SGC Announcement
 

New video from Peter today:

https://fb.watch/mUWSMxW2FC/?mibextid=m9I3tJ

1. New SGC is out, can submit orders through the app.
2. Sports and non sport cards are now $15, no minimum required.
3. TPC submissions are now $9, no minimum required.
4. Immediate service is now $40.

Interesting about the app, maybe the registry isn’t far behind.

Positive announcement. Couple of observations as a devout black apron pre war fan.

I hope SGC isn't sacrificing turn times for price.

Pre war grading still has a value escalator which is basically most pre war.

I'm excited I can get my pre war beat up commons graded now.

And the elephant in the room: Registry

I feel like this guy is one of those cats that has a wife but got his side chick pregnant and is struggling with how to address that. I always thought well they're short staffed and can't commit resources to a registry, but really?, you'll commit resources to a "mobile app" Before a registry? Nobody cares about a mobile app and stop trying to be tech forward so much. PSA is killing you because of registry, is that not clear enough?

Just tell us SGC fans your side chick is pregnant and there will never be a registry so we can move on..

Mobile apps are a big deal to younger folks, maybe they see that as their future customer base.

Clearly, So by their silence they are conceding to PSA when it comes to registry. Are young people not participating in the PSA registry database?

There definitely feels like there is a move to collectors being more singles collectors and doing so without a common theme like singles of a certain player. Might be different in vintage but even then set collecting seems to have quieted especially for the last 3 years when affordable grading was abolished at PSA.

Maybe, but what is driving huge prices for example a Phil Niekro 1969 tops PSA 9 if not the registry?

Had been hoping for a change in oversized slabs :(

Phil, they are two decades behind PSA in the registry. They've lost that battle, it's over. They know that.

A lot of people now collect HOF cards. I doubt you would see the same trend for a 1969 Chico Ruiz or a low pop common.

I would agree with your assessment.

I'm not so sure, I watch AH prices a lot, probably to a borderline unhealthy amount and see high grade post war commons go fit incredible amounts and can only attribute that to the PSA registry.

I guess all it takes is two crazies... :)

What's a decade or two among friends? :D

Been saying this for years my friend, PSA's power is registry and pop. MONEY MAKING MACHINE...the boat has left the pier for any grading company to take over that market share.

The old SGC registry was great. I think they screwed up when they changed cert numbers. I’m sure the original info still exists and it shouldn’t be too difficult to bring back and update/revise.

Still not seeing the app?

Besides the registry, I had hoped they would update the slab to include a QR Code on the back. No such luck.

Go to sgcs website and click the top to get the app. It's still brand new in the app stores so the search algorithms still seem to prioritize the others. Assumingly because people have been looking for an sgc app for the last decade and one has never shown up 😂.

Got it. Thank you.

None of the bells and whistles matter much if a company can't or won't grade appropriately. Small sample size, but my recent SGC sub was a complete disaster from that perspective. I've posted about it elsewhere.

I went to the SGC and saw that they have a price for TCG grading. Maybe it's just too early this morning, but what does "TCG" refer to? Thanks.

At least they knew what your cards were!!
.

trading card game.

pokemon, magic the gathering, etc.

Ahhh, no wonder I didn't know what it meant lol. Thanks James.

I was wondering the same thing. I even went to the SGC website where there appears to be no definition of what 'TCG' is, which I found rather weak. I was hoping it was some kind of membership since I've been waiting a long time for sub-$10 grading. I can probably make up some kind of '33 Goudey trading card game if that would qualify ;)

Back in the day T.C.G. was Topps Chewing Gum.....

.https://luckeycards.com/mays.jpg

I’m going to send in all my Topps Chewing Gum cards!

This is EXACTLY what I thought of when I saw TCG cards. I thought to myself why would they give Topps cards a different price. LOL

Ahhh, the good old days!

How long before the 2021/2022 backlog starts up all over again? I give it about 60 days. Over/under?

If this was PSA doing same, I would say less than 30 days.

I got charged $50/each for two oversize.
1) R312 Pastel.... kind of looks odd with such fat black borders, wish they could custom size that a bit better.
2) R311 Leather Finish....it looks nice in the oversize holder.

Still can't post pics due to Tapatalk.

Sent from my SM-G9900 using Tapatalk

I just thought that myself!

Sent from my SM-G9900 using Tapatalk

No, of course not. Registry is pretty much only for the old school set collectors. Nobody is collecting modern sets. And nobody is chasing master sets of modern players. There's like 100,000+ different cards of star players made every year now.

PSA already owns the registry business. If SGC added one, very few people would actually use it. And it would not make them more competitive with PSA anyhow. They missed the bus a long time ago with that.

My most recent sub (just arrived today) was more than fair. Perhaps even a hair generous. Was a welcomed surprise for once.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Why? Because in its infancy SGC had a registry, and we used it. There were many people adding cards and uploading pics and there was great friendly competition too. We also had a message board and it was lively.

I'm not saying that literally no one would use it. There are several members here who would love to see it come back. I'm saying it with respect to the number of people who submit cards to SGC, their broader costumer base. It would probably only be used by something like 1% of their customers. Certainly less than 5%.

