SGC & PSA Question

[glchen]

Originally Posted by skelly

While it seems to be true that cards graded by PSA might be stronger sellers than the same card in an SGC holder with the same grade, I just don't understand this. The reason being is that SGC seems to be as tough, if not tougher than PSA on grading. Wouldn't it be easy enough to buy a SGC graded card and then just send it in to PSA for the crossover if you simply want the card in a PSA case? Anyway, I was just curious what people's thoughts were on this.

Well, part of the reason is that you still need to send your SGC card to PSA, and there are costs associated with that. Say you send 10 cards to PSA, and these aren't under a Collector's Card Special. The minimum fee per card is $10 (assuming under $100 declared value using bulk services). You need to ship your cards over to PSA, and then you need to pay postage back from PSA. And you need to pay postage back from PSA, where the minimum postage fee for 10 cards is $22.50. Therefore for grading, this can easily add up to $13 per card. If your card isn't worth that much, it's better to just buy in the holder that you want rather than crossing over.

Also, there is no guarantee the cards will cross. A few months ago, I cracked out 8 SGC graded 1933 Goudey's that were at 80/6. I cracked them out so that there wouldn't be any bias for a crossover. These eight cards came back from PSA with five lowered to 5.5, one remained the same at 6, and two got upgraded to 6.5. Therefore, it's better to just buy the card in the holder that you want unless you believe the card is strong for the grade.

[Wichita]

The PSA grading standards are a bit different from the SGC standards. It seems PSA is more critical of corners, registration, and some other details. I tried cracking out some SGC graded cards to cross over to PSA. The few 8 and higher cards I submitted were graded lower by PSA, but ones in the 6 to 7 range pretty much crossed over to equivalent grades.

[jg8422]

Originally Posted by Wichita

The PSA grading standards are a bit different from the SGC standards. It seems PSA is more critical of corners, registration, and some other details. I tried cracking out some SGC graded cards to cross over to PSA. The few 8 and higher cards I submitted were graded lower by PSA, but ones in the 6 to 7 range pretty much crossed over to equivalent grades.

What do you mean by "registration?" I have heard that term a few times and always wonder what it means.

Thanks for your help.

[bunst]

Originally Posted by jg8422

What do you mean by "registration?" I have heard that term a few times and always wonder what it means.

Thanks for your help.

Basically it is focus. Sometimes you'll see a card that appears like you have double vision when looking at it; and that would be a card with poor registration. Or when the colors don't fall in line where they should.

[E93]

Generally I think SGC is a bit tougher especially since tightening their criteria on centering but one could find exceptions from both. All the cards from both sides are graded by humans. That said, PSA is so tough on crossovers it seems like they just reject crossovers most of the time on general principal. I have not gotten than impression from SGC.

In terms of re-sale value today I think a blanket claim of PSA for post-war and SGC for pre-war is a bit simplistic.
JimB

[glchen]

Regarding resale value, this is what they say on the PSA boards on why PSA is superior. On ebay, in the search criteria, enter both SGC and PSA to see which listings use both TPG's as keywords to get more hits. On the results screen, you will see the vast majority are SGC cards looking to capitalize on the PSA keyword rather than PSA cards looking to add collectors of SGC cards.

[rainier2004]

I prefer SGC far more than PSA...Sgc slabs break much easier and generally break "clean" vs PSA slabs which splinter more, require more force and leave bits of the slab in my carpet for the dog to find and chew. In the end, they both break and give you that "fix" that was needed. Merry Christmas!