Problems with SGC ?

[whitey19thcentury]

Just posting on here to see if anyone else has had several problems with SGC. Several months ago, I decided to give them another shot and sent a handful of cards to get slabbed.
I just got an email from them last night saying that the cards are on their way back to me. The turnaround time was even more slower than PSA cards at the same tier.
Also, what bugs me the most is that when I went on the site to check the grades, one of the cards was marked as evidence of trimming. This same card was pulled fresh out of a pack by a pretty well known "breaks" company, and there is video proof of the exact card being pulled. Heck, I even sent it in the same holder (numbered) that the person who pulled the card placed it in.
Can cards be trimmed prior to being put into a pack?

[Cozumeleno]

I had a 20-day order arrive there on 10/2 (now beyond 40 Business Days) and had a 10-day order arrive there on 10/23 (now on 25 Business Days). No update before I called yesterday to check on status. I was only told they are running behind with no estimate on a potential due date. I figured it'd be a couple of weeks behind but not real thrilled at this point. I have no idea if I'm looking at a week or a month. A few of these cards are holding up potential trades. On my next to last sub, they also mislabeled a card that I had to resend back in. Wasn't a huge deal as I had other cards to be graded. Just ... annoying.

I don't send many submissions in but became a member this year with them. I'm not planning to renew at this point. I subbed maybe, I don't know, 50 cards this year, so I'm not even a blip on their radar screen. Hadn't previously submitted to PSA but am planning to at least give them a try now. No idea if it will be better or worse but figured I'd give it a shot.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by whitey19thcentury

Also, what bugs me the most is that when I went on the site to check the grades, one of the cards was marked as evidence of trimming.
Can cards be trimmed prior to being put into a pack?

SGC is going with the evidence they have in front of them, the card. If it shows signs of tampering, they give it the EOT assessment. Maybe the cut is abnormal and you'll notice it when you get it back. Otherwise you send it back and hope they don't see it the same way again, or you choose a different grader. Every company evaluates what they have before them. PSA recently rejected two autos that a submitter got directly at the National (Cal Ripken Jr. and Rickey Henderson). The submitter was upset, and make enough stink that PSA told him to send them back in.
Depends on how you want to play it. Normally SGC will take phone calls and tell you what they saw to warrant the grade/assessment. Everyone is so quick to complain nowadays.

[JohnP0621]

Originally Posted by swarmee

SGC Everyone is so quick to complain nowadays.

Not Sure what you mean when you say everyone is so quick to complain.
When you pay for 10 day service and it is really a 30 day service , you have every right to complain. The fees keep going up and the service keeps getting slower. Very Bad Buisness model. They should not advertise turn around times when they are meaningless or they should refund partial payment or give free grading vouchers when late.

John P

[swarmee]

So contact the company about it. His main concern seemed to be about the trimming assessment, not the lateness.

[Zan]

Originally Posted by JohnP0621

Not Sure what you mean when you say everyone is so quick to complain.
When you pay for 10 day service and it is really a 30 day service , you have every right to complain. The fees keep going up and the service keeps getting slower. Very Bad Buisness model. They should not advertise turn around times when they are meaningless or they should refund partial payment or give free grading vouchers when late.

John P

I agree on this. Cannot offer a service and miss the mark so poorly on turnaround times. I can't imagine the amount of phone calls they get every day asking about an order update. I have never known SGC to give grading vouchers for something like this, only a “thanks for your patience".

[mrvster]

I am on a tear today!LOL just venting.....check the wagner restoration thread

these companies usually are good when you call them, and a re usually customer service oriented(usually)........sometimes, they will credit you something....


but from what I hear from my fellow collectors, SGC and PSA NEVER ALMOST NEVER fall within the stated turnaround times...


there are almost too many mistakes being made by both big companies...


I wanted to start a grading company a few years ago(mom and pop with a few industry experts from here on NET 54 like Chris B, Erick S, Adam G, and a few others ) specifically for T206.....


my turn around time would be according to the extent of verifying authenticity of cards......meaning really inspect them, and get multiple opinions one each if necessary to ensure zero defects or close to that.....and have actual experts / collectors like specialists

I still may do this in the future as a hobby


in other words, SGC and PSA are very WEAK as late in delivering.....

very general statement, but this is what is expressed by many I talk to as of late


JOHN VANDERBECK

[egbeachley]

Another possibility, maybe remote, is that the "fresh pack" was resealed.

[mrvster]

I am such a negative nelly today....

but these "graders" are all subjective for the most part...

it is an "opinion"


and we know the expression....


yes, some trimming maybe obvious, where some is not.......

can anyone truly , I mean truly tell if a card has been trimmed???? under mag a depression of the side in relation to the rest of the card, but his maybe also mimicked quite possible by the machine???


point- grading is truly a "subjective" art although a scientific objective approach maybe utilized....

these graders are wrong I would say 20% of the time...


a true scientific analysis..........statistics....regression models.....and sampling would have to be done to estimate the true error rates and mistakes in general on 3rd party grading....


I would love to see the deviation of the sample or the bell shaped curve on either end

[whitey19thcentury]

Originally Posted by egbeachley

Another possibility, maybe remote, is that the "fresh pack" was resealed.

This opens up another can of worms, if so. The pack was broken out of a PSA slab (either an 8 or 9, can't remember) on live stream. For this to be a resealed pack, sent in to PSA for grading and come back with such a high grade, well then, that's another story.

Another poster said this irked me more than the lateness. It kind of does. Really, I don't care. It is not a five-figure (or even four figure) card, but this gets added to my list of pet peeves about TPGs and TPAs.

[biggsdaddycool]

It’s one thing to be behind and not be meeting “estimated” deadlines, which, as someone already mentioned, we pay extra for, but to be expanding.

