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Long wait to be disappointed!
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71 posts in this topic

1 hour ago, Yeahiwasder4dat said:

In this case I think I overestimated their ability to have situational awareness. If you look at HGA, regardless of their grading they only take subs equal to what they can pump out. Quick turnaround. SGC jacked price up, and is actively playing with the price with a current turnaround of 20-25 days according to the sub I did yesterday. 

CSG? They watched what happened to every other company, didn't take notes and buried themselves in cards. Now they're months behind on opening mail, turn around is through the roof, they're holding cards hostage, and people are getting mad.

Seems like a cash grab to me. Get as many subs as possible in while the market is hot regardless of it taking a year or more to do them. Screw the customer, just lock in that money.

That's not to say they couldn't turn it around, but I kept thinking why not prevent this instead of having to deal with the fallout. As they say, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Not only will they have to scramble to try to get a grip on subs that they have, but I'm sure they've lost some repeat business over this by burning customers. People expecting 3 calendar month turnaround now looking at possibly double or triple that.

Exactly, CSG just wasn't paying attention. They had a real opportunity here, but have not been able to deliver. Allowing huge group submissions immediately, not having a good process for seemingly anything,  and no apparent awareness of what the demand/market was, or what they were receiving in comparison to their output capacity. It was predictable, yet totally avoidable. I knew this was coming a month ago, with the answers (and non answers) they vomited at me when PSA shut down. Within 3 months of opening the doors, they have put themselves in a place where no one in their right mind will submit anything else with them. 

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10 minutes ago, Brandon Melnick said:

Exactly, CSG just wasn't paying attention. They had a real opportunity here, but have not been able to deliver. Allowing huge group submissions immediately, not having a good process for seemingly anything,  and no apparent awareness of what the demand/market was, or what they were receiving in comparison to their output capacity. It was predictable, yet totally avoidable. I knew this was coming a month ago, with the answers (and non answers) they vomited at me when PSA shut down. Within 3 months of opening the doors, they have put themselves in a place where no one in their right mind will submit anything else with them. 

I honestly had high hopes for them. They came in after everyone else burned out, and had the opportunity to take advantage of seeing where the other companies went wrong. It's very disappointing to say the least. If they could have just kept the turnaround under control I would be giving them practically everything I could. Realistically I just can't, as I have to keep cash flow going and turnaround exceeds price on the priority list. I can resell more expensive cards to deal with a higher grading fee. There's no where I can adjust my strategy to compensate for long turnaround.

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4 hours ago, Yeahiwasder4dat said:

In this case I think I overestimated their ability to have situational awareness. If you look at HGA, regardless of their grading they only take subs equal to what they can pump out. Quick turnaround. SGC jacked price up, and is actively playing with the price with a current turnaround of 20-25 days according to the sub I did yesterday. 

CSG? They watched what happened to every other company, didn't take notes and buried themselves in cards. Now they're months behind on opening mail, turn around is through the roof, they're holding cards hostage, and people are getting mad.

Seems like a cash grab to me. Get as many subs as possible in while the market is hot regardless of it taking a year or more to do them. Screw the customer, just lock in that money.

That's not to say they couldn't turn it around, but I kept thinking why not prevent this instead of having to deal with the fallout. As they say, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Not only will they have to scramble to try to get a grip on subs that they have, but I'm sure they've lost some repeat business over this by burning customers. People expecting 3 calendar month turnaround now looking at possibly double or triple that.

 

2 hours ago, Brandon Melnick said:

Exactly, CSG just wasn't paying attention. They had a real opportunity here, but have not been able to deliver. Allowing huge group submissions immediately, not having a good process for seemingly anything,  and no apparent awareness of what the demand/market was, or what they were receiving in comparison to their output capacity. It was predictable, yet totally avoidable. I knew this was coming a month ago, with the answers (and non answers) they vomited at me when PSA shut down. Within 3 months of opening the doors, they have put themselves in a place where no one in their right mind will submit anything else with them. 

Couldn’t agree more guys, but at this point I’m still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as it’s quite early in the game. Let’s hope they turn it around for all of our sakes. I’d hate to feel like I wasted a grand on card grading only to have them flop and go the way of the dodo!

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12 hours ago, redfoxdutchman said:

I can cherry pick data as well. Here is a Luka SGC that sold for $275 2018-19 Hoops #268 Luka Doncic Rookie Card SGC 10 Mavericks 💎💎 | eBay

Where did a Serpia refractor PSA 10 go for $800? The last three sales in May were $510, $465, $475. The last two Serpia PSA 9's sold for $249 and $160. So a SGC 10 is more expensive than a PSA 9 in almost every single case. Yes you can find outliers, I can even find cases where a SGC 10 outlsold a PSA 10, but it is not common. 

