SGC Registry – Why isn’t there one?
 

This post topic was brought up at a recent dinner with some other collectors. The question was asked… why isn’t there a SGC registry?

Since SGC (to our knowledge) hasn’t given an official answer on why they don’t have a registry, we came up with the following possible reasons why they don’t:

1. Cost prohibitive – No idea what the cost is, but it too costly for SGC to implement.

2. Data Integrity – SGC doesn’t have the data integrity to have a registry.

3. PSA already cornered the market on registry – PSA started in 1991, they started the PSA registry in 2001. SGC started in 1998, no registry to date. Since PSA has had a registry for over 20 years, SGC is already behind the 8 ball and it wouldn’t make sense to start one now.

4. Not a high priority – SGC determined that this feature isn’t a high priority for collectors.

What say you? Agree with any or is there another reason we missed? I do wish SGC would come out and give an official response on the matter. I know collectors have asked this same question for years.

They had one, which wasn't perfect but was nice.

Then they spent big on a new database that was supposed to fix the problems the old database had. About a year overdue it finally launched but ...
Didn't include the old data.
Didn't work well at all.
And apparently couldn't import the old data.

There were claims of fixing it, but nothing happened, the company sold and I would think the new people just didn't think it was worth it.

The Registry was confirmed Recently, I recommend watching the full Interview but if you want to hear about it alone skip to 52:30. Though he basically said it's probably not coming soon, and an app will be coming to tide us over.

https://www.youtube.com/live/mmWHKPohXvk?feature=share

I have seen this video... still waiting on that app and if it scratches the itch of the registry.

An SGC registry would be cool.

I personally haven't entered anything into the PSA registry, but recently thought I would enter some graded packs. There wasn't a checklist for the packs I wanted to enter, so I tried to request a checklist. Evidently they are way behind entering new checklists for the registry as new requests have been suspended for quite some time while they catch up. I'm still waiting - anyone have any idea when they may start new checklists? PSA customer service recommend I use the "Collectors Showcase" to enter my items, but I don't desire to do that.

Any thoughts?

P.S. Not trying to hijack the original thread.

interesting video and thanks

The old registry was great. The message board was great. I think the registry shit the bed when they changed up the cert numbers.

I have been the squeakiest wheel on this. Won’t stop squeaking until they offer it again.

And it appeared the whole reason they changed the cert number process was to add more anonymity to submissions to prevent tracking of cards within a submission. At the same time they removed the G from SGC...no more guaranty.

Moves that to me seem to point to a company who is not looking out for their base.

What if SGC offered a registry where you could enter cards from any of the big 3/4/5 TPGs? Certainly something that collectors would find useful and it would scratch an itch that the PSA registry doesn't.

Not sure how much revenue for SGC that would generate though. PSA has a good thing (for them) going with their registry which drives folks towards PSA-only slabs if you want to play/compete.

That would be great, but the main problem with doing that is all the TPGs do not agree and play by the same grading standards. And going forward, there would be a potential bias in TPGs maybe grading a little easier if such a registry really took hold of the hobby community. If one TPG graded a little easier than the others, they'd soon start getting more submissions than the other TPGs.

Also, what happens if one of the other TPGs then has to decertify a particular card/cert #, will they share info and let the SGC people handling this combined Registry now?

In any other business, circling the wagons to protect bad actors and insulate the company from liability might draw some harsh consumer response. Not this effed up one.

Because SGC management acts as if keeping PSA #1 in the industry is at the top of its priority list :D

The degree of denial, indifference or tolerance that collectors have is impressive but not in a good way. What elephant in the room, he exclaims, when there are 9 of them.

Orlando, Sloan, Turner and Forman read the room very well -- the ostrich act during the scandal worked to perfection. Not even the elephant in the room is visible when your head is buried in the sand, now is it?

Seems to be it is the prefect crime because the appearance is that there are no victims. Almost unanimous acceptance that this is just the way it is.

My brother and I have discussed doing an independent registry that would allow just that. Of course that would have to be in our copious free time. Since running an auction company is so easy we should be able to hop on that some time around never.

SGC registry?
 

Since we are all guessing, here's a couple for your consideration:

1) The process of collating all past grades is a logistical nightmare.
Far too much buck, not enough bang.

2) Perhaps SGC is simply sticking with it's specialty- honoring their
service promises over something which, in some cases at least, is
little more than an ego massage for certain collectors.

Trent King

SGC could hire a database & web user experience/interface (UX/UI) consulting group any pay them $1-1.5 million to get this done in under 2 years.

But they will not do that.

These companies rarely spend the money on the right tech.

Meanwhile the registry is what has made PSA far and away the industry leader. Ask PSA if the buck was too much for the bang.

At this point I doubt SGC having a registry would help them with market share. I am not into registries.

Love them or hate them, there is no denying that with the set registry, a robust and user friendly pop report, prices realized, and more, PSA dwarfs S_C in terms of resources available to the collector. I don't know if the original intent of the set registry was just to provide a checklist type service or whether they had in mind all that it would become, but it was pure genius.

Make it a business venture. Only cards bought from one of your auctions can be added to your registry.

...and placed into your vault.