A company like PSA, which is publicly traded, not putting money and time into expanding their facilities here to help with backlog and ever growing business, but rather to focus on expanding internationally, i.e. their newly planned Japanese submission office.

Doesn’t that rub some people the wrong way? They are not dedicated to taking care of the business we built here in the US effectively, but expanding to capture a more global share so that investors think more favorably about their stocks.

SGC’s rolled out “improvements”, which is obviously subjective, with apparently no forethought to think that loyal SGC submitters wouldn’t want their cards reholdered, is unthinkable.

At this point, what is the point of having tiers, other than to bilk the customers, who are so desperate to use their services, out of more money. This is no way to operate a business and with, apparently, no solutions aiming in the near future.

Someone else mentioned BGS and eluded to the grease fire going on over there. They have their own set of issues.

The whole industry of TPG and TPA is a multi billion dollar business. My question is, why hasn’t a quality alternative risen as yet to challenge these, obviously, poor business models other than the strong name brand recognition they have built in the hobby?

And I haven’t even touched on the certified authentic autographs, that are clearly not authentic, from JSA and the aforementioned TPG’s that surfaced this week.

This business, sports cards & memorabilia, is on the verge of another huge growth spurt and we are piddling around waiting months for submissions. Why hasn’t the real money in the hobby stepped to the forefront?

Are we really at their mercy?? No! We are the consumers. I think the movement needs to be that cards that do not need to be submitted be held back. We may need somewhat of a boycott, for lack of a better term. We control their $$$. Without submissions they have nothing. We keep paying them though.

And I understand there are thousands of businesses that run on TPG and that becomes a huge issue.

This whole industry, on the verge of a huge growth spurt, is, I fear, may, also, be on the verge of a catastrophic event that will set the hobby on it’s collective ear.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[whitehse]

I guess maybe its my turn to whine a little. I have only submitted cards to a TPG perhaps three times in the 40+ years I have collected. I came across a few cards that I really like and, while I never had any hope that these would come back at 8 or better, I felt that they all had a strong chance to grade well. I just received back my 9 card submission to SGC and honestly, I am a bit miffed at my grades when comparing them to the exact cards they have graded in the past.

I love the new holders but wow...if this is their new grading standards I guess the wait time for PSA may be worth it. Here are three of the cards I had sent back to me along with picks of cards that just sold on Ebay recently. It just seems that their grading standards have been tightened up tighter than the belt on a Biggest Loser contestant.

1962 Topps Ed Mathews SGC 5.5 (mine-new flip)

1962 Topps Ed Mathews SGC 5.5 (not mine-old flip)

1956 Topps Yogi Berra SGC 5 (mine-new flip)

1956 Topps Yogi Berra SGC 5 (not mine- old flip)

1956 Topps Harmon Killebrew SGC 6 (mine- new flip)

1956 Topps Harmon Killebrew SGC 6 (not mine- old flip) Has print line and softer corners as well as diamond cut.

I do plan on sending an email to SGC as these examples just seem to out of line but in the end, it is only their opinion I guess.

[Exhibitman]

Problem here is that we can’t just buy the steel from a different supplier. These three companies have established themselves as the sole arbiters of card quality. Everyone uses them. So you either put up with their bull or you go with raw cards or buy cards already slabbed. There’s enough of them. The people who are really screwed on this are the pros waiting for inventory to come back from grading purgatory. If you buy a collection and need some of the cards graded for resale you can forget about getting your money out quickly. I sent PSA some cards in November from a collection I purchased and I will be lucky to have them back by Easter. That capital is tied up for six months before I can even try to get out.

[glynparson]

I am sorry but I strongly disagree with you. those cards absolutely look properly graded to me and I do not feel they would have graded higher with psa in fact I feel two have a shot at being lower not higher from psa. Just one man’s opinion but i have had thousands and thousands of cards graded by them.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by glynparson

I am sorry but I strongly disagree with you. those cards absolutely look properly graded to me and I do not feel they would have graded higher with psa in fact I feel two have a shot at being lower not higher from psa. Just one man’s opinion but i have had thousands and thousands of cards graded by them.

Except for the old Mathews and old Berra. Those cards are clearly over graded. I have been working on up grading my t205 set to PSA/SGC 5 or better, but often when I find a card and compare it to my 4 or 4.5, the 4 or 4.5 is nicer so I pass. I don't know if the grading standards are tighter or maybe the companies are just doing a better training graders and there are fewer errors. It makes sense to me that dealers and collectors who have over graded cards would want to move them sooner rather than later. If the card is properly graded in an old holder, they wouldn't have a problem keeping it. So, you would see a lot of over graded cards in old holders for sale.

[whitehse]

Originally Posted by glynparson

I am sorry but I strongly disagree with you. those cards absolutely look properly graded to me and I do not feel they would have graded higher with psa in fact I feel two have a shot at being lower not higher from psa. Just one man’s opinion but i have had thousands and thousands of cards graded by them.

Thanks for your comments (and other's comments as well).

Honestly, I am not crazy upset at the grades but I did expect them to be higher based on those same cards I had seen in the past that had been graded by SGC and others. I will certainly accept the grades as I do plan on having these cards stay in my collection but I have learned one lesson here through all of this. I have been a raw card collector for 40+ years and it appears I need to stay that way. I saw these cards and thought they would be my chance to see how good my grading eye really is in terms of having cards slabbed but it appears my grading eye just isn't that good!

As someone else said in response to my post, I will now look for cards already graded if I intend to have slabbed cards in my collection because it seems the grades I tend to gravitate to are much cheaper already graded than buying raw and hoping to win the jackpot.

Thanks for your comments everyone!