Perhaps SGC can run monthly or quarterly pre-war specials. The material is scarce when compared to post-war.

Pre-1980 cards are abundant. I'm not sure SGC would want to leave the door open for card doctors people to cheaply submit their trimmed sharp commons, hoping for high grades.

To anybody who has ever run a business this decision is clear and I would ask the members here to walk in the shoes of SGC. What would you do? Maintain turn times? Accept $10 submissions that end up in 12-18 month turn times? You can't have it all, SGC just ramped up to meet demand and maintain quality, then psa shuts down. Just hire more folks is a silly response, they just did that and it's not like hiring line cooks.

Get your knickers in a twist all you want but decide what you want in a grading company. They've been very transparent to folks, they're overwhelmed, don't take it personal, just hold off on the low brow subs until they catch up. They'll drop prices once they catch up, if they don't then you can be outraged.

If SGC is comfortable staying in its current dimensions, what can it do to keep submissions down to levels they can comfortably accommodate other than raise prices? It's simple supply and demand economics.

With the tsunami of 2020-21 Panini Prizm about to hit the grading companies I suspect many of these raises have to do with stopping that specific product.

So, right now, what I would if I were Beckett Grading (and I understand many people would not understand why I'm suggesting this), is to raise the BCCG price to $10-20 per card. They are easier to grade *no sub grades*, easier to slab *slightly thinner holder* and actually are made for this specific times. I guarantee you a grader could fly through those cards and BGS could get them out in the reasonable time since the odds are good at this point, if you were popular when the cards came out, you'd be popular when you get the cards back in a couple/few months.

Regards
Rich

They HAVE NOT raised prices
 

They have temporarily eliminated their 2 lowest grading tiers less than $1k value for $35 and less than $499 for $25.

My knee jerk was to be upset, but as a couple of posts have suggested, there are really no good options. They want to maintain rapid turnaround, quality grading and good customer service. Hiring more graders likely can't happen fast enough, so they need to slow the flow of submissions. I'm disappointed I can't submit more cards for a while, but I respect and understand the decision.

How about this. Make it a requirement for all submissions to be performed online. Set the amount of submissions at each tier level at a number that they are able to process per day week etc. The slots would fill electronically and they can control the rate of items received - very easily done with a computer.

I think what they should do is tiered pricing for each submitter, first 15 cards are 15 bucks, after first 15, from 15-30 will be at 25, after that 75 each
each submitter can submit once a month for the 15/25 bucks

Not really unexpected. It was clear the PSA shutdown on submissions would cascade over to SGC, and SGC had warned it would adjust its model to prevent going back to a massive backlog. So I can't fault the business decision, although it's a personal disappointment...was on vacation with the kids this past week and had planned a submission of mid-value vintage cards this week, many of which don't make sense at the new pricing.

Anyway, the options for those on a budget or wanting lower value cards graded are certainly getting limited. Although SGC promises to lower its pricing again (and I hope they do), I think it will be quite a while before we see PSA and SGC offering $20 grading with reasonable turnaround times.

I wonder if CSG will be able to take advantage of this? Do they grade pre-war and other vintage cards? The language on their submission guidelines seems to suggest so, but there is a large carve-out for returning "obscure" issues. CGC certainly has a strong reputation in other collectibles. While I don't love the CSG labels, the current dislocation seems to create a big opportunity for someone....

https://www.gosgc.com/update-20210509

Now for something entirely different. SGC has just released new pricing to start submissions at $30/card.

That's good news.

I imagine the sudden price increase practically eliminated new subs for a while. Catching up on the backlog was likely easy to do. Glad to read they've dropped the price back down to a more reasonable level now.

Definitely an improvement. I think it was smart for them to get caught up.

Does anyone have any clarity into what types of cards they are grading now? Earlier this year, I was in contact with them and told they no longer grade some of the more esoteric stuff they used to (vintage Japanese baseball cards, for instance). Anyway, I have some older soccer, boxing, etc., that I'd like to get graded along with the baseball so wanted to know if anyone has any clarity into what they do and don't accept.

Thanks!

That pretty much nails it.


Yep, not very complicated at all.

Deleted

Interesting. I wonder this if this price will hold up, or if they will reduce it again. The last submission I did with them it was $15/card.

$30 seems to be a fair sweet sport for the time being... Very Smart By Boca Raton

Psa
 

PSA's current minimum is $300. Crazy

From what I've read here, they're only grading maybe half the cards sent in....

Thanks John. I just submitted a batch of cards to them at the $30/card price. When I prepared a submission sheet Saturday it was $75/card so I balked at the price. This is more normal although I still miss the $15/card price for my last submissions last year.
I appreciate your heads up.

tbob

No problem. There are also some videos that show the behind the scenes work at SGC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YNOs6Xu80w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVx4REVu-TY

Sooner than later these grading folks should implement some dynamic pricing. Demand is high raise prices in real-time. Demand low? Drop those prices. Looks like SGC is attempting that.

Agreed. In my opinion, SGC is attempting to control the inflow of material by tweaking prices.

Hopefully, they'll also begin tinkering with the types of items by offering monthly (weekly, perhaps) specials. I would love to see, for example, a promotion during which T206 cards could be submitted at a discount. Then, a 1956 Topps special. Yes...look at my signature...I'm biased. :cool:

These types of narrow promotions wouldn't cause to avalanche of orders they saw when PSA practically shut down. They would also be able to control the issues covered by their promotions.

If executed properly, this strategy would win SGC quite a few customers, especially among vintage collectors.

SGC now dropped the price back down .... to $30, not $25.

I amazes me that they cannot figure out their price structure. I do not mind that they jacked up prices to control flow. it is the only way to stop these idiots from sending in junk. But why is the price not back to $25? When they announced their new business model, presumably they did a lot of work to think about the pricing, and landed on $25. And now all of a sudden it is $30?

In the past month, I sent in a '59 Menko Oh and they graded it. Well, it got an "A" but that was because it was obviously hand cut at an odd angle.

Simple math
 

$5 X 4000 cards per day = an extra $20K per day for SGC!

In the Video they say they are trying to find the right price to have supply=demand. I get it in concept, but going to be very imperfect in practice.

Video was interesting - thanks for posting.

Just be careful on which cards you send to them.

Custom research fees may apply any time the card is outside the norm of what we grade. Examples would include obscure vintage cards, foreign cards, and obscure non-sports cards.
Custom encapsulation fees may apply any time the card is of a different shape or different dimensions from those of the "flagship" vintage sets or standard modern sets that we commonly encapsulate.
That said, the cards would have a maximum grading fee of $80/card if both of those fees were applied and there were no additional value-based upcharges. You would be made aware of any upcharges before the encapsulation of the cards, at which point you could elect to move forward or to have certain cards excluded.

Really?? A small business sees a 5-10x increase in demand and has to increase their staff accordingly, acquire/rent more office space, buy new office and production equipment, train a boatload of new employees, revamp their acceptance and outgoing production practices and beef up their online footprint all with no guarantee that the new demand levels are sustainable and you can't see why their previous pricing model might need to change by 20%?

yes, really.
they spent a year doing all of those things you described.... and when the dust settled they came out with a grand public announcement explaining a price increase from $15 to $25. So presumably, the owners figured out their cost structure and biz model and came up with $25 as the right number. after a surge in submissions they moved to $75 to slow the demand, and now a month later they decided $30 was a better number. so 25 could not keep the demand reasonable but 30 will?