When I have done my analysis on Ebay, I find that there is most often a large, material difference in what a SGC 10 goes for vs a PSA 10. We can all cherry pick data, so everyone needs to do their own due diligence.  Sometimes odd things happen.  If you find that SGC 10s go for similar amounts to PSA 10s, then that is great. I find that the market discounts SGC so materially that I will not send them any of my cards. But hey, as of right now, there is no reliable comparison tool to analyze the market prices of similarly graded cards between the different companies.

Now, obviously, I have sent CGS cards (since PSA takes way too long). I am cautiously optimistic that 9's and 10's from CGS go for similar amounts to PSA over time.  We shall see. The market is really having problems right now, and it would be great to have CSG be on the PSA level.

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On 5/13/2021 at 1:57 PM, RKgant said:

So wait a minute... you are telling us that you had a PSA 10 and then you sent it into SGC for a re-grade? This does not seem to make sense.

Listen, no offense.  All I know is what the market prices are. SGC 10 is worth around PSA 7. If there is an arbitrage there, then more power to you if you buy SGC cards at a discount and then re-grade them at PSA, subsequently flipping them for more value. 

It was 6 years ago and I had all SGC slabs so i was trying to keep my collection in the same slabs. I figured I would send it in and at the time they had the 100 grade and a 98 was considered a ten. I figured the least I would get is a 98 and maybe land a Pristine 100. It came back a 96 or PSA 9. This was not the only instance. It just depends on what your looking for if you're a resale and flipper PSA has the best price but if your looking for actual integrity and a legitimate grade on your card PSA is easily THE WORST. They are not being investigated by the FBI because they are an upstanding grading company.  I will say if you want to know the actual grade of your card use BGS, SGC, and what looks like CGS if you want to sell/flip that 9.5 as a 10 use PSA. If you want to see my documented research on them most of their 10's are 9.5's and 9's anywhere else. 

Edited by Chris1096
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As mainly a personal collector I am not nearly as concerned with ROI as I am with a fair and ACCURATE grade with a company that has integrity to stay that way. CSG seems to be very fair although I will admit I am worried they take their surface grades too far. Their history with grading other materials is very well respected and to me that is worth far more than ROI. When the dust settles after the circus people will realize what companies do their due diligance and my bet is on CSG. I have many SGC cards I will have flipped into CSG not because I believe SGC to be bad but because I really think in the long run CSG will be at the top.

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For a possibly more unbiased account of the difference in PSA cards vs SGC cards, I would direct you towards this https://www.sportscardinvestor.com/2020/05/14/sgc-vs-psa-a-study-weighing-your-options-as-a-collector/

The analysis here shows a big difference in realized prices. PSA>SCG by a long shot.

What I cannot determine is "why?". When looking at the pop report on both PSA and SCG, consistently PSA grades a higher % of the cards a 10, with consistently fewer in the 5-7 range (I can share the data if you like). So the question is "Do people that on average have better cards send them to PSA, or is PSA more lenient on giving a 10?" If it is the latter, why aren't people buying SCG 9 and 9.5 at a discount, then resubmitting them to PSA to try for a 10? There is something happening in the market that I do not understand.

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On 5/14/2021 at 10:13 PM, Chris1096 said:

It was 6 years ago and I had all SGC slabs so i was trying to keep my collection in the same slabs. I figured I would send it in and at the time they had the 100 grade and a 98 was considered a ten. I figured the least I would get is a 98 and maybe land a Pristine 100. It came back a 96 or PSA 9. This was not the only instance. It just depends on what your looking for if you're a resale and flipper PSA has the best price but if your looking for actual integrity and a legitimate grade on your card PSA is easily THE WORST. They are not being investigated by the FBI because they are an upstanding grading company.  I will say if you want to know the actual grade of your card use BGS, SGC, and what looks like CGS if you want to sell/flip that 9.5 as a 10 use PSA. If you want to see my documented research on them most of their 10's are 9.5's and 9's anywhere else. 

Got it... thanks for the reply.  Now it makes sense.

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4 hours ago, RKgant said:

For a possibly more unbiased account of the difference in PSA cards vs SGC cards, I would direct you towards this https://www.sportscardinvestor.com/2020/05/14/sgc-vs-psa-a-study-weighing-your-options-as-a-collector/

The analysis here shows a big difference in realized prices. PSA>SCG by a long shot.

What I cannot determine is "why?". When looking at the pop report on both PSA and SCG, consistently PSA grades a higher % of the cards a 10, with consistently fewer in the 5-7 range (I can share the data if you like). So the question is "Do people that on average have better cards send them to PSA, or is PSA more lenient on giving a 10?" If it is the latter, why aren't people buying SCG 9 and 9.5 at a discount, then resubmitting them to PSA to try for a 10? There is something happening in the market that I do not understand.

