Grading Companies Questions

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by 53toppscollector

An underrated value play right now might be to buy SGC and CSG 9.5s with the intention of cracking them and sending to PSA when prices drop. If you can get an SGC 9.5 for less than what a PSA 9 sells for, you have a decent shot of actually getting a PSA 10. At worst, if you end up with a PSA 9 you break even. Doing this to scale could be quite profitable, assuming PSA eventually opens up a lower service level where it makes sense.

CSG and SGC both have tough grading standards, from what I've seen, so you are basically getting a pre-screening opinion of the card before you send to PSA. Given SGC's troubles with re-sale on ebay, there are lots of bargains out there to grab.

very interesting idea.
Has anyone tried this?

[drcy]

As a longterm investment, it would seem smart to buy the market undervalued (SGC) over the market overvalued (PSA) cards. You should buy the card, only in part because you don't know the vale of PSA or today's PSA label in upcoming years.

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by mrreality68

very interesting idea.
Has anyone tried this?

smart people have long been buying lower priced, nicer SGC graded cards over overpriced...overgraded PSA cards...buy the card not some minimum wage employees opinion.

sure money can be made crossing nice sgc's to psa...but obviously there's risk...and potentially significant expense.

[JMANOS]

IMO CSG is and will be the leader in due time as they are in the other collectible worlds...Comics, Coins, etc... they r way more professional and reliable...I am convinced they will be the best in due time in vintage cards no question. They have a better standard of grading as well. my 2 cents.

[hcv123]

I was really pulling for CSG when I heard the initial announcement - I have been extremely underwhelmed with the quality of their grading so far. As a dealer, I never hear customers ask for CSG, nor am I a buyer of cards in their holders. I had an at length conversation with one of their representatives at the national in Chicago. While he was understanding and in agreement with much I had to offer, he said it was difficult to get the message across to those above his pay grade. I think there is great potential, but they have a lot of work to do to get there.

[glchen]

This is my personal opinion on the summary of the legit TPGs:

PSA: highest resale value, best registry, best large holders (size 5x7 and bigger)
SGC: most consistent quality grading, best looking holders for cards smaller than 5x7, best customer service (at least in the past), holders a larger variety of items (such as RPPC) than PSA
Beckett: best protective and tamper-proof holder for cards, willing to holder more fragile cards that SGC and PSA won't encapsulate, also holders a larger variety of items than PSA and even SGC (such as magazines)

I've never used CSG yet, and frankly the best thing that they have right now is that PSA and Beckett are flooded, so the only option many collectors have right now for lower priced cards are CSG and SGC. However, I think their holders are ugly, by far the worse of the 4. If PSA, SGC, or Beckett are available and similar in price, I don't know one reason why I would go with CSG. They only grade standard-sized cards right now. What do they have that is better than anyone else?

Regarding crossing over from SGC to PSA and trying to profit off that, I don't think this is something that you can do easily. I've cracked out a lot of cards out of SGC holders and try to get the same grade in PSA, and I've gotten a worse grade at PSA a lot. I don't know why I even do this anymore as I'm just burning money. Note that I only do this for prewar cards in lower grades from grades 1 to 5 or so, so I have no idea how it is at the higher levels like grades 8-10. And I am not saying that SGC is less strict on grading than PSA. The reason that they are not crossing over at the same grade is that SGC and PSA IMHO have different grading standards. If you tried to cross over from PSA to SGC, you'd probably get worse grades also. Basically, from my experience SGC weighs eye appeal more while PSA weighs technical criteria more. For example, if there is a pinhole in a card, you'll always get a grade of 1 from PSA. At SGC, if the card still presents well, you can get a grade of 1.5 or even 2. If you have multiple creases in a card, you'll be stuck at a 2 or less at PSA. However, for SGC, if the creases are on the corners and not obtrusive or they are not strong creases, but more like surface wrinkles or bends in the card, then you can get a 3. Same thing the other way where if technically the card can be a 3, but the eye appeal is terrible since the crease detracts from the card badly, then it won't cross from PSA to SGC. Again, I don't disagree with the grading standards for either company if they do it consistently. I can definitely see where they are coming from and why they chose these criteria. However, they can make crossovers more difficult.