participates in buying and selling graded cards—creating severe conflicts of interest

Congressman Pat Ryan

Ryan says that through acquisitions of PSA in 2021, SGC in 2024, and now Beckett, Collectors has consolidated over 80% of grading volume and that Collectors’ dominance is compounded by vertical integration because it controls grading capacity, pricing analytics through CardLadder, and participates in buying and selling graded cards which creates severe conflicts of interest.

“Even my four and six year old boys, who just started their collections, know this behavior is wrong. Attempts to corner the trading card market are not only deeply unpopular, they are unethical," said Congressman Ryan.

"Kids, collectors and local card stores,  shouldn’t have to worry that the system is stacked against them, and the FTC needs to step in before this hobby is controlled by one powerful company.” 

Ryan is calling on the Commision to investigate the following issues:

• Monopolization: Whether Collectors acquired SGC and Beckett specifically to eliminate competition, and whether internal documents reveal a deliberate strategy of monopolization.
• Serial Acquisition Pattern: Whether Collectors’ systematic roll-up strategy violates Section 5 of the FTC Act as conduct that inherently produces the cumulative harms the antitrust laws were designed to prevent.
• Regulatory Evasion: Whether Collēctīvus Holdings functioned as a pass-through entity to evade merger scrutiny, and the extent of Collectors’ involvement in the 2024 acquisition of Beckett.
• Good-Faith Representations: Whether the post-acquisition marginalization of SGC was contrary to representations made at the time of the merger, and if those actions warrant a court-ordered divestiture or unwinding of the deal.
• Erosion of Competition: How the elimination of independent rivals has directly impacted consumer pricing, service quality, and turnaround times across the industry.
• Price and Policy Coordination: What safeguards, if any, prevent Collectors from coordinating pricing, grading standards, and competitive behavior across its three nominally "independent" brands.
• Barriers to Entry: What structural barriers now prevent new competitors from entering the market, specifically regarding the control of the limited labor pool of professional graders.
• Market Manipulation: How vertical integration — controlling the grading process, the pricing data through CardLadder, and the marketplace itself — creates unique opportunities for market manipulation and unfair self-dealing.

In urging the FTC to investigate, Ryan called out potential violations of Section 7 of the Clayton Act and Section 5 of the FTC Act, pointing to recent FTC guidance that recognizes the cumulative harm of serial acquisitions.

He asked the Commission to examine issues including monopolization, regulatory evasion, coordination among nominally independent brands, barriers to entry for new graders, labor market impacts, and the potential for market manipulation created by vertical integration.

Ryan says the consolidation is already affecting consumers and small businesses and warned that quick action is necessary to avoid irreversible harm.

“This consolidation threatens the livelihoods of thousands of small businesses, including local card shops, dealers, and auction houses, who no longer have competitive alternatives for essential services,” he wrote, calling pointing out that Collectors’ dominance also “suppresses labor mobility” for professional graders and makes it “virtually impossible for new, independent competitors to attract the specialized talent required to enter the market.”

“This matter presents a textbook roll-up strategy producing rapid and potentially irreversible competitive harm. The announced Beckett acquisition presents a narrow window for effective enforcement. Further delay risks permanently foreclosing meaningful competition in an essential market infrastructure.”

Read Ryan's full letter here:

The Responsible Online Commerce Coalition raised similar antitrust and anti-competitive roll up concerns last year in their petition calling on the FTC to investigate eBay's acquisitions of Goldin Auctions and trading card game marketplace TCGPlayer.

FTC Urged To Investigate eBay TCGPlayer Deceptive & Anti-Competitive Conduct In ROCC Petition

Responsible Online Commerce Coalition petitions FTC to investigate eBay TCGplayer acquisition, alleging deceptive practices & antitrust violations.

Value Added ResourceLiz Morton

Unfortunately, the FTC did not respond to the ROCC petition, which was disappointing but perhaps not surprising given the close connection that then Chairperson Lina Khan and others at the Commission at that time had to eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

But the claims against Collectors appear to be far stronger in terms of total market consolidation, and there's new leadership at the FTC, which could give Congressman Ryan's calls for an investigation more weight - and increased scrutiny on the hobby as a whole could also bring new attention to concerns about other questionable practices in the industry, including eBay's ongoing and escalating patterns of self-preferencing and anti-competitive conduct as with Goldin and TCGPlayer.

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As eBay deepens Goldin integration with new features encouraging cross platform shopping, will self-preferencing practices gain regulatory scrutiny?

Value Added ResourceLiz Morton

Consumers who are concerned about Collectors' acquisition of Beckett can share specific details about the potential harm posed by this market consolidation to the FTC by filling out the Antitrust Complaint Intake form - but be advised this process is more like submitting a tip to the Commission, not creating a specific case, and the FTC may not respond to individual submissions.

Antitrust Complaint Intake

The official website of the Federal Trade Commission, protecting America’s consumers for over 100 years.

Federal Trade CommissionTom Koch (Acting DAD, BE Office of Applied Research and Outreach) and Ted Rosenbaum (Acting BE Director)

Concerned collectors can also contact their state Attorney General's offices and/or consumer protection divisions - if you don't know who to contact for your specific state, you can find that information:

https://naag.org/find-my-ag/

The FTC has not responded or commented on Ryan’s request or indicated whether it will open a formal investigation, which is why it's crucial for consumers to make their voices heard - every report adds up and the more examples the FTC has of current or potential consumer harm, the more likely they may be to act.