I think I can answer your question a few ways. Even if SGC grades harder, submitting to PSA is risky and unless you want to pay $300 you won't be able to right now. Plus if they do open up bulk would you want to wait over a year to possibly get a PSA 10. Plus there is some evidence now that PSA is population controlling the PSA 10's and giving less of them recently.

I think the most important thing to do before submitting a card is to read how the companies grade. PSA 10's allow for a printing imperfection on the card and SGC 10's and CSG 10's do not. If you have a print defect like a fish-eye or a print line I would send to PSA every time. However, people complain about grades when they should be reading the grading standards, using a magnifying loupe and proper light to evaluate their cards, and doing research on how the card you are grading actually sells in different slabs. I have a 1975 George Brett at SGC right now. I am guessing it is a SGC 6 or 7. If you look at the prices of SGC 7's for George Brett rookies they sell for the same as PSA 7's, sometimes higher. There is not one right answer here. Each grading company has its own strengths and you can exploit them for your benefit.

 

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On 5/17/2021 at 8:34 AM, RKgant said:

For a possibly more unbiased account of the difference in PSA cards vs SGC cards, I would direct you towards this https://www.sportscardinvestor.com/2020/05/14/sgc-vs-psa-a-study-weighing-your-options-as-a-collector/

The analysis here shows a big difference in realized prices. PSA>SCG by a long shot.

What I cannot determine is "why?". When looking at the pop report on both PSA and SCG, consistently PSA grades a higher % of the cards a 10, with consistently fewer in the 5-7 range (I can share the data if you like). So the question is "Do people that on average have better cards send them to PSA, or is PSA more lenient on giving a 10?" If it is the latter, why aren't people buying SCG 9 and 9.5 at a discount, then resubmitting them to PSA to try for a 10? There is something happening in the market that I do not understand.

I agree that more often than not PSA cards do sell for more. My problem is their allowing small imperfections to be a 10. As a personal collecter I will no longer take that chance. I really hope CSG can trancend this. Really I am surprised PSA is still trusted and thought BGS would gain far more ground than they have. While more and more people are starting to understand grading as an overall art it is still very much in its infancy. Over time I honestly have no idea what will happen, i dont pretend too, i am just betting on CSG.

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I’m going to agree with the mention that CSG is tough on the surface grade, definitely cost me on cards I saw no issues with the surface when I sent them in. Looks like a smudge on “Magic” on the Shaq card and I swear that was not there when I sent it in. The Crosby card I have no clue.

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67FE01DD-7051-4722-92C6-2BBE0337957D.jpeg

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Oh man that is brutal. With the significant difference on surface compared to the quality of the overall card I am hoping at some point CSG will elaborate on how they grade the surface. I would really like to know wat they see. I am now preparing to see lower than expected grades from my 66 card bulk submission due to this. If anyone from CSG reads this please at some point give us your grading criteria for surface grades.

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On 5/13/2021 at 7:09 PM, redfoxdutchman said:

One thing to also consider is CSG seems to grade MUCH harsher on centering than other grading companies. A PSA 10 can have up to 60/40 centering and a CSG must have 55/45 centering to be a 9 and 60/40 will get a 8 or 8.5. 

This is my only concern with what I've seen coming from CSG so far. Overall, I'm happy to see them emerge as a new player in the market, and given their reputation in other industries, I think they have a real opportunity here to disrupt the sports card grading industry and emerge with slab resale prices that are probably on par with what we see from BGS. However, I'm somewhat concerned that they are a bit *too* harsh when it comes to centering. I've seen a few slabs on eBay where centering got 8.5 or 9 but the card was very nearly dead centered (one I measured digitally at 48/52 L/R and 49/51 T/B, and another was 50/50 L/R and 48/52 T/B, both got a 9). Those are just absolutely brutal grades for a card that is that well centered. If they adhere to this strict of a standard for centering, my concern is that people just will eventually just stop using them. Especially if they're turning cards that are 9s with BGS and PSA into 8 slabs with CSG. It's good to be strict, but if 49/51 isn't good enough for a 9.5, then I fear their staying power might be less than I'd otherwise hoped for. Time will tell. I've been buying up CSG cards on eBay in anticipation of their slabs rising in value eventually, so I'm a believer for now, but I'm hoping these are just outlier cases and that across the full distribution of slabs this isn't the case.