Contrast that to the app, which the majority of their customers will certainly be using, and it's a no brainer where to put their technical skill resources.

That's said, I do think they are working on it. You can add cards to 'My Cards' in the new app, and by default, all newly graded cards get added to your 'My Cards' database. See screenshots below...

.

I'd still have to disagree. SGC's fanbase has always been the vintage collector. Sure, there are folks who use SGC just like PSA to turn a buck, but I feel that a large number of SGC slab owners would use the registry, either for set building or to show off key cards in their collection.

I agree!
I virtually stopped submitting to them after they deleted all my registry sets
w/ the old certs
Still have most of the cards

I never stopped submitting because, well they’re the best TPG and I always hoped that the registry would make a reappearance.

I downloaded the app and noticed that there is an option to add cards to a 'My Cards' folder. I uploaded about a dozen cards - the newer slabs included a picture of the card and slab, however the older slabs just had a generic photo with the information.

Is this the first step towards a registry - being able to identify not only cards you submitted, but also cards that were already slabbed?

I think another way to look at creating a new registry is that it gives the average collector a shot, although momentarily, at seeing their sets higher up in rankings. A 7 average doesn't even break the top 10 in PSA on a 52 Topps set, for instance. What percentage of collectors can afford to build a 52 Topps set with an average of 7?!? In SGC, a 3 average make hang in the top 10 or 20 for several years. Not my thing, but I know a lot of guys care about that. A new SGC registry will give the average Joe a fighting chance, for awhile, and I think for SGC that will bring in an influx of submissions.

Updating with my returned submissions.Attachment 588822Attachment 588823Attachment 588824

Sent from my SM-G9900 using Tapatalk

SGC Announcement
 

I just hope they based this most recent decision on a little more factual supply and demand input than their famous “We’re open, send us your cards” fiasco back at the beginning of Covid. For the first time ever, collectors called their bluff when PSA temporarily shut down, and they were snowed under bad until at least the fall. After that, there was a series of unprofessional yo-yo price adjustments (card used to be $30 to grade, whoops now it’s $60…) while they attempted to right the ship.

Since sometime in late ‘21 or so they have more or less got the hang of it, but that snap during Covid was rough. Continuing to pull stunts like that will not earn them more respect long term in any collector’s eye.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I just submitted another order end of last week, I'm interested to see how the turnaround times are post-announcement.

I've tracked all my orders to PSA and SGC over the last few months to figure out durations.

SGC definitely processes orders received much better than PSA does. The order I submitted on 9/6 (last Wednesday) was shipped on Friday, and it got logged into the system today, after being delivered to their facility yesterday. PSA took 3 weeks to even "enter" my last order, it arrived on 8/16 and wasn't processed until 9/8. The column on the right for PSA labeled "65 days" is the calculation of the 65 business days, which is the top end of their estimate for value bulk.

My last SGC order was submitted a few weeks after the national, they graded the order in less than a week (on the 4th business day) and it was shipped a few days later.

I can't figure out why PSA seems incapable of providing accurate turnaround times. Yes, SGC has made a ton of pricing and turnaround time changes in recent years, but at least they are trying to give their customers accurate information...

I suspect their volume and the haphazard nature of how they process submissions makes it very difficult to estimate with any precision.

You feed raw cards through one end of the factory, and they bounce around inside for a long time, and eventually they magically come out the other end. But in-between, they just seem to languish forever, and the order of processing is highly randomized at each step in the process. One step might fly right on through in 24 hours, while other steps take 2 months.

SGC already graded my 7 card order received on September 12th.

2 days for grading. That is pretty crazy.

I'll go one step further, I had a psa account prior to CU buying them, my login didn't work when they had the genius idea to make one login for all their companies, spent weeks with customer service trying to figure why I couldn't log in with my email address, they never could figure it out. NBD, I'm fine not submitting to a fancy company who can't figure out a simple log in issue and usually crossover to SGC anyway.

wow
 

Spot on comparison. It's like the NFL playing against Pop Warner kids.

SGC just delivers. Always.

It's a forecasting problem. PSA receives around 25,000 to 50,000 cards per day, with massive amounts of variance from one day to the next, and from one month to the next. SGC recieves around 3,000 cards per day and has lower variance. It is much easier to project turnaround times for a smaller operation like SGC than it would be for one like PSA, simply because of how the math works out.

There are just simply too many things outside of their control that make it difficult to predict future grading demands like product release dates, changes in market values of cards, etc. These all affect grading demand. PSA is effectively guessing at how much demand will be generated by monthly specials and changes to the pricing structure as well. It's a never ending battle of push and pull.

Predicting their future demand with the sort of precision that the hobby wants is nearly impossible. The best they can do is guess, throw a big-ish number out there and hope they don't go over. Then, if they do, they can make adjustments to their pricing, hiring, and monthly specials that help to chip away at that demand. Some levers work more quickly than others. Hiring more talent, or perhaps I should say more "talent", is the one that takes the longest, of course.