Popped my grading company cherry today.

Been collecting since a kid in the late 80s like most folks here, but never have made a submission to a grading company.

Been following along on these SGC threads, and figured I'd give them a shot.

Had several prewar & 50s cards in my collection where I want to see if they are altered vs "1-1.5-2" range, and a few other that could go anywhere from a 3-4-5-6. I'm hoping good thoughts.

Very impressed with the SCG on-line platform. Entering the cards, service requests & payment were very straightforward. I am surprised they do not have a place to enter your USPS / FedEx tracking number - that worries me a little bit.


My curiosity has been killing me for where these cards stand. For my first run, I settled on eight cards.
_________________________________________

PS - If anyone is curious they are:

1) 1950 Bowman Jackie Robinson - bought from a large ungraded lot, strong eye appeal, strong corners & centering. Could be A-1-1.5-2. Great eye appeal but a hard corner crease + small stain. Very curious.

2) 1933 Goudey Paul Waner - I won two years ago in an auction as an ungraded single card. Fantastic eye appeal. Straight borders, great centering, sharp corners, the card measures. If it is not altered, it should score in the 4-5-6 range. The card "pops".

3) 1956 Topps Ted Williams - another card bought from a large ungraded auction lot that looks a legit EX w/ near perfect centering.

4) 1951 Bowman (football) Sammy Baugh - The card appears to be in 7-7.5-8 range. It's fantastic. Corners that can cut glass, but the card measures correctly.

and four different T206s:

5) A beater Speaker that looks like it was in the infantry during WWI & WWII - I just want to confirm it is authentic.
6) An OMSL Ryan. Another gem I won in an large ungraded auction lot.
7) & 8) Two scarce back T206s, again could be anywhere from 1.5 to 4.


My first grading submission, and I must admit that I'm pretty excited.
Trying to keep my expectations grounded.

Peter, PSA has recently "lost" one of our group subs. I am not too happy about it, as you would think with all the value of the orders, that they would have a top notch tracking policy in place. Will let you know how it transpires.

i graded my first card a few months ago with SGC and have not looked back. you made a good choice,

What does this tell us about the strangle hold that PSA actually has on the market that people will wait a year or more to get their cards back in PSA holders as opposed to going with a competitor?

And I highly doubt they are not pumping out submissions for all of the auction houses and their top submitters. Sure for those folks it is business as usual.

I recently sold on ebay an SGC 10 basketball hall of fame rookie card from the 90s. It went for about 40 percent of what a PSA 10 sells for, or perhaps less.

that's just stoopid!

There are two different SGC 10s now, right? That is, two different grades that are both identified as a 10 on the label.

Sick. PSA has done an outstanding job of making people believe they are the only game in town. I don't see that kind of disparity on vintage but it would appear that SGC modern is selling for much less than BGS too.

Nat may not have to buy SGC. Other than Mike, SGC may end up with no customers if this trend continues.

When I got back into the hobby, which was nearly 20 years ago now, BGS 9.5s consistently sold for a premium over PSA 10s. So, y'know, things can change.

I'm still only slightly bigger than small potatoes, but I spend $20k with PSA a year on advertising alone. I don't get any special treatment on my subs, FWIW.

Not an insignificant amount of money at all but I think it takes much more than that to play over there. At least from the bits of info I have been given.

Like I said that's just my advertising budget. Cards makes it significantly more. But yes, still only medium potatoes at most:D

Yes......crazy as that sounds!
 

Yes:

SGC 10 Gem
SGC 10 Pristine Gold Label

You have to have a keen eye and training to tell a Gem from a Pristine! lol

That is a bit too much I'd say!

Some cool cards.....
 

Just got these back today! The Payton RC is amazing!

Mike

Attachment 477017

PS Sent snail mail on 8/4/21......got them back in mail today!

Thanks for sharing Mike. Congrats. So how long was the grading process once they arrived in FL?

Sgc hasnt a dam clue.


They recently graded 15 1952 topps "canadian gray backs" (their description from their drop down menu) with a note "we only label red and black backs" and for me to "send a scan" of the Frank house yellow tiger to determine if it qualifies for the variation label.

