SGC'S Aggressive Upcharges
 

They called me earlier today about a Goudey Ruth I submitted at a value of $7499. It only earned a grade of 2, so I was pretty surprised to hear them request another $250 for it at that grade. When I asked for recent comps, the representative pointed to one that reached over 9K from an auction house.

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Well how about that. Maybe Goudey Ruth prices are beginning to climb again after years of flatlining, that is except for #149.

Since I bought mine, the Ruth Goudey's have gone down some....but that's ok, I love it all the same.

As for upcharging, they do it because they can and they make more money. :cool:

https://luckeycards.com/r319ruth2.jpg

Does the TPG reaching out for more $$$ surprise anybody?

Just curious, does a valuation of $7500 trigger a higher grading price?

I still try to figure out why the TPGs charge so much for higher $$ values on cards. Is it to generate a war chest for the future payouts for misgraded cards?

I get the feeling the TPGs would fall back on the subjectivity of grading to weasel their way out of a lawsuit.

Maybe this has something to do with it.

Most likely, this is coming from the collector's buyout. More changes.

Snowman was right! Beckett is crushing it with their fixed fee grading.

Truly, I don't know how they are surviving. I guess the autograph services?

Just say "No!" to the bastiches. That's the answer.

:rolleyes:

To be fair, Beckett graded about 46x as many cards this month as I did.

Not if you want to get top $$ for the items.

Anybody drop off to sgc at the Philly show? Wondering if anybody's order is in the grading process yet.

Well then those top $$ are going to have to come from someone else. If you take out and show me a bunch of plastic slabs, I'll just shake my head and walk away.

But go ahead and finance SGC's business if you want. It's your choice.

:rolleyes:

I just got a message yesterday that my 30 card order is on the way hopefully to be here within a couple days even with the weather in Florida and North Carolina

Perhaps this upgrading price surge is reflective of new management's philosophy: Suck as much out of the collector as possible.

So will PSA eventually just kill the SGC brand, or would that potentially take them into monopoly territory.

Not mine either. 4 cards dropped off on Friday 9/20/2024 and as of today nothing. So much for SGC is faster.... I updated this below. Once I downloaded the SGC app I was able to see my cards and where they were in the grading process. Today 8 business days later all 4 cards are in the post grading stage. So I was wrong in stating SGC was slow. As if today they are right on schedule.
J

Preach!

The Collectors buyout has already ruined them. As predicted, it didn't take long. Rooting hard for CGC to make inroads, and cut into the others' market share.

For those of us mostly dealing in cards worth hundreds instead of thousands of dollars, SGC is pretty great (in my experience) ... but gouging people because they have really nice things is just terrible business.

I made a video suggesting that we should burn all of our SGC cards

https://youtu.be/1SN6srODKyo?si=347F5R0mJwjLXhRu

Now that's both a narrow-minded and self-righteous comment. I could not care less about SGC's business, I care about my business. Grading services are tools for making money, period. My goal when I send in a card is to make it more readily fungible and more valuable for resale. If a slab helps me achieve my goals, I take it. If not, I leave it.

The times I have been upcharged, I have been just fine to pay the difference because it meant that my item was worth a lot more than I thought. The services all have guidelines posted up-front, which I have to accept when I decide to purchase the service, including price tiers. It isn't like an upcharge falls out of the sky. PSA recently hit me with a $50 upcharge because I'd inadvertently submitted an item a tier below its declared value. No complaints on my side with that.

I posted above that SGC hadn't updated my order since 9/20 when I dropped it off. Well insted of using the website I downloaded their app and found update there. My cards are in the post Grading phase. So SGC is living up to its reputation for speedy service.. And I am hoping that I get asked for an upcharge. Because as Adam pointed out it just means I got a grade higher than my estimate and my card will benifit much more financially than the upcharge amount. Full transparency my card is a W519 Unnumbered Ruth. I estimated the value at 7k if it got a 2 or above I might get an upcharge.
J

double post

I'm more concerned about their aggressive wait times. :D,
Dropped off 4 cards for reholder in Pasadena, CA on Sat Sept 7th. Must have made it back to the office by Sept 9th? 1 card was $140.00 reholder.

Still shows "received". I have about had it with these effin companies. "5-10 Business Days". LOL AGAIN with the business days that never come.

Signed,
Eddie Impatient

I was shocked to find out that 40 oversized cards would set me back $1900+!!! What a joke.

They charge what the market will bear. That is perfectly understandable.

