Wow psa blowing away competitors

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by gonefishin

It is true that some companies, privately owned primarily, may not desire to be the biggest company out there. There are still some companies that just want to make a decent living for themselves and their employees. Just guessing that demand at the time necessitated SGC to hire more employees to keep up with demand when PSA and BGS suspended their services.

Right. I'm guessing that SGC had a desire to become somewhat more than the boutique shop that they were in say 2000, or 2005 - but they pulled a pretty major gaffe in 2020 with the whole "We're open, send us your cards!" campaign when they got big eyes at the idea of PSA being shut down, even if temporarily. For once, and for the first time ever I believe - collectors called their bluff and absolutely inundated them. They had to backpedal and hire more employees immediately to keep from drowning, and even so it took them months to clear the 2020 backlog. Quality slipped during this time as well, as I know their move to treat centering more strictly got wildly out of hand at one point around that timeframe - new graders were giving cards that should have been like 7's and higher 5's and lower due to centering alone. Luckily it seems they fixed that problem relatively quickly.

Again, I could be wrong but I'm guessing some of SGC's recent growth trends were unintended and just had more to do what the market dealt them, and with some of the other stuff - you have to imagine it's going to be different in ways with Peter and the younger folks in charge. I just don't see them setting their sights on grading a million cards in whatever period of time to keep up with PSA on a chart. Many people that submit to SGC regularly have reasons why they DON'T submit to PSA. What would be the point of trying to lead all TPG's in volume if you had to totally change who you were to do that?