SGC-Incredible Turnaround Time!!!
 

I know there have been other threads about SGC and their great customer service, but listen to this: I sent three cards to them on Monday 9-26. SGC received them on Thursday 9-29. Graded them on Thursday 9-29. And shipped them on Friday 9-30. The cards are being delivered today 10-3! Now that's pretty incredible, right? And that was at the 30 dollar level!!

Joe Kemmett

I had the same experience. They graded my cards the next day.

Good for those who are sending cards in for grading, but is it a bad sign for SGC that they don't have much business these days? Did they staff up too much, and no longer have the demand?

Scott S@r!@n

SGC turnaround time
 

Moonlight- that’s incredible, happy for you. Imagine that, a TPG doing what they promise to do:) Trent King

This seems to be the norm for them for some time now... I have a stack of cards I would send them, but I'm waiting for a price drop on standard service. (That has to be coming soon, right?)

Same.....right now there is ZERO benefit for me to use them. PSA has cheaper pricing just as a normal member.

I have been quite critical of SGC's grading...PSA's as well. I recently saw a friends semi large vintage submission come back from SGC. It was all lower to mid grade cards but grades appeared to be spot on. Also the order was processed and back in his hands within 10 calendar days with 4 of those days being in the postal system.

That's a pleasant surprise...Jerry

Inasmuch as SGC seems to barely have enough business to keep its expanded grading staff busy, I, too, expect to see a price decrease before long.

[QUOTE=scooter729;2269695]Good for those who are sending cards in for grading, but is it a bad sign for SGC that they don't have much business these days? Did they staff up too much, and no longer have the demand?

Scott S@r!@n[/QUOTE

No, unlike PSA they are doing the job they pledged to do

Sgc
 

Cammb wins, that's the correct answer. Sad (but understandable) that so
many people have become jaded by bad business practices, that they
become suspicious of the good- Trent King

What is the saying?? One bad apple spoils the bunch?

Sgc bulk no $18!
 

SGC site states now that bulk orders fo 50+ cards are $18 per!

SGC turnaround!
 

Another amazing turnaround.
Sent 98 cards to them Last Friday (October 7th)
received on Monday, October 10th.
graded on the 12th and shipped back to me.
expected arrival tomorrow October 14th.
Service means a lot and being able to turn cards back into $$ this quick far outweighs the months the same cards would be at PSA never mind the inevitable upcharges and fact that the max values for the same priced tiers is significantly different.
Jeff Weisenberg

Great to hear Jeff! will be sending some in soon, give them a little business!

see what happens, I hoping all grading prices are starting to change again - looks like PSA did as well!

Jimmy

I sent a submission there on Monday 10/17, received by SGC on 10/20, graded and shipped 10/21... it's amazing

another post about SGC turnaround times...
it baffles me why people think this is a good thing for the company.

Then why did you use them, as you said in post 2, unless I am misunderstanding?

Scott, you know better than to be rational on this subject around here. SGC IS THE BEST PERIOD PARAGRAPH.

SGC turnarounds
 

PeterSpaeth- is it "rational" to type snide remarks in all caps? We get it,
you're a PSA lean. That's great for you, so long as the bottom doesn't fall out
of their (grotesquely undeserved) pole position status. It is rational, by the
way, to appreciate a TPG that actually delivers on their turnaround times.
Start an "I love PSA" thread if SGC bothers you so much, jeesh!

Trent King

It's all good, Trent.:cool:

What would be amazing is if SGC maintains these turnaround times coupled with reasonable grading fees well into the future. My guess is that they are getting significantly fewer cards and have the same number of staff that they had at the peak.

If they are willing to work on lower margins, and they continue to offer reasonable grading fees with incredible turnaround times, fantastic. My hunch is that this is very temporary until they decide to lay off and cut overhead. What was once being done in a day will then be done in a month.