What boggles my mind though is how/why so many card collectors are willing to pay the prices SGC/PSA charges for their subjective opinion. And then end up with the card in a plastic coffin.

:confused:

Me I just say "No."

;)

Narrow-minded? In what way? Am I not allowed to make up my own mind? Even if I decide to pass on graded cards?

Yes, righteous I am. Some of us have much to be righteous about. Jealousy though will get you nowhere.

:p

Hey, I can go you one better. I couldn't care less about either SGC's business or yours. I care about only about the cards themselves and by extension the hobby of collecting cards.

Oh, I agree! But cards aren't just about the money to me. And that's why I reserve the right not to act as a cheerleader on their behalf.

Sorry. An 8 is not an 8 is not an 8 to me. I buy the card, not the number on the label. You may call it a sense of entitlement, but I reserve the right to make up my own mind.

You have the right to target the fungible crowd. I'm not part of that crowd though and I reserve the right to just say "No".

Fully understandable. What I don't understand though is how/why you were somehow compelled to cheerlead for SGC's services after I encouraged collectors to just say "No!" and then labelled my own rejection of SGC's services "narrow-minded and self-righteous". I mean what's it to you? Do you have some kind of ownership interest in PSA? If not, why toot their horn? Why not just let them speak for themselves?

:confused:

BF, you can make up your own mind; everyone is entitled to collect in whatever way they want. This hobby has room for all of it. But the issue we are discussing here is not your personal philosophy of collecting: if you don't want to collect graded cards, knock yourself out. Instead, you come into a thread about grading company charging practices and crap all over the grading process itself and the people who use grading services.

Lemme clue you in, pal: not liking slabbed cards doesn't make you a more pious, pure, true collector than the guys who have a box full of slabs. There are people, believe it or not, who enjoy the hobby by collecting graded cards, and are just as passionate and involved with their collections as you appear to be with yours.

You've been here all of five minutes; how about a little respect for your fellow collectors who may not see things the way you do?

+1

Plenty of room in the hobby for all types of collectors. There is no right or wrong way to collect, which I'm sure everyone has heard zillions of times by now. So need for belligerence...

That said... SGC now upcharges you for shittier than expected grades too. I wanted to use them for a bunch of future submissions, but am seriously reconsidering. I'm simply dreading the impending wallet-ectomy (a "medical" term recently coined by my friend Dave).

Yes, I agree.

Well if we're both agreed that I can make up my own mind, why are you suggesting that I need to be "clued in"? That doesn't make sense.

I neither said nor implied any such thing.

Oh probably. But since we've already agreed that everyone can make up their own mind and "everyone is entitled to collect in whatever way they want", neither of us can speak for anyone else let alone address their level of passion.

If it's all right with you, I'd rather stay conscious and alert. ;)

I said that SGC was only charging what the market would bear and I didn't understand why the people who didn't like SGC's prices didn't just say "No!" That's basically just a common sense remark. As such that's not "crapping" on anybody.

Well yeah, but I have been posting rather actively on many and varied discussion forums since 2001 including the CGC comic board since 2005 (under a different name) and this board's Net54 Hockey and Non-Sport sister boards since 2011.

Speaking of respecting fellow collectors, let me point out that you're the one who characterized a fellow poster (me) as "pious" and my comments as "narrow-minded" and "self-righteous". I've not (yet) said anything of that sort about you or anyone else on this board.

But simply expressing opinions that might not be shared by the majority of other board members here can hardly be classified as "disrespectful".

;)

Sometimes it seems like this whole grading business brings out the worst in all of us.

For those that abhor grading, there's a constant feeling that the war is being lost. Every day seems to bring more news that more and more stuff is ending up in slabs. Even stuff that is worth less than the cost of getting it slabbed! For this group, this endless procession must seem a bit like Sisyphus perpetually rolling his boulder up the hill or maybe King Canute being unable to stop the tide. And I suspect the whole thing just makes for a very irascible bunch.

For those that are into grading, at some point there will come a dawning realization that grading is deeply flawed. The graders routinely miss card doctoring. Some pieces are over-graded. Recently, even more seem to be under-graded. While we might wish that the marketing copy from the graders were true, sooner or later we're bound to realize that the execution of the concept leaves a lot to be desired. Particularly for those that have a big chunk of their net worth tied up in high graded slabs, these dynamics lead to a similar level of discontent and irascibility.

