From my submittals over the past 30 years, Beckett is by far the best for newer cards and less accurate for older cards. My opinion, PSA has always been too lenient for grading cards from any era, and SGC the best for really old 19th and early 20th century cards. My older cards usually got higher grades from PSA and have sold for great money. I have had to send a lot of cards back to PSA for being overgraded. Most of the cards were regraded lower and I used PSA's refund checks to pay for later submittals. From my experience, Beckett hits the grades on newer cards spot on, and I get great prices for those cards. There were a few cards that I thought were off by a little bit, but nothing I had to send back.
Interesting enough, PCGS of Collectors Universe (owner of PSA) is the absolute best at grading coins and medals. The new ANACS is a great alternative for grading coins, is also very accurate and much less expensive, especially for “collector” coins. Sadly, I can not say the same for NGC of Certified Collectors Group (owner of CSG). Although I think CSG’s card grading is excellent, in my opinion, NGC many times will way overgrade coins and medals. I have seen a huge number of light and very light wear AU (almost uncirculated) coins in NGC holders that were graded with MS (mint state) grades. Of course, these are the ones that questionable coin dealers sell as “sight unseen” to other unscrupulous coins dealers, who then sell them to ignorant trusting coin buyers.
So, pick your companies for grading. But the card grading companies certainly do not have the same grading accuracy as their coin grading siblings.