They did and those people messed up what they did have.

PSA offers a lot in terms of extras...extra value...extra resources for the collector but grading costs extra, wait times are extra long and customer service is extra horrible.

SGC has a nicer holder, their customer service is terrific, the turnaround times are great and the lower cost in grading is a huge plus. An easy to use pop report would be nice but I do not care about a registry unless in some way it makes their cards more marketable.

With all the ways they outdo PSA none of it is worth it to me when they continue to grade excessively harsh especially when their cards almost always sell for less than same card in the same grade in a PSA holder.

The PSA Set Registry is what drives the graded card market. There is just no denying that. Unless someone comes up with a new twist on a set registry, the mere fact of having one might not have an impact on that grading company's business.

With a 20 year first mover advantage now, and countless collectors committed to it, the PSA set registry is so entrenched I don't think anyone would even care if a competitor came along.

I think that is right. It would be an inside appeal to a competitor's base but not make a dent in PSA's standing within the hobby.

The old message board was a lot of fun I agree and miss it as well. I use to enjoy collecting and using their registry when I first discovered vintage. Good times.

It certainly wouldn't hurt to have another registry, and might put SGC in a better position to capitalize if/when PSA stumbles.

In some ways, I like to think about the old monopoly that WordPerfect used to have in word processing software, with MS Word being little more than an afterthought. Most people were pretty locked into WordPerfect, enjoyed using it, memorized all of the silly function key shortcuts, etc. But eventually, WordPerfect began to stumble. Their product started losing functionality, and became riddled with bugs. Eventually, even the most die-hard supporters started to think it was time to consider an alternative.

Although they had to go kicking and screaming, in the end, even the biggest WordPerfect acolytes couldn't take it anymore, so WordPerfect died and MS Word conquered all. But if MS Word hadn't really made the effort to provide a solid product that could be a real alternative, then no one would have switched.

It usually takes some pretty big failures to get there. But the competition needs to have a compelling value proposition. Otherwise, no amount of failures by the market leader will really matter if the competition won't make the effort to really compete in all of the areas that the consumer values.

SGC registry?
 

To Lorewalker-

The post topic was an inquiry asking for opinions(!) on why SGC doesn't
make use of a set registry. I offered those opinions as part of the back and
forth on topic. I am not at all interested in "asking PSA if the buck was
worth the bang" for a number of reasons, most directly that I don't care
one bit about their registry. Perhaps you could do that for us and report
back in, say, a decade when you get a reply? While I did float an eye roll
toward a couple commenters' free PSA on behalf of PSA- see what I did
there?- it wasn't the point of the post.

Trent King

Pretty much the exact same thing that happened to Lotus 1-2-3 after Excel came along.

And actually, on a certain level, Microsoft did sort of the same things that PSA's Registry did when they came up with their Microsoft Works bundle. At one time they offered it to all the different computer manufacturers who could have them pre-installed on computers they sold. People got so used to using Word and Excel that all the other similar software out there became pretty much abandoned by everyone. Just like the Registry sort of took over and placed PSA at the top of the TPG heap.

Isn't CSG supposed to have some kind of Registry in place, or working on one, as well? Obviously, they haven't been around and graded enough cards yet to make it more meaningful, and possibly allow them to be any competition to PSA's Registry, but if so, I guess they're working on it.

BobC - is Leon charging you per word for your posts now? ;)

Seriously though, does anyone know or have a stab at the percentage of PSA graded cards that are reflected in the registry? Just how big a role does it play?

In some ways, I suspect that we're all looking at the historical premium paid for PSA graded items, and assuming that the Set Registry is driving some or all of that premium, mostly because there's probably not much to suggest that the quality of items with similar grades from other graders is really inferior.

Having said that, my sense is that the premium has narrowed more recently for some graders, particularly for some eras and issues. But there does continue to still be a spread, even if it's not universally the same spread always and everywhere.

I do think that the Set Registry could be a part of the story in that outcome. Another element could just be the fact that so many more items are graded by PSA, which tends to result in greater adoption, and a perception that their items are more widely collected, and therefore more easily sold.

One area where the Set Registry almost definitely has an impact is for items that are at the top of the scale, particularly if the pop count is really low, and it's for an inner-circle HOFer. PSA 10s for items in this category with a pop of 1 or 2 generally sell for astronomic sums, often much more than a similar item might sell if graded by another grader.

Just curious but are you usually a di(k or only all of the time?

Valid comments. PSA did have some epic fails recently but SGC did not seem to want to capitalize or think that they could. Maybe they are content being 2nd and are doing more than enough business. What we might want as end users might not mirror what management feels is warranted for one reason or another. Thinking about their not showing up to grade onsite at the National is one of those things.

Nothing would make me happier than for PSA to get some serious competition.

I think the registry plays little role in rare sets or superstar cards in low or mid grade, but it has entirely created the market for high grade commons and stars. Registry or having the best single is the only reason a 10 outsells a 9; I've yet to meet a single collector that can reliably separate 8/9/10 slabbed cards without seeing the slip. A mint Mantle was worth more than an EX Mantle before PSA, but the multiplier has skyrocketed and half the high grades are effectively imaginary.

