A high tech push and expanding geographic presence of PSA’s parent company are continuing with word of a new company office opening in the Pacific Northwest.
Collectors, the new name for what used to be known as Collectors Universe, now has a ten-person team on location at the facility in downtown Seattle, with plans to hire 20 additional software engineers, designers and product managers over the next year.
Collectors calls it “a key component of the company’s mission to build innovative technologies that improve the experience for hobbyists across its business lines.” Work will revolve around its authentication and grading services, marketplace, collection management and research tools.
“The new tools and technology that we’re designing and investing in are incredibly exciting,” stated Chief Product Officer Ryan Hoge, who left his job as a product engineer at Microsoft last year to join the company. “From leveraging machine learning to help better predict the value of collectibles to developing tools to improve the grading process, the work Collectors is doing is helping move the hobby and business into the future.”
Another element of Collectors’ recent moves is that the company’s apparent push into NFTs.
“The collectibles industry is primed to embrace next-generation technology by emphasizing digital collectibles and expanding the boundaries of NFTs,” says Chief Technology Officer Dan Van Tran. “We’re bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds to improve the collecting experience both for the hobby as it exists today and for the hobby that we will pioneer in the future.”
Last month, Collectors announced plans for a new 130,000-square-foot facility in Jersey City, NJ that will give PSA a larger east coast presence. Additional expansion in other areas of the country is also in the works.
Collectors brands include PSA, PCGS (coins and currency), and WATA (video games and pop culture), as well as collectibles marketplace, Goldin (Goldin Auctions).
Also Thursday, PSA revealed it had graded and shipped 802,694 trading cards in February and a total of 1,582,352 so far this year. Pokemon was the most graded type of trading card with 227,564 examined and shipped last month, followed closely by basketball.
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