SGC - say it aint so

[Fred]

What does SGC stand for? I always thought it was Sportscard Guarantee Company. Maybe I've been wrong all this time. I guess it must mean Sportscard Grading Company.

I don't trust these companies very much but I'll be honest and admit I've sent hundreds of cards to both PSA and SGC in the past. I haven't sent anything in in at least 8-10 years because the pricing/fee structure based on card valuation just got a bit too much for me to keep up with.

It was interesting to deal with PSA. One time they sent back a 1971T card in really nice condition saying it had color added. I was like floored. I owned the card since the 70s and I know I didn't make any alterations to it. The card was sent in again and came back with an "8" grade. After getting a few cards back with the "OC" designation I scratched my head. Ok, the cards weren't perfectly centered but you could easily guess that they just eyeball these things. I had cards returned that I thought were OC when submitted without the OC qualifier. I never made the request of "No qualifiers" for the submissions.

I stuck more with SGC after a while because I liked the holders with the nice black contrasting.

If there was two things I liked about GAI holders it's the black background contrast (like SGC) and that little ID tag they put at the top edge of the slab (see picture below).

Regarding rebacked cards, sometimes it's not very easy to determine if an OJ was rebacked. The albumen image for the card for this thread (Darling) obviously doesn't cover the entire surface area for the backing/stiffner, but I've seen a lot of OJs like this and assumed the card was probably at the top of the albumen sheet and the cutter just missed the top edge of the sheet. I've seen it that way on bottoms and sides also and make the same assumption.

Obvious rebacked cards are easy to detect because the backing seems very different from most OJs. For examples, stock is too thick, wrong type of material/stock, the backing isn't creased or damaged even though the photo has that defect.

What would be nice if there were "industry standards" that all TPGs would adhere to. For example (one of my pet peeves), no numerical grades to cards that are hand cut or have a tab removed, like a Zeenut.

If there are no guarantees associated with the actual card grading, (cover the card owner for monetary losses due to an egregious error in grading), then the only reason I could see for a fee structure based on card value is to cover insurance and I'm going to guess that these TPGs aren't paying the amount charged for the grading to cover the insurance cost. I'm guessing they're pocketing quite a bit of that fee.

Maybe one day the TPGs will come up with an environmentally friendly material other than plastic for the slabs. Ok, just joking there. But it makes you wonder just how much plastic has been used to encapsulate all this cardboard.