They never even looked at my submission paperwork, just took the fees and graded them as commons.

I blame it on Matt not being there anymore. Before if there was a problem he took care of it right away and always answered any questions I had.

There are still way better than dealing with PSA and the laundry list of problems there.

Cant say PSA has ever graded a submission...entirely wrong! At least not on my end, but I'm sure it happened.

Also, Tom was in the shipping or review department, not sure which. He would always catch small things like this, or call if there was a dispute over a variation.


Weird times! You'd think they'd be trying to capitalize on market share instead of losing it. I'd send then some doggie doo from my sneaker before I send another card to then. In essence, I now have 15 misgraded "commons", at risk to damage by cracked out

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Hopefully they fix it for you. I have had PSA screw up an entire order. Every card came back graded a 8. That included the card with a huge crease.:eek:

I will update. Right now they are refusing to grade any as gray backs.

"
The submission is enroute to you. When you receive it can you send me an image of the Frank House card and I'll see if it's a "yellow tiger" card? My verification team makes the decision on what the label should look say. They let me know that we don't indicate gray back on the label."



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20 days
 

They got them and logged on 8/10/21, the cards were graded on 8/30/21 and on way back two days later!

Really nice to have cards graded fairly, economically, and on a timeline that they tell you will happen!

Usually they are even quicker but I think they have been getting swamped lately!

Mike

Thanks Mike! Sounds like only one TPG is doing it the right way.

They sure have
 

And along with KSA has come another Canuck grading company which is also gaining momentum among hockey collectors in Canada; Mint Grading. And no, it's not the the same company as the lower end grading company.

Their twitter is here
And their website is here

Their slabs are very similar to Beckett. It's nice to see our neighbors up north get some grading choices. I know a lot have issues with sending stuff to the states to be graded. More power to them!

Shipped 19 T206s to Boca Raton, they got em on the 11th of Aug, and I got em back yesterday, Sept 4. SGC all day long baby!!

Side Note: Shipped 10 T206s to PSA last year, still waiting………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …..

Damn....
 

Colton,

I love the time comparison.....it's like getting your cards back lets say yesterday or maybe in a couple years. Wild times indeed. TBH no matter what you posted I was gonna respond since my fave number is 444 and well, look how many posts you have! :) :cool:

Peace, Mike

I've been pretty impressed with SGC this year. All of my standard orders have been completed within 2 weeks, and most were within one week. All of my grades have been both fair and predictable/reliable, unlike with PSA where recent grades have been a complete roll of the dice depending on which grader you get on which day. PSA turnarounds are fast now as well, but they cost $200+ per card, so that's not exactly impressive. Also, SGC slabs are starting to close the crazy gap in sales prices between them and PSA, which really widened over the past year or two, especially with modern and in other sports.

I'm also happy to report that I haven't received a single slab with sharp corners poking out on the black insert in a long time. They appear to have fixed this QC issue.

I am a huge SGC supporter. But I see zero evidence of this. With tobacco cards (and perhaps other pre-war) there is and never has been a 'premium'. outside of tobacco, trying to sell an SGC slab is next to impossible without a steep discount.

Agreed I do not see any evidence of that and we had another Thread where I believe Ryan H. Showed a couple of cards that had the Same grade SGC vs PSA and PSA was almost 40% more expensive and most of the thread had everyone split which was nicer and which was not

The Thread was called which one was nicer

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=306452

12 gray backs. All mislabeled

1 yellow tiger house mislabeled


All were described appropriately via SGCs drop down menu

Graded fast...but no excuse

People really graded VG commons at $25 a card? https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...f5a881fe95.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...68fc432551.jpg

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Do you have some examples of these backs next to the typical red backs and black backs that you can post? Same card side-by-side, one gray, one not?

Last time I had an issue with a couple of SGC graded cards, I reached out to customer service and they were on it right away. I literally received a phone call that evening from an executive and the following morning I had a FedEx overnight label in my inbox. I shipped the cards out from CA to FL that day, and literally had them back in hand with new holders 42 hours later. Granted, they were high-ish end cards, but the customer service I received was outstanding. Hopefully yours will be as well.