Adding a registry wouldn't suddenly make SGC competitive; but it's one of the things you need to be competitive. Somebody will need to do something innovative to take over PSA, but they will also need 'the basics' and the infrastructure that PSA has to take over significant market share.

SGC has never seemed to have much interest in competing, or is a poorly run business. I'm not sure which.

Agreed. And I would bet it could be done a lot quicker than that.

SGC has been asked flavors of the "Where is the Registry?" question now for almost as long as there has been an SGC, which is 25 years. Yes, there were attempts and rough versions in the past that worked or didn't work to some extent, but they have never approached what PSA has.

Why worry about it? If you've watched any of the recent YouTuber videos featuring Peter Steinberg at SGC, it's pretty clear that in the last 2-3 years, SGC has been growing like a teenager on steroids. There was all the knee-jerk stuff during the pandemic where they said "Send us your cards" and the hobby at large called their bluff when PSA shut down, and they got totally buried for months. Then after that they got their feet back under them, but have played a lot of pricing yo-yo games - some of them at least arguably less than professional - since. Can you see why a registry is probably not a priority throughout all of this? Either way and at many different price points, there are plenty of collectors who still seem super willing to send them their cards. Cha-ching, thank you; come again. Honestly for me, if you can enter your cert somewhere with SGC and they can verify the card - even the older slabs - that's good enough for me at this point. They have nice looking slabs and a lot of other stuff going for them. I wouldn't be in a hurry to get back to the registry punchline either...

Well, there is this:
3. Customer acknowledges and agrees that SGC’s owners and employees shall be permitted to submit items for grading and/or authentication without limitation. Furthermore, SGC’s owners and employees may buy, sell, and trade SGC authenticated or graded items without limitation.

Not exactly third party grading.

That's why I didn't call them third party ;). I have little but contempt for the circus of incompetence and almost open corruption plaguing both these firms. But nobody cares about ethics or collecting when there is $$$$ to be made, and so all is forgotten, swept under the rug, and a handful of us shake our fist at the sky.

The holders often present well and I would maybe consider them if they just sold the holders, but as is every graded card I get I liberate and I have never submitted a single card, nor will I.

IMO it's a pretty blatant conflict of interest but you're right nobody cares. Nor does anyone care that they went to random certs, not even PSA has done that. Or that they eliminated the guarantee. Just get those cards back on time and I'm good. :)

SGC registry?
 

Lorewalker- No more false friendliness, eh? Whatever. I'm sure you're
a real sweetheart in person yourself. One thing I am capable of doing,
however, is staying on point. There was nothing provocative at all about
my original response, it was 2 suggestions directly in line with the original
question. You replied with snark, then lashed out when I didn't back off.
Typical attitude, attention span, and value of contribution! Trent King

Everything is fine. There's no issue with conflicts of interest. Or switching to random certs once people started using certs to ID patterns in submitters and find more altered cards. Or shutting down their auto business after that completely fake Marquard fiasco. Or eliminating the guarantee because they have approved so much crap. There's no problem, stop questioning the basis for peoples investments. Money printer go brrrrrr

If the trains run on time, the government can get away with a hell of a lot. Because that's what matters to people.

I only commented on your post. If that was snark I would say you are wound too tight but that is obvious with each of your posts. You are predictably angry in every post you make. Shame too because you make valid points at times which are lost due to the tude.

PSA is knee deep in conflicts of interest too. Hard to know between SGC and PSA which is more compromised. Very hard to support either one, presently.

So I did a little math just to see how many cards were reflected in the registry for a given set. I chose the 1956 Topps baseball set to crunch the numbers.

In total, PSA has graded 345,673 1956 Topps baseball cards. In the 1956 set registry, there are 51,644 cards from 335 folks. Lets say there are another 10% reflected in player, HOF, team, etc. sets. That would give us 56,808 cards. So roughly 16% of the 1956 cards that PSA has graded are attached to the registry.

Is 16% a big number? Big enough to make much of a $$ difference to PSA? Big enough for SGC to invest in the software development and maintenance to create it's own registry? I would bet that the average grade of those 16% of cards is higher than the average grade of the total number graded. And we know the TPGs make more $$ grading higher value cards than lower ones. The registry also incentivizes re-submissions looking for a grade bump. Hard to quantify what the $$ impact to PSA's bottom line the registry represents, but its not hard to see that it is integral to their overall business model.

Yes but not as blatant as the owner being a card dealer apparently grading his own cards.

Well if it does not bother Trent King then it should not bother you.:eek:

Well it is not a good look. I will give you that. I read someplace that Nat moved his office space into the grading room at PSA. Judging by some of the grades he gets, based on his posts in social media, he may as well be grading his own too.

Why not grade his own? It could come out with incontrovertible video evidence that PSA was stealing 10% of cards submitted to them and half the submitters would keep submitting anyways. When there’s no incentive not to be corrupt, things tend to get really dirty.

Well there has yet to be any consequences to the most egregious of offenders of fraud in the hobby. So I would agree that the corruption is not just going to stop because that would be the right thing to do. The hobby was dirty many years ago. Now it is filthy.