For extra fun and hijinks, mix it all together in a short-form chat room, where it's easy to get your dander up, and you've got the perfect cocktail for everyone to find a reason to lash out and go a little bit nuts. It's almost as much fun as politics, but without the upside of getting the dopamine hit of having your preferred candidate win from time to time.

Well said and very profound! :D

How are you being upcharged if the grade is worse than expected? If upcharging happens because the value of the card is higher than the submitter estimated based on the expected grade, then how can a lower than expected grade result in an upcharge unless you're underestimating the value that a higher grade would have resulted in, or am I missing something?

I understand the upcharge by the TPGs . Why would they leave money on the table. Does this mean that the TPGs have a team of people that look at current pricing and then review submissions to ensure they catch the big upcharges? I'm guessing they wouldn't bother with the lower tiered/priced cards.

Just curious. What if you "over estimated" the grade on your submission and entered a higher cost grading tier for payment. Will the TPGs refund you the difference because of the lower grade (therefore lowering the grading fee)?

It's been a while since I've submitted anything so I don't understand how this all works anymore.

Not sure about how SGC rolls, but for PSA, when you pay more, you move up to a higher level of service, which gets you faster turnaround time.

So you wouldn’t get your money back just because you paid for a higher level of service than you needed based on the value of your piece.

Long story... here's the abbreviated version. I submitted cards to SGC at a show. The SCG representative told me the exact values to use for each card. Many were up-charged well beyond the normal $15 fee.

3 weeks later they posted the lower than expected grades, but SGC said I owed them $830 for some God forsaken reason. They wouldn't release my cards until I paid them their ransom.

And their customer service is not just bad... it's non-existent. So I cannot get any further answers or even appeal the outcome.

The quoted message is from post #6. That data to me is very interesting. In my mind, if a trend begins that indicates MoM and YoY drops for a prolonged period of time, then I'm wondering if that could/might be associated with prices in the hobby coming down precipitously.

Wow, that's crazy. It makes me glad I've never submitted anything for grading because I definitely wouldn't want to deal with something like that. I hope you get it resolved soon. Is there another show soon that you can go to where SGC will be at so you can at least talk to someone in person?

Yes, thanks.... And I plan to do just that, as there's another show in November.

And I agree with you about not submitting cards to these corrupt money-making machines. I only did it in anticipation of selling. All the "pundits" in this hobby seem to think there's a stigma on raw cards and/or something must be wrong with them if they're not graded. Sad state of affairs, the way they've ruined the hobby.

Regarding your experience with the grading company, I am sorry to hear that happened.

When it comes to the stigma of raw cards, though, I view things a bit differently. Since the majority of newcomers to the hobby won't touch raw cards, it makes them harder to sell. I find that to be a positive when I'm at a show. Less competition and lower prices are obvious perks. The other one I've found is that the dealers are generally nicer, as are my interactions with them. I guess they're grateful to be talking cards with someone. They probably hear "...I'm looking for a so-and-so rookie in PSA X that's centered..." all day long.

more to the story?
 

Maybe you want to consider posting the long story, because that has not been my experience with SGC. I often don't get the grades I hope for, but they haven't ripped me off and my interactions with their customer service have been very good, especially recently.

I couldn't agree more.

:(

Yeah, with regard to TPGs, I contemplated for a while how to phrase that last sentence. Could've gone with any of these...

"They've commandeered the hobby"
"They've corporatized the hobby"
"They've taken control of the hobby"
"They've hijacked the hobby"
"They've held the hobby hostage"
"They've tainted the hobby"
"They've turned the hobby into a business"

But "ruined the hobby" just seemed to encompass it all. :p

I posted a separate thread about it 2-3 weeks ago, but it's probably dropped to page 3 by now.... easily findable if you really care to see. Not going to dredge it back up, as I'd rather just put this in the rear-view mirror.

Glad you've had success with them... they're better than PSA, I'll give you that!

And if you have any advice/tips/recommendations on how to reach an actual SGC human being, I'm all ears. Their only listed phone number automatically refers you to email (which they don't reply to). So a contact person's name/number would be much appreciated... Thanks!

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I'd gladly pay an upcharge for the services of whomever SGC had grading strip cards in the olden days. The goalposts have moved considerably.

I'd guess the upcharge enforcement is just the hand of Collectors finally moving on SGC policy. They never really used to do that much.

You could reply a lot quicker to Adam in this style if you moved all of this to Facebook, LOL.

I don't do Facebook (as a matter of general principle). Nor do I respond kindly to sarcasm or condescension.

;)

But you do clearly have to respond. To everything.