The back scan has a cream back at the end. I guarantee they are gray backs. Sgc also labeled them as "Canadian" in the past.



"My verification team has informed me that we only recognize Red and Black backs on the label. Not Gray backs. "



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Ted that sucks!

At least they said they look at the house yellow tiger to determine if I should resubmit. Ha

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I didn't mean to question whether or not they were indeed gray backs. You have quite a collection of 52 Topps from as far as I can tell. I'm just trying to see what the difference is for myself and wondering why SGC might not want to recognize them. I also wonder if I might have some in my collection? I can't seem to find good comparison photos of these online anywhere. And PSA's photos don't appear to be particularly helpful. What about them makes them "gray"? Because from the ones I've seen, they don't look like the 1956 Topps where the colors are clearly distinguishable from white and gray backs. I must be missing something.

They are more noticeable in hand. You think that one is tough....trying examining 1968 Topps Milton Bradley vs Regular Topps.

IMHO The grading companies are in a world of hurt right now. And they have reached a point where people are just shoveling money at them. So it isn't a financial problem. It is a customer service and quality control issue. They simply don't have enough competent workers to keep up with demand.

"My verification team has informed me that we only recognize Red and Black backs on the label. Not Gray backs. "



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From a quick ebay search this seems to be accurate. They have 0 gray back SGC cards for sale and the only 2 that have sold recently were not labeled gray backs.

My 2 thoughts (not that they mean much)

1) Anyone who is expert enough to want and pay premiums for the gray back probably aren't going to need the label to verify that it is actually a gray back.

2) If the SGC drop down and your order/invoice showed "gray back" as a label distinction then they owe you a partial refund at the very least, since you paid to have them labeled under that pretense.

Out of curiosity who have you been corresponding with at SGC?
I've had nothing but good experience with their customer service in the past, including recently.



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From a quick ebay search this seems to be accurate. They have 0 gray back SGC cards for sale and the only 2 that have sold recently were not labeled gray backs.

My 2 thoughts (not that they mean much)

1) Anyone who is expert enough to want and pay premiums for the gray back probably aren't going to need the label to verify that it is actually a gray back.

2) If the SGC drop down and your order/invoice showed "gray back" as a label distinction then they owe you a partial refund at the very least, since you paid to have them labeled under that pretense.

Out of curiosity who have you been corresponding with at SGC?
I've had nothing but good experience with their customer service in the past, including recently.



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Your 2 centsbare appreciated !

It's some kid in customer service, Brent.

Yes I chose either "gray back" or "canadian" from their drop down menu with a note asking of they could label either all as gray back or all as canadian. The real shame was I sent the Frank house yellow tiger...gray back to them for proper labeling. It's as rare as a 52 Mantle in PSA 8 and they blew it!

I have half a dozen 1954 Topps Canadians I was going to send in to get holdered. Now I wonder if I should do that. As you said, there is an option for those in the SGC drop-down and they have graded and labeled them as such before.

Gray backs
 

The gray backs in lower condition easily sell for $500, and probably much more, compared to maybe $20 for the regular backs.

Not sure what they are doing over there
Thankfully their heads are so far up their ass they can see t206 backs from their throat.

"
Yellow Tiger is not a variation we acknowledge on the label. The card is correctly labeled"

I've disputed the entire credit card charge. $540 wasted.


Now that they are holdered and NOT labeled properly, I'm at risk breaking them out

Dealign with SGC lately has been bizarre, especially with regard to obscure issues. For a time after their move to the new pricing schedule, they sent back quite a few vintage Japanese baseball, Cuban league baseball, and soccer as issues they didn't grade. More recently, they've graded more of the obscure cards I've submitted (including some they rejected just a few months ago).

That said, I've found the grading pretty fair. There seems to be some compaction at the lower end of the scale, where cards I would have expected in the past to grade 2-3 are grade 1.1.5, but then again a few cards I was less confident about graded higher. So who knows?

Anyway, their turnaround time certainly can't be beat!

As far as grading I've noticed they went from not caring about centering, to quite strict on overall grade due to centering. Pretty weird, but it's their future.

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Can I see the Frank House Ted?