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First of all thanks for your very well said comment.  Obviously I couldn’t agree more about the strictness of their grading on centering. My Jordan Refractor card should have graded at an 8.5 on centering and they gave us 7.5 which destroyed any chance I had of big money on that card. I submitted my concerns to customer service that they will just say whatever they need to say to justify their position and to try to pacify me as a customer. It’s definitely a rocky start for them with me as I have 98 other cards waiting to be graded.  I really want to see these guys succeed, but as you said if the low grades on good cards continue they may shoot themselves in the foot.

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12 hours ago, MDBLAW said:

First of all thanks for your very well said comment.  Obviously I couldn’t agree more about the strictness of their grading on centering. My Jordan Refractor card should have graded at an 8.5 on centering and they gave us 7.5 which destroyed any chance I had of big money on that card. I submitted my concerns to customer service that they will just say whatever they need to say to justify their position and to try to pacify me as a customer. It’s definitely a rocky start for them with me as I have 98 other cards waiting to be graded.  I really want to see these guys succeed, but as you said if the low grades on good cards continue they may shoot themselves in the foot.

I would wager good money that your 7.5 is not due to centering. Try looking up that card on BGS pop reports and look at the distribution of sub grades. My guess is surface is a recurring issue for that card. Most older refractors from the 90s are.

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On 5/17/2021 at 11:34 AM, RKgant said:

For a possibly more unbiased account of the difference in PSA cards vs SGC cards, I would direct you towards this https://www.sportscardinvestor.com/2020/05/14/sgc-vs-psa-a-study-weighing-your-options-as-a-collector/

The analysis here shows a big difference in realized prices. PSA>SCG by a long shot.

What I cannot determine is "why?". When looking at the pop report on both PSA and SCG, consistently PSA grades a higher % of the cards a 10, with consistently fewer in the 5-7 range (I can share the data if you like). So the question is "Do people that on average have better cards send them to PSA, or is PSA more lenient on giving a 10?" If it is the latter, why aren't people buying SCG 9 and 9.5 at a discount, then resubmitting them to PSA to try for a 10? There is something happening in the market that I do not understand.

The answer as to why PSA is realizing greater prices than SGC is really quite simple - its the registry.  SGC's lack of a registry has severely hurt its resale value.  I actively collected pre-WWII cards back when SGC was considered the top dog for vintage cards (this was back in the 2000-10 time period).  I can assure you that back then, the difference between SGC and PSA wasn't nearly as great as it is now, and generally speaking, I could almost always sell my SGC graded cards for as much as similarly graded PSA cards. I also routinely crossed PSA cards to SGC slabs to keep my collection consistent.  Most cards crossed from PSA to SGC within a half grade in either direction (in other words, a PSA 5 would almost always cross over into an SGC 5 or 5.5).  Very few cards failed to cross.  Those that failed to cross were generally within a half-grade (i.e. PSA 6 to an SGC 5.5).  I also had more than a couple of examples of PSA slabbed cards that would not cross because SGC believed that they were trimmed.

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On 5/26/2021 at 10:23 AM, jkrasner2 said:

The answer as to why PSA is realizing greater prices than SGC is really quite simple - its the registry.  SGC's lack of a registry has severely hurt its resale value.  I actively collected pre-WWII cards back when SGC was considered the top dog for vintage cards (this was back in the 2000-10 time period).  I can assure you that back then, the difference between SGC and PSA wasn't nearly as great as it is now, and generally speaking, I could almost always sell my SGC graded cards for as much as similarly graded PSA cards. I also routinely crossed PSA cards to SGC slabs to keep my collection consistent.  Most cards crossed from PSA to SGC within a half grade in either direction (in other words, a PSA 5 would almost always cross over into an SGC 5 or 5.5).  Very few cards failed to cross.  Those that failed to cross were generally within a half-grade (i.e. PSA 6 to an SGC 5.5).  I also had more than a couple of examples of PSA slabbed cards that would not cross because SGC believed that they were trimmed.

In short, SGC sucks along with PSA...I'll never submit with either one.

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On 5/13/2021 at 11:12 AM, RKgant said:

One more thing about tough grading standards, since this has been cropping up on other forums... we should be hoping that CSG has high standards. For example: 

if PSA gives a card a 10, SGC (not CGS) will give it a 10.

if PSA gives a card a 9, SGC will give it a 10.

if PSA gives a card an 8, SGC will give it a 10.

So the community will value any SGC 10 as a PSA 8.

I don't think we want that with CSG.

This is just not true. 

SGC grades tougher than PSA without a doubt. 

I don't know who at SGC hurt you but again, what you wrote is absolutely not true. PSA is BY FAR the easiest grade in the business. 

I have made multiple hundreds of dollars in profit since last november buying SGC cards and grading them with PSA. 

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