Looks like the Card Craze has come to an end and back to normal...no more long waits and crazy prices, for grading at least

Most of us PSA fanboys would be pretty ecstatic about 1 month turnaround time, particularly at the bulk service/price level.

I remember the days when bulk $5 or $6 per card would take up to a month and how frustrating it was when it took closer to 6 weeks. Now we can pay PSA $100 per card and wait at least a month to get it back. And most of us will do that well before we would pay SGC $18 to $24 per card for 1 week door to door service.

With any luck, all of this capacity that PSA has developed will chew through their backlog, and if submissions stay low, then they will have to lower their prices to keep all of those graders busy, with hopefully quicker turnaround to boot!

But right now, that seems more like wishful thinking more than a solid conviction.

Nobody is seriously threatening their very high market share. It seems to me the biggest risk to them is if overall market submissions drop, because prospectors change their minds about submitting endless volumes of new stuff.

Precisely.

Random ebay search.
PSA Jasson Dominguez 2300+
SGC Jasson Dominguez 243

PSA Mike Trout 16000+
SGC Mike Trout 1000_

Carry on.

My, admittedly cynical opinion, is that PSA and SGC lay off people to keep profits high before they maintain the overhead simply to provide us better turnaround times. Especially in PSA's case, they know we will wait 18 months to get cards back and the way we show how upset we are is to keep sending them more and more stuff.

Not sure how much lower prices can go at SGC but PSA could lower bulk rates but I doubt they will lower any other grading tiers. Maybe PSA will start to offer regular monthly specials for the high tiers as things continue to slow down.

I keep reading that PSA outsells SGC every time. Meanwhile, I keep crossing laughably undergraded PSA slabs into accurately graded SGC holders.

I will continue to use both SGC and PSA, as I have subs at both companies right now, but have been leaning towards PSA for higher end cards and SGC for some niche cards that I like in their holders better than PS, but if SGC pricing came down and they had a registry then I may come back to SGC for all subs or if PSA came down in price and kept their current turn times then I don't know...my problem I don't have a loyalty and just sub to whoever I am in the mood for on the day I get my sub together...for example if I have something I want back fast then SGC if not then PSA...I guess just wishy washy alas Charlie Brown

Or one is more lenient than the other.
.

That's one way to look at it. But when you compare cards in old PSA holders to new ones, the difference is striking. Seems like PSA has become stricter by about 2 grades, some times even more.

When I look at SGC cards that were graded a decade ago, yes SGC has gotten slightly more strict, but overall seems a lot more consistent over time than PSA.

I think this relative consistency by SGC is a good thing.

Exactly this. It's not an issue of SGC being more lenient than PSA. It's an issue of competency at PSA with their 100+ newly hired inexperienced graders. These guys simply don't know how to grade vintage. PSA grades are wildly inconsistent. It's a HUGE problem. They truly are off by a full 2 grades these days on a ton of cards, and reliably off by at least one full grade. SGC has tightened up a little bit compared to prior industry standards, as you mentioned, but many of the grades coming out of PSA right now are facepalm worthy. I would argue that consistency is the single most important aspect of the grading industry behind the ability to spot a fake.

This one was a mystery to me but PSA just confirmed the grade.

Absolutely agree that PSA is a wreck in the grading room. Too many graders. SGC on higher grade vintage is not doing much better from what I am seeing unless they are cards in submissions from the major auction houses.

I do not like what I am seeing coming from either of them on NM or better vintage. They both are failing miserably at their job. PSA might have more inexperienced graders but SGC is a very close second. Couple that with dudes seeing mostly modern stuff and you have a recipe for nice vintage getting crushed.

Ya, SGC is grading the NM+ stuff pretty harshly as well right now. But they're more fair with the mid grade stuff, which is what I mainly collect. I don't like VG cards, but I sure have been buying a lot of PSA 3 holders lately. I just crack them out the moment they arrive and laugh at the grade. Then SGC gives them 4s and 5s every time. It's pretty funny honestly.