1952 topps Frank house Yellow Tiger gray back. Me thinks SGC would have had a nice card here for advertising had they labeled it appropriately. Likely as Rare as a psa 9 mantle, definately rarer than a wagner! Sadly not as valuable .... though the last one did five figures in a private sale.

They screwed the pooch. They wont miss my revenue. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...c44bbbad36.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...e661784f53.jpg

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Turnaround times at SGC are increasing. They're up to 16 business days now. More and more people are making the move over to SGC. I hope that trend continues. They're so much better than PSA in every aspect other than resale prices, in my opinion. But they're closing the gap with modern cards.

So...they are better than PSA except for the most important metric of all. Got it.

PS - I think Ted would disagree with you.

Weirdly that is very true. Planning a PSA group sub any time soon?

We are not all sellers or flippers, so many of us would disagree that is the most important metric, but I get your point.

PSA just dropped their express service fees back to $150, so that's something.

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I REFUSE to pay $30 a card to get cards graded. I am waiting for the quarterly specials to open back up. I have over 2 long boxes of raw cards. Sports. Non Sports. I am sure I have something, to meet another swinging sixties, rocking seventies, or roaring 40's.

i used SGC a few times for things i want to keep (the black slab look is awesome), and they did a nice job. but not sure i see this financial gap closing as you say. aside from iconic stuff, all the modern SGC cards i see are going for way less than PSA (i don't have time to do a lengthy study, but the difference appears significant on items i've seen).

Its only a difference of 1000× sales price, nothing to see here. Akin to grading a t206 Magie or doyle error wrong

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Ted, are you gonna keep it labeled wrong and sell it as a Yellow Tiger anyway?? That is what I may wind up doing with a Milton Bradley Nolan Ryan rookie they graded as a Topps. Anyone with two eyes can see mine is a Milton Bradley. Anyone with two eyes can see yours is a yellow tiger.

As a buyer, I’m totally fine with the gap right now.

Depends, psa said I can have it either as gray back OR yellow tiger. I'm not sure if both will fit on the label,

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That depends on how you define the most important metric though. If your goal is profit from a card that is worth ~$5k raw by getting it graded, then perhaps the resale value of getting it grades by PSA vs SGC is most important. But that's not the only relevant factor in the equation to me. You also have to take into account the cost of grading, the turnaround times, and the actual grades themselves. Recently, PSA has been extremely harsh with their grades. To the point where what used to be a 9 is now an 8, and what used to be a 5 is now a 4 or sometimes even a 3. I've also seen numerous cards with minor creases that used to get 4s now getting 1s and 1.5s. If you were to submit these same cards to SGC and received a more fair and consistent grade (which they have definitely been more consistent and reliable recently, in my experience) then the resale value of an SGC 8 vs a PSA 7 all of a sudden matters. It's not just about comparing SGC 10 vs PSA 10 prices. Sometimes it is, but it's often not.

Also, what if you're looking to get this graded for your PC? Maybe you don't want to shell out $300 to have it graded? And what if you're looking to hold it for 5+ years? If SGC continues to gain market share, then the price gap between them and PSA will continue to narrow. 5 years down the line, the differences might not be as drastic.

Resale prices matter, but it's not always an apples to apples comparison. I can't tell you how many truly perfect cards I've had over the years in PSA 9 holders. Sure, most 9s have some minor flaw, but there is no shortage of gem mint cards in PSA 9 holders. I've cracked out a lot of them and crossed them over to BGS or SGC and they were given the gem mint grades they deserved and ended up selling for significantly more than they would have in their PSA slab.

If I have time, maybe I'll post a thread showing the data and how it has changed over time. I've definitely been watching it though, and the gap is narrowing. But there's still a significant gap between a PSA 10 and an SGC 10. However, there's also a significant gap between a PSA 10 and a gold label SGC 10 in the other direction. The narrowing of that gap though is what interests me the most. How long might it take for them to catch up, if they ever could, remains to be seen. But if I'm looking to buy a nice copy of a high-end card that I intend to hold for at least 5 to 10 years, I'm buying it in an SGC holder because not only will I get the gains of whatever the future market value of that card is, I will also get the future gains of SGC's closing of the gap in pricing as they continue to gain market share (if that indeed continues, and I anticipate that it will).

