New CSG label. Pretty slick...

[BobC]

Originally Posted by glchen

The new flips for CSG are a huge improvement from their original one. Previously, I thought the flip was so bad, I would refuse to submit to CSG and be reluctant to even purchase CSG-holdered cards. These new flips are nice. I wouldn't hesitate to submit to CSG or purchase CSG cards in the future.

However, I think the biggest gap for CSG right now is that they need to be able to holder cards beyond the standard sized ones. That is, all other TPG's holder at least up to 6"x9" sized cards/premiums, and PSA and Beckett go up to 8"x11". CSG needs to at least match what SGC holders to be in the same class as the Big 3 TPGs. The fact that they do not yet holder postcard-sized cards should be an embarrassment to them.

The other nice to have improvement I'd like to see from CSG is their insert for non-standard sized cards like T206's. See below for a comparison using the old CSG holders. (None of these cards are mine. Took images from ebay.) You can see by this comparison for the overall presentation of the card, SGC still wins. Based on the insert, PSA is still probably slightly better than CSG. CSG has a nicer flip than Beckett now, so it probably beats Beckett.

My current ranking: SGC > PSA > CSG > Beckett

There's a star by Beckett, however. I absolutely love Beckett's black label flip. I can understand why some OCD collectors would just stick w/ Black label in their collection. Even the gold label is pretty nice. However, prewar for Beckett is stuck w/ the white label or blue label, which are the worst. The other consideration is Beckett also offers the holders with the best protection. They're the only holder where I wouldn't worry about damage if I accidentally dropped it. Therefore, from a protection standpoint, I wouldn't have any issues with submitting or buying Beckett cards either.

Gary,

If CSG is smart, which they seem to be, they'll continue to monitor and listen to customer's wants, and actually try to fulfil them. With the seeming success they've had so far, I won't be surprised to see them start branching out into other cards/sports collectibles requiring different size holders. I would fell pretty confident that that is coming.

Would also like to see them offer the inserts, as you mentioned, and can even see them maybe one day offering a similar black sleeve/border that SGC has for all their holders that often enhances the look of the enclosed cards. In fact, if I were them, I'd even think about offering it as an option to have cards encapsulated either with or without the SGC style sleeve/border. That way people that maybe don't like the black sleeve/border, don't have to have them. And for those that do like them, they could probably get away with charging an extra $1-$2 to have the sleeve/border added. And who says they have to just be black. Why not offer various sleeve/border color options so collectors can further personalize their collections. Or what about sleeves/borders incorporating team colors? There are lots of team oriented collectors that would likely go crazy for something like that. The main idea is to give your customer base options, and the more options generally leads to a bigger customer base. And again, you could probably charge a nominal extra fee for some of these options, that customers would gladly pay. Heck, I'd even suggest they set up a sort of interactive page on their website where you could digitally test what a card from a particular set looked like using different colored sleeve/border options. That way they'd know exactly what their graded card would look like based on their color choice(s) before paying for it. If nothing else, it would probably be a great advertising feature drawing people to their site just to play around with it. The potential options of what they do or offer to set themselves apart from their competition are really untapped.