PSA vs. SGC - A look at the T206 set

[DerekMichael]

Wow, that is really cool.

Personally, I do not care about the grades, whatsoever. Not anymore.

However, I absolutely love the black casing used by SGC. To me, it just looks cooler.

I do hate, hate, hate the "unknown backs" in the PSA pop reports, but oh well...

Really cool work in the OP.

Thanks.

Derek

[Bestdj777]

Very interesting research. Thanks for sharing Jason. From all of the discussions on the board, I thought PSA was the best way to maximize your value for vintage cards (42-79) and SGC for pre-war.

Maybe the size of the holder plays a factor? I would imagine 500+ PSA cards take up significantly less room than 500+ SGC cards.

[Iron Horse]

Great report. I do like the SGC holders. The cards present much nicer then PSA. However PSA does bring higher $$$

[teetwoohsix]

Great work Jason with the stats.

I just wanted to say that there are many sales(private transactions) that don't get recorded on VCP. And then you have the crossovers that don't get recorded. So, there's probably a little wiggle room on there in either direction with population & prices realized.

But I think you've given the most accurate breakdown that someone could possibly give- nice job !!

I buy cards graded by both companies (well, all three including BVG) and I don't think much about resale value because I don't plan on selling any of mine until decades from now (knock on wood) and who knows where things will be then. I do know one thing- the cards will be that much older .

Thanks for the breakdown, this was a cool read !!

Sincerely, Clayton

[Sean1125]

PSA has more "supply", so more cards hit auction, more cards hit sales, more cards hit BIN's. If there wasn't a 1:2.67 ratio of PSA mid grade to SGC do you think they would demand more?

How many of these deviate higher or lower in price for each grade?

The sheer volume difference IMO makes this simply an average of prices and not a reflection of the current market... Many more factors would need to be involved for a market value. The numbers being used can't be absolute because there is no way to know someone is going to pay exactly $23xxx or 64xxx for a set in whatever grade

[sreader3]

Jason,
Useful information--thank you. Please consider expanding your post into an article and publishing.
Scot

[frankbmd]

If all the cards were of equal value theoretically, lumping all the grades and cards together would have more statistical validity.

This is a nice overview and interesting, but may be flawed from a pure statistical point of view. Without getting into p values and questioning the percentage of and which hall of famers are in each group, incorrect conclusions could be inferred from the numbers.

In other words there could be some apples and oranges issues contained within the data presented. For example, if the higher valued cards are more likely to have been graded by PSA, then comparing average card prices by grade between SGC and PSA could be due to either higher prices for one company's slabs for the same card or a different distribution of cards within the subset and not a real difference in price for the same card.

In no way should this be interpreted as criticism of the work in terms of accuracy, but merely a caution to members in terms of drawing too many conclusions from the data presented. I would add that I am not a statistician capable of validating presentations of this type, but merely a math guy who knows that numbers can be manipulated to validate assumed conclusions.

[Bored5000]

Thanks for the informative post, OP. It was interesting to see what it would cost to put together a T-206 set minus the Big Four in various grades.

[jhs5120]

Hey guys,

I wanted to further explore the subject and work with the data a bit more. What I found was pretty interesting.

I agree with a lot of the feedback. It's unrealistic to group "commons" with "stars" to arrive at an average price. I decided to split the two and look at their numbers separately. First, I had to decide what constituted a "star" from a statistical stand point - I figured the easiest way would be by taking the 50 most expensive cards out, and designating the remaining as "commons".

NOTE: While some might argue against this approach it actually was an effective way of keeping the hard to find commons while filtering out the lower dollar Hall of Famers.

Now, just for the sake of it, here are the 50 most expensive T206 cards in PSA 4 (I chose this measure because it contained the most data from VCP). These are the cards I consider "stars" for the purpose of this discussion:

NOTE: I want to keep "stars" in quotations because I know that some people would argue this list.




Once I had my "stars" I found the average prices in each grade (2-7) for PSA and SGC.











The results were pretty surprising in two regards: SGC commons are virtually identical in price compared to their PSA counterparts and low grade SGC cards can run for a premium over PSA.

Another observation (that may not surprise many) was that high grade PSA stars carry a premium over SGC. I think this is in large due to registry fanatics and those "investor" type collectors I talked about in my previous post. However, I am much more interested in the "commons".



Why would SGC 3 "commons" demand a premium over PSA 3's?

This is especially interesting because there is a huge concentration of SGC 3's on the market:

(From my previous post)




It seems as though SGC 3's are readily available and seemingly "high pop", so why would it be the only condition to carry a premium over PSA? You would think that the condition that has the highest supply would command a lower price, but this has not been the case across the board! PSA 6's and 7's are far more readily available than SGC, but they can carry a HUGE premium.


Why is it that the conditions with the highest populations carry a premium??


Well, I believe a premium is established to the TPG company with the more readily accessible commons. It caters to the set collectors in us all, and set collectors are the driving force in establishing a value for commons. Think about it, there are very few Shad Berry collectors (not to pick on Shad Berry), and if there are any Shad Berry collectors, I doubt that there would be enough of them to influence the average price of a Shad Berry card. The collectors who purchase these low grade commons are doing so to "tackle the monster." They're trying to build sets on a budget with decent eye appeal.

But why SGC 3's??

Like I said in my previous post, SGC caters to the collector. Low grade tobacco cards look better in SGC holders. I know that this will be debated, but I believe the premium for SGC 3's is, in part, driven by the eye appeal of the case. This solely applies to low grade cards. The black background can really make a fugly card "pop". Personally, I prefer the look of high grade cards in PSA holders compared to SGC, but for low grade cards, SGC wins hands down.

But why the premium?

Well, set collectors love uniformity. Let's face it, we are obsessive people. While I know many of you have sets with a combination of SGC, PSA and raw cards, I know most of us prefer one TPG company or another. The reason PSA 6's carry a premium is because a collector can more easily assemble a mid grade set using PSA cards over SGC. SGC can carry a premium because it is just as easy to assemble a low grade set using SGC cards as it is with PSA. If I were to apply this to every pre-war set I guarantee we would see the same trends. Whichever TPG company has the more readily accessible commons will carry a premium. Essentially, the supply of the cards determines the demand and the demand then determines the price.

Interesting stuff

[ScottFandango]

Originally Posted by DerekMichael

Wow, that is really cool.

Personally, I do not care about the grades, whatsoever. Not anymore.

However, I absolutely love the black casing used by SGC. To me, it just looks cooler.

I do hate, hate, hate the "unknown backs" in the PSA pop reports, but oh well...

Really cool work in the OP.

Thanks.

Derek

.

Funny i was thinking the same thing about SGC...I HATE how they don't differentiate the variations of a certain card....for instance, they don't differentiate the e90-1 variations of keeler, which there are 3.....this happens throughoutnthenentire set which make you extrapolate the true pop...

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Very cool post. I would definately like to read a more researched article. If you are interested in writing one let me know.