My sense is that this narrowing is mostly due to PSA shutting most of their service down. I imagine that once they are accepting regular and economy orders again, things will trend back to how they have been.

Red Back and Black back refer to ink. Gray backs refers to a rare card stock in one series of 1952 Topps. The overwhelming majority of cards in that series have a cream colored stock. I think there was some confusion about the terms. Hopefully this clears it up.

Thanks Scott.

I've filed a dispute on my CC as their dropdown has the choices for variations, but they will not honor their own system. I would not have sent them in if I had known this. Now I risk damage cracking them out, or face questions listing them as gray backs in their holder. Lose/lose and out 600$

has anyone had a recent SGC submission?
what is their current timing from receipt of cards to the grading stage?

I sent in a small 9 card standard submission that was received on 9/21. It remains in "Received" status.

interesting... they were turning around in 10-14 days for a while. I doubt there are more submissions coming in now .... did they fire employees?

I sent 7 cards that were received 9/9. They just updated to ‘post grade processing’ today, 10/14.

i sent in 2 orders over the past few weeks. they are saying 45-50 business days now - not sure if that's accurate. my oldest one was received on sept 20, still in "received" mode.

Yes, they are receiving more submissions now. And you should expect the trend to continue until PSA reopens the floodgates. SGC is gaining significant market share. They are still hiring, not firing.

My last order with SGC was received on 9/2, graded on 10/4, and shipped back to me on 10/5.

I sent 10 T206s to SGC last week. My only choices of service were 45-60 days for $30 each or $2500 for 3 business days turnaround ( I assume that's for all 10 cards ) ?

good to hear that, but are you guessing? or do you know this to be the case... I find it hard to believe that submissions anywhere are higher than a few months ago..

SGC received my three cards on September 9th and they were graded on October 13th. They are shipping them back today. Since I live only 30 minutes away I should receive them tomorrow.

I know this to be the case that their submissions are increasing. Or rather, I take them at their word for it. Peter, the CEO, recently posted a video on social media where he talks about their decision to increase their promised turn-around times from 25-30 days to 45-60 days because they are getting slammed with an increase in submissions. It also aligns anecdotally with what I'm seeing on other forums and chat groups I've been in where a lot of submitters are making the transition over to SGC now because their turnaround times and customer service have been so good lately. Plus, the gap in sales prices between them and PSA has been narrowing. All are good signs for SGC. Also worth noting is that a lot of people were holding out in anticipation that PSA would have reopened bulk grading by now. I think they're slowly realizing that this actually isn't going to happen any time soon, so they're more willing to try out other options now.

great intel. thank you. however I do not see any demand for SGC in the secondary market outside of pre-war. I was just offered a 40% discount on a perfect SGC 9 gretzky listed card I have and could not get a dollar more. the general population of collectors does not respect SGC unfortunately. the pre-war collector is typically more knowledgeable, which is why SGC=PSA in pre-war resale generally.

yup, totally agree. it's actually not a horrible idea to buy up a bunch of SGC vintage/modern stuff and submit to PSA down the line (assuming one thinks they'll reopen bulk at some point, which i figure they will - at the very least, they need that registry customer who wants to slab a candy maldonado card).

The registry is the reason for the price differential. PSA has a great registry; SGC doesn’t.

has anyone received an order back from SGC in the last week? If so, what was the date SGC received the order? I am trying to get the most updated timing as I am still waiting.

I'm waiting on an order received on 10/11...

Apparently grades are posting now for the $30 sub level that were received on 9/24.

I’m waiting on a sub received on 10/4/21.

Added: In Receive status currently.

And I will update any changes as I see them with dates.

Butch,
Let us know when yours goes post grading please, I’ll be excited as my order was received 10/5, thx & Cheers

Colton

Thank you for all of these responses.

If they are posting grades now for 9/24 received orders, then my 9/30 should post in the next few days....

they must getting a ton of submissions, because these turnaround times are beyond 30days... that is longer than what it was in late Sept.