Sgc
 

Anyone else notice that SGC appears to be grading a lot tougher these days? I've sent about 10 cards to them this year (all mid to low grade pre-war) and just about everyone has come back with a lower grade than I anticipated. I even sent a few over to PSA and they received higher grades. A year or two ago it seemed the opposite was happening. I just sent them a really nice raw E95 Plank that looked like a 3/4 but they gave it a 2. Anyone else seeing this trend?

Thanks!

no, not really. All the cards Ihave sent in came back exactly with the grade I expected. I think they are strict but fair and unbiased. All of my graded cards are SGC so I pretty well know what to expect.

Kmac

I think SGC is still as consistent as always.

I do know that my crossover rate from PSA to SGC is only running at around 25%

I had SGC grade 12 cards a month ago and would say all 12 where spot on. I just had PSA grade 5 cards and 4 where 1 to 2 grades over graded and 1 was 1 grade under graded.

Spot on....
 

I also have always found them to be the most consistent from year to year. Uncanny really but I am thinking maybe they do not have as much turnover on their actual graders? Less graders probably also helps the consistency.

Mike

Based on what I've seen over the past couple years in eBay auctions, yes, it does appear that SGC is a bit tougher across the board. Everyone's going to have their own perception or opinion, though, so unless a thorough, unbiased study is done (which is virtually impossible) we'll never truly know.

It's an easy enough experiment to do. Just get a few hundred raw cards, randomly assign each of them to SGC or PSA, wait for them to come back, enter each of the individual grades, compare the SGC mean to the PSA mean (indepedent samples t-test), voila, you have your answer.

In practice it may reliably go in one direction for some issues and the other way for others, but I'd be interested in the main effect (i.e., who is more lenient on average).

You should be able to get a federal grant to fund this experiment.:eek::D

Bah, I can't get federal grant money for my real research. Most of us probably already have hundreds of pre-war cards in our collections, but even if you were starting with no cards at all you could get enough together for adequate statistical power for a few thousand dollars. The average sale price of the last 25 raw pre-war cards on eBay was about $7.50.

funding
 

I think Frank should fund it:eek:

Out-Sourcing??
 

I understand PSA and SGC are both out sourcing now!!!:confused:

And even better way would be to submit that same group to one, note the grades, crack out and send to the other. Assuming none were damaged in the process you would have a definitive answer.

Finding some one to pay for and take the time to do all of this would be the tough part.

Not a problem. Send me the cards and I'll submit them with my return address.:D

I was thinking it would be better to split them because they would necessarily be in worse (true) condition the 2nd time around, but the best thing would probably be to combine the two methods, so that half of the cards are graded first by PSA, half are graded first by SGC, then all are switched.

SGC vs. PSA expiriment
 

make sure the submitter doesn't have any "friends" at either PSA or SGC, although I suspect this issue might be evident at only one of the TPG's listed. It would be cool to see this same experiment done first by the average joe and then secondly with a big dealer/AH submitting the cards to see if there is any validity to the argument that the big guys get preferential grades.

Also, crossovers aren't unbiased because the one TPG can already see what the other one thought about the card (good or bad).

Sounds like a plan. I'm sure we all have raw cards we could use for a group submission. Who feels like paying double grading fees for this experiment?

In my opinion the best way would be buy the 10 cheapest PSA 10 cards and the cheapest 10 SGC 98 cards off eBay and crack them out and spend them back to the same company. That would show how consistent they really are.