SGC processing times

[ldrunner27]

Dropped 7 cards off at the National on Thursday, just got notice they're being shipped. Very happy with the turnaround, and the grades.

[ClementeFanOh]

In follow up to ldrunner27, I submitted a small group to SGC last
Thursday at the National. The group was comprised of a 1971 Topps Gil
Hodges (great card) and 4 T206...

The cards were graded and slabbed, and placed on SGCs site for viewing,
yesterday August 2nd. Since they likely arrived at SGC Monday of last week,
that's remarkable. Finally, all 5 cards were within 1/2 point, either way, of my
expectations. Very happy with the results and efficiency.

Trent King

[Piratedogcardshows]

SGC has been crushing it on my turnaround times as of late. Maybe 5 days from receiving to them shipping. Even PSA has been about 60% estimates on turnaround times for my submissions. All submissions a dozen cards or less.

[gunboat82]

The good news:

My three-card order with a 1-2 Business Day estimated turnaround entered post-grading and I received a tracking number two days after SGC received the submission.

The bad news:

Two of the three cards were misidentified and mislabeled, even though I had correctly identified them on the submission form.

They identified my 1931 W502 card as a 1931 W-UNC, despite the fact that mine has "One Bagger" on the back and the 1931 W502 set is already in SGC's database.

They also identified my W511 unnumbered card as a "#71," even though mine has no number and is clearly different from the #71s that they've previously graded.

The worse news:

SGC support responded with this:

Both cards did not meet the minimum size requirement for encapsulation so the population report itself will not be affected. I will have our Team correct these in the system to reflect appropriately for future reference. I do apologize for the inconvenience.

Putting aside the fact that W502 cards are probably misdesignated as "Hand Cut" in the first place, SGC's response was surprising because both cards were previously slabbed by PSA, the W502 is off-center but not trimmed, and SGC has previously assigned numeric grades to W511 cards with smaller measurements.

Now I'm wondering if the fact that SGC couldn't properly identify the cards in the first place impacted their decision to take the $500 and send them back raw. This makes me sad because I greatly prefer SGC slabs, but now I feel like I can't entrust them with my cards.

[gunboat82]

Originally Posted by gunboat82

The good news:

My three-card order with a 1-2 Business Day estimated turnaround entered post-grading and I received a tracking number two days after SGC received the submission.

The bad news:

Two of the three cards were misidentified and mislabeled, even though I had correctly identified them on the submission form.

They identified my 1931 W502 card as a 1931 W-UNC, despite the fact that mine has "One Bagger" on the back and the 1931 W502 set is already in SGC's database.

They also identified my W511 unnumbered card as a "#71," even though mine has no number and is clearly different from the #71s that they've previously graded.

The worse news:

SGC support responded with this:

"Both cards did not meet the minimum size requirement for encapsulation so the population report itself will not be affected. I will have our Team correct these in the system to reflect appropriately for future reference. I do apologize for the inconvenience."

Putting aside the fact that W502 cards are probably misdesignated as "Hand Cut" in the first place, SGC's response was surprising because both cards were previously slabbed by PSA, the W502 is off-center but not trimmed, and SGC has previously assigned numeric grades to W511 cards with smaller measurements.

Now I'm wondering if the fact that SGC couldn't properly identify the cards in the first place impacted their decision to take the $500 and send them back raw. This makes me sad because I greatly prefer SGC slabs, but now I feel like I can't entrust them with my cards.

Just following up on this with a response from SGC's support team, which doesn't do anything to restore my confidence:

Once the cards have been graded, that is when they move on to our Identification Team. Though these cards don't have the exact information, this would not have affected the grading of the cards themselves. Our Team will encapsulate these cards as authentic, and if they have a secondary designation of minimum size or altered, we will add this. With this submission, the option to encapsulate any altered cards was not selected, this covers any cards that do not meet the minimum requirements for a numeric grade. This is why these cards were not encapsulated and are being sent back as Raw.

If I'm understanding correctly,

1) SGC sent my cards back raw because I didn't request that they be encapsulated even if "altered."

2) SGC considers the cards "altered," for slabbing purposes, whenever they don't meet SGC's minimum-size guidelines.

3) SGC didn't know which sets my cards actually came from, but they can somehow state with confidence that the cards would be too small even if the SGC graders had known what they were looking at.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by gunboat82

Just following up on this with a response from SGC's support team, which doesn't do anything to restore my confidence:



If I'm understanding correctly,

1) SGC sent my cards back raw because I didn't request that they be encapsulated even if "altered."

2) SGC considers the cards "altered," for slabbing purposes, whenever they don't meet SGC's minimum-size guidelines.

3) SGC didn't know which sets my cards actually came from, but they can somehow state with confidence that the cards would be too small even if the SGC graders had known what they were looking at.

This is pretty standard stuff when submitting to SGC. Any card that measures small will not be encapsulated unless you check the "encapsulate if altered" box. Note that PSA does the same. But at least SGC makes it easier to select that as an option. PSA doesn't even have this listed anywhere on their submission form. You just have to know to write it into the notes field and hope they see it.

Also worth noting is that they've both gotten way more strict with respect to which cards they're flagging as altered or min size these days (and PSA is worse than SGC for min size).

As far as correctly identifying said cards, I have no insight there. I'm not familiar with these sets. But that sure sounds frustrating.

[gunboat82]

OK, now I think SGC is just trolling. After they misidentified my 1931 W502 #29 Ruth the first time, they agreed to take it back for another label.

Here’s their second try:

1928 W502 #29 Babe Ruth

Tony Lazzeri is #29 in that set, not Ruth. I’m not sure who’s doing the research over there now, but they’re looking in all the wrong places.