Do PSA slabs *really* sell for more than SGC?

[cgjackson222]

Great examples! Thanks for sharing.

Pretty crazy how harsh PSA has gotten on vintage.

The one thing I would say is that SGC can sometimes be harsh re: centering.

So if you have a centered vintage card, your best would be to go with SGC.

But if your card is not centered, it is more of a crapshoot between PSA and SGC.

[Peter_Spaeth]

It works both ways. I recently had an entire sub severely undergraded by SGC. I regraded the three cards I cared most about with PSA. +2, +2, and +.5.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It works both ways. I recently had an entire sub severely undergraded by SGC. I regraded the three cards I cared most about with PSA. +2, +2, and +.5.

Mu last submission was similar to this but with smaller bumps. I cracked out 3 freshly graded SGC cards and sent them to PSA. I got a full grade bump on one card and the other 2 went from 6.5s to 7s. It was awesome because it turned 2 of the 3 cards into the highest graded by PSA.

Great examples snowman. Using the same card is WAY more realistic that 2 completely different cards of the same grade.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

It works both ways. I recently had an entire sub severely undergraded by SGC. I regraded the three cards I cared most about with PSA. +2, +2, and +.5.

This is an extremely rare circumstance in my experience. Unless your cards were heavily OC.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Snowman

This is an extremely rare circumstance in my experience. Unless your cards were heavily OC.

They were not, not at all. I guess I got unlucky with the grader. Two grades low, consistently. Worse in some cases.

[Vintagedeputy]

Outstanding post and pics. Really drives the point home.

I have used SGC exclusively since their days in Parsippany. I have always been satisfied by the grade received and cannot understand why people keep giving their money to PSA, only to be disappointed on some level.

[Bigdaddy]

Its a fool's folly to think that two subjective, arbitrary, constantly-evolving grading scales developed by independent, competing companies would line up when grading cards. There should be no expectation that a PSA 6 should line up with an SGC 6, condition wise and/or price wise.

Add to that, the subjectivity of the individual graders and even the non-repeatability of a given grader over time, it's no wonder that the data is all over the place.

It does seem like SGC gives a bit more weight to 'eye appeal' than does PSA, sometimes giving a bump for better centered cards. To me, that is preferable.

[Kco]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Great examples! Thanks for sharing.

Pretty crazy how harsh PSA has gotten on vintage.

The one thing I would say is that SGC can sometimes be harsh re: centering.

So if you have a centered vintage card, your best would be to go with SGC.

But if your card is not centered, it is more of a crapshoot between PSA and SGC.

It's to artificially drive up the value on higher grades already in population. If they rarely issue high grades, high grade values will naturally rise due to supply relative to population, this has a compounded affect on lower grades as they will become more desirable due to price/supply.

This is also happening on vintage auto grading and has been for a few years. What was once a 10 is now an 8, etc. PSA 9 is about as good as you'll ever get on a grade now.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Great examples! Thanks for sharing.

Pretty crazy how harsh PSA has gotten on vintage.

The one thing I would say is that SGC can sometimes be harsh re: centering.

So if you have a centered vintage card, your best would be to go with SGC.

But if your card is not centered, it is more of a crapshoot between PSA and SGC.

Yes, this is definitely true. SGC is more strict about centering (as they should be IMO). But they also reward good centering, which PSA does not do. I consistently get half grade bumps, and even sometimes full grade bumps, with SGC for perfectly centered cards. The majority of my collection is centered. I almost never get half grades from PSA. They don't even take it into consideration at all, other than as a mere qualifier for a grade, and even at that they're pretty lenient. The number of OC 10s in PSA slabs is embarrassing.