Sending a card in to PSA for review is generally not a good idea. They have a serious problem with hubris. Unless there's some significant surface flaw that we can't see from the scans, there's just no way that card is a 4. It should be a 6 at minumum today, and if graded 10+ years ago, the same card would be in an 8 or 9 holder. They're such a joke. It baffles my mind that the hobby awards them the level of respect that they have.

Is there a surface wrinkle on the front, in the red border, below the name Santarosa'?

I don't think so?

Agreed. Having PSA review something they have already graded expecting a change in the grade is dreaming.

The example above is not a good one to truly showcase the harsh grading. That issue is literally newsprint. Super thin and prone to small bends/crinkles/wrinkles. Most graded examples look like 9s or 10s and are in 4s and 5s due to those imperfections that do not even break the surfaces. The one posted above has to have several of those bends.

Thanks. I looked at it closely and so did a friend who's been doing this for 30 years and neither of us saw anything.

As I was saying...and confirmed by the first seller of this card back in March 2021:

"Spectacular copy of the assigned grade. Possessing large red borders with four dagger corners and sensational surfaces. A lone, very light wrinkle on the reverse is all that keeps from grading higher. A steal for the assigned grade. One of over 36,000 cards, lots and sets up for bid in our March Auction of 2021. Click on the link above to view the other PWCC auction lots."

Never too late for an eye exam...especially the guy with 30 years in.

Hmmmm. I must need an exam too, I sure don't see any wrinkle. So it goes I guess.

Easy to beat up the grading companies and often they deserve it. A 4 that looks like a 9 is always more than the grading service being tough.

Might want to get a new guy with less than 30 years in the hobby for opinions and advice.

So just what is the "sweet spot " for experience?

Some complain that the graders are all new now, and don't know cards.
Then it's "get someone with less than 30 years of experience"

The same for potential conflicts
"cards should be graded by people who don't collect"
"Cards need to be graded by people who actually know something about cards."

Common sense tells me to always take the guy with 30 yrs experience over someone new, all other things being equal. As the original auction mentioned, there is a very light wrinkle somewhere.
.

Actually, it should be that cards aren't graded by anyone that has a vested interest, or any other real or perceived conflict of interest, in the cards they are grading. Whether they actually collect cards themselves doesn't really matter as long as the person doing the grading has a sufficient and appropriate level of training and/or experience.

And a grader doesn't necessarily need 30 years of experience if they've received the proper training and supervision. However, there seems to be a lack of transparency (or at least a lack of knowledge and understanding) for many people in regard to TPGs and as to exactly what training, instruction, and supervision their graders do receive. The common perception is often that someone with 30 years of experience has had enough "on-the-job" training, so to speak, to where they don't/didn't need any formal training and supervision. An appropriate blend of the two, training and experience, is what you'd ideally look for and want in any profession, including a card grader.

But even then, what exact training, instruction, and supervision did that grader receive, or what exactly did their 30 years of experience entail? With no common and agreed upon across-the-hobby standards, no independent review and certification of training programs being given, and absolutely no idea of exactly what a person's experience with cards may have been, there is no guarantee that someone that went through supposedly rigorous training, AND had years of experience collecting cards, would end up being a good card grader.

My observation is that attention to detail is far more important than experience when it comes to someone's ability to accurately grade cards. Some people are just much more detail-oriented than others. I've encountered no shortage of dealers with 30+ years in the hobby who think their VG cards are "Near Mint". I respect them and their experiences for some things, but grading often isn't one of them. That said, I'll take a detail-oriented dealer with 30 years of experience over a detail-oriented one with 5 every time.

The card has come back with a note pointing to an alleged "bend" that my apparently vision-impaired friend says he does not see. A bend is not the same thing as a light wrinkle, IMO, so perhaps Brent and team need eye exams too. In any event, so it goes.

This issue is made of thin newsprint. A bend on this issue is a wrinkle/crease...it is semantics. If PWCC saw something and someone else (PSA presumably) placed a note on it then your friend might want to quit his day job. Dunno about you but I like the advice I seek served accurate.

