So they implemented my suggestions from July 2020?
https://www.elitefourum.com/t/cgc-grading/27173/99?u=hypernova
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That said, CGC missed an opportunity here with their grading system imo. If they had ditched the 0.5s and added a 10+ (similar to Black Label), the grading system would be more attractive. Right now for Pokemon (less so for Beckett-centric cards like sports/MtG) there exists an awkward discontinuity for grades where BGS 9 < PSA 9 < BGS 9.5 < PSA 10 < BGS 10 < BGS 10 Black Label and my personal feeling is that 9.5 is just a really awkwardly positioned grade.
The label is also so critically important to the overall appeal of the slab. A few more iterations with the label design and even the label printing technology (printing perforations on the label? seriously?) would have helped them a lot. If they had brought to the table a very sexy label I feel like that would have driven a lot more market interest right away. The rest of the plastic slab looks pretty good otherwise.
As for the pricing - I think it’s good, and seems much more closely aligned with more money = faster turnaround than PSA. The add-ons idea to generate more revenue is a neat one and is 100x easier to accept than PSA’s reasoning of you pay (a lot) more simply because the card’s worth more and if you don’t pay us enough we’ll call you up and demand more money. I’m not sure if CGC is doing the whole financial guarantee thing but imo it’s just so incredibly unnecessary, especially if (as several members here have argued in the past) it’s the reason for PSA’s insanely high prices.
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These are good ideas imo …three years ago. Making these changes now makes me question their intent. Awhile back I had an interesting glimpse into some non-public ways CGC conducts business that give me good reason to question the people that run the company. However, I still view them as the number one option for errors and cards that are otherwise mint but whose surface would be automatically deemed a <=6 by PSA.
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