Posted By:
BobI guess if anyone should have the right to bitch about GAI, it is me. I won't go in to the long story about how a complete set of E98s along with an Old Put Clarke was lost in the mail and how long it took me to be fully reimbursed, etc. I was gunshy of GAI for a while after that but I use them regularly, along with SGC now. I use SGC for cards which are non-standard size, like all my Zeenuts, etc. plus other cards from time to time. I believe SGC and GAI are very similar in the grades they give out and take exception with the "one grade higher" comments made above. That hasn't been my experience. Cards which I don't believe are trimmed but rather smaller because of wide-swinging size differentials, like the M116 Sporting Life, still get slabbed authentic at GAI and GAI is just as brutal in grading my caramels as SGC. (My tobacco cards fare much better with both companies and I have never figured this out).
I have found the guys at GAI to be very personable but SGC is much better at meeting deadlines in sending out cards and in notifying you of invoice submission numbers and keeping you informed. This is something GAI needs to work on. I do think GAI listens to customer's complaints as for a while there, there were a lot of collectors (myself included) who received "rattlers" or cards that didn't fit snugly and wandered around the slab outside the designated space they were supposed to go. This seems to have been corrected.
For me, GAI is much more consistent in their grading than PSA. SGC remains the industry standard (as much as I whine about tough grading) but GAI isn't that far behind. I will buy PSA cards but will no longer submit to them. I was about to mention the 2 SCDs but it has been taken care of in the foregoing post...