Thoughts on CGC Grading

[gunboat82]

Originally Posted by SmokyBurgess

Not familiar with CGC, but lots of chat if they will gain ground in the grading wars.

Your thoughts.

I personally like CGC a lot. Unfortunately, the ability to resell when needed is a significant factor in grading, and CGC has a very long way to go to catch up in that regard.

A recent anecdote on the relative liquidity: When I needed to sell a lot of cards quickly earlier this year, I had no serious interest in my CGC 1 Mantle at $22K, which was my cost. I had several inquiries on Facebook asking what I was trying to hide by keeping it in a CGC slab.

I crossed the card over to SGC, where it was graded Authentic Altered. It then sold fairly quickly to a flipper for $22.5K. It was promptly listed for $27K, was bought by another flipper, and was then sold to someone who tried to remove the tape to get a numeric grade. It's changed hands five times since I sold it in February.

It's now listed at $33K and will probably be in a PSA slab in the near future. As long as financial considerations drive grading, I think CGC will struggle to gain ground in the sports cards wars. They need big auction houses to start giving them business and hyping them on social media. If that happens, I'm here for it. I've never had a good experience with PSA, and SGC has joined them in the race to the bottom.