On a thin newsprint issue, if there was a bend or wrinkle, wouldn't it likely break the paper and be on both sides? PWCC's description mentions only the back, and the note from PSA was placed on the back as I should have mentioned if I did not.

Sure seems like it would be on both sides, unless it was the world’s lightest bend.

I guess there can be very very subtle wrinkles or paper defects. I remember many years ago I bought a Goudey card in a 4 that looked like a 7 from a guy who is now the head of a major auction house, and he said he had looked it over multiple times and had no idea why PSA had hammered it. I guess for me the question is, is whatever it is so subtle that another grading company might miss it, or wouldn't take off 4 grades for it with the card obviously so visually appealing, but that's probably a fool's game.

Once a card is in the holder it is much more difficult to find flaws, imo. If someone is not great at assessing raw cards they will be horrible assessing them once they are entombed.

I have never been lucky enough to have a TPG not take off a 4 grade deficit for a flaw on an otherwise immaculate card. With that said, no TPG is immune from seeing things that might not actually be there. Sometimes it is nothing more than interpretation of some anomaly.

PSA is just begging us to send our cards over to SGC now. Here's another recently graded facepalm "3" I got back from the noobs at PSA. Note there are no creases or wrinkles or hidden flaws or issues on the back, etc. This is not what a 3 looks like. This is what a 4.5 looks like. We're actually at a point now where putting a card in a PSA slab often lowers the value of the card as opposed to increasing it. This card would sell for a lot more raw than it would in this trainwreck of a holder. And they couldn't even bother to give it a 3.5 (let alone the 4.5 it deserves) despite the fact that it has great color and perfect centering in a set where less than 5% of cards are actually centered? LOL. :rolleyes:

There was once a time, not too long ago, where this card would have actually gotten a 5 or 5.5 from PSA. I'll send this off to SGC. Anyone want to place a wager on whether or not it comes back in a 4.5 holder then?

I still have my old school grading biases, to me that card looks like a 5 easily.

4.5 to me even on today's tighter standards, assuming no wrinkles or creases. I see some surface scratches but maybe that is the holder. Great looking card and selling it raw would go for much more than it would in the 3.

Travis, what is the red "spot" on Jackie's shoulder?

No creases or wrinkles. A little bit of light surface wear and soft corners. That's it. No corner creases or bends. Top right corner is probably the biggest offender on this card. The red dot is just a print dot. No blood or anything like that lol.

Well you got the beat down and I am sorry. Until this example, and I trust your assessment entirely, I thought hammering the submitter only happened on vintage that is NM and above.

I am not sure what the solution is but for the last year I have been telling everyone not to submit unless you need to do so to sell and be prepared to be disappointed. I have a stack of cards in all conditions and all values that are part of my collection and no way I am wasting the money to send them in. Rather keep the 10K in grading fees in cash. 10K assumes they get it close to right on all of the cards the first time, which is 100% impossible.

I remember way back in the day people on the CU Forum used to joke about getting hammered by the fictional "Grader of Death." I think the Grader of Death would be welcome in today's beat-down world.

I would like to see the back of the Robinson. Just to give it a decent assessment. From what I see of the front though, it looks really nice and undergraded.

I have a two-card order with SGC that has been in post-grading processing since 10/20. I contacted them yesterday regarding status, and was told that someone would be in touch to "discuss" my order-- no word today.

Has anyone been through anything similar with SGC before? Wondering if my cards are lost/damaged, or if they're looking to upcharge, or...

I had a similar situation with my latest sub, where one of my cards came back with a large crease on the back that was not there when subbed. The card was shipped securely, so confident it did t happen during the shipping process.
I emailed and got a response back immediately from Brent to send pics and order #, which I promptly sent and now a week later no response.
My original email was just asking to address with the grader so this doesn't happen in the future no refund etc., just accountability, so just wanted a follow up. Accidents happen and since the crease can't be taken back, just a friendly reminder to the grader to be more careful is all I wanted.

Rumor has it they're grading the orders so fast now that the postal truck delivering the orders to SGC is just waiting there to take them back to the post office after they are graded.

I guess I know where I am sending my 2023s! Not sure what else this means.

I heard they hired Chuck Norris, who grades and slabs the cards before they even get there.

Maybe grading so fast because the volume is down and their labor force has increased. IDK

Some up to date October numbers.

Up 17%!!!

What impresses me is that the newcomer CSG has more submissions then SGC & Beckett combined

That relationship with Brent is paying off.

I didn't realize Beckett was that small. Have they lost a ton of business over the last few years? I know they used to be the king of modern cards.

In case anyone is curious, turns out that SGC accidentally creased an N172 Adonis Terry I had sent them, taking it from an SGC 3 to an SGC 1.

They offered to pay me what I thought was a a fair differential between a 3 and a 1, as well as adding some free grading vouchers.

They clearly felt awful, but things happen when you're dealing with old cardboard, so it's all good.

That sucks, glad it worked out in the end.:)

Down 18 percent just this one month. I think one can probably fairly extrapolate a big loss over the last few years.

In a different post where someone had shown this same breakdown/info for an earlier month, I had asked what the two numbers that added up to CSG's total number of graded cards was, and thought I remember someone responded the first was for graded sports cards, and the second for other non-sports cards, like gaming cards. If true, it looks like CSG does a whole lot less sports card grading than they do non-sports cards. Now I don't know what the breakdown might be for SGC and Beckett between sports and non-sports, so is it possible that CSG actually still lags behind SGC (and possibly Beckett) after all when it comes to grading sports cards? And is PWCC really into and involved with non-sports cards? If not, and SGC (and possibly Beckett) really is outdoing CSG when it comes to grading sports cards, your statement may not be that accurate.

Also, is it known for certain that PWCC now only sends cards to be graded to CSG, and to no other TPGs at all? I don't go on their site and have no clue as to what they typically sell anymore, and if graded, which TPG(s) typically has/have graded cards being sold by them.

Does PWCC offer grading services for raw cards?
PWCC partners with Certified Collectibles Group (CCG) to provide PWCC clients with prioritized professional grading through CCG’s Certified Guarantee Company (CGC) and Certified Sports Guarantee (CSG) services. CCG is the parent company of CGC and CSG. PWCC has negotiated faster turnaround times and lower fees for PWCC clients through CCG.

What are the advantages of using CCG through PWCC?
Flat fee. Only $20 per card regardless of value, genre, or category. The program currently includes only 2.5 x 3.5 sized cards. The $20 fee includes shipping costs from PWCC to CCG and back to PWCC for sale in the Weekly Sunday Auction.
No upfront costs. After your CCG encapsulated card sells in PWCC’s Weekly Sunday Auction, we will deduct the $20 fixed grading cost from your proceeds.
10-day guarantee. CCG will grade cards within 10 days of receiving them.
Unlimited submissions. Submit unlimited cards. PWCC strongly recommends you submit cards with at least a $100 value to ensure you maximize your profits. For example, if you submit a card that sells for $20, you will net $0 since you will pay $20 for the CCG grading process. If you submit cards that sell for less than $20, you will wind up with a negative balance. If we determine that the cards you submit will not cover the cost of grading when they sell, we reserve the right to return your submission to you without sending it for grading. Using the $100 per card estimate as a guide will help ensure a positive and worthwhile selling experience.
No paperwork. Forget the forms. PWCC will handle the entire process with CCG. You will only need to follow the submission process on PWCC’s website.
CCG to PWCC Weekly. CCG will send your cards directly to PWCC. PWCC will queue them for an upcoming Weekly Sunday Auction when they arrive. It is that simple.

I think PWCC also has or had a deal with Beckett.