Have you considered the possibility that not everyone grades cards with the intent to immediately flip them? 
Yes, PSA is pretty much a strictly superior option when it comes to resale value. But, believe it or not, some people genuinely prefer CGC slabs.
turnaround time, clear cases, non-red label.
Yes. I thought people graded with cgc because the grading scale was something different and they offered subs.
According to the article, less than 5% of people were purchasing subs. Yes, that is because they increased the sub price to $15/card (a ridiculous decision, IMO â I totally agree with qwachansey on that). But it still just as well demonstrates that that was clearly not the reason why people were continuing to submit with them.
Re: the grading scale â maybe, though I donât think Iâve met a single person who prefers the CGC grading scale. Maybe Iâm just projecting my own preferences on others, but I really donât think that was why people continued to use CGC. As I see it, the only good reason to continue to use CGC is the slab. But I donât have hard data about that preference, so this is admittedly just anecdotal.
Error collectors graded with CGC because it was their only option at recognition.
CGC grades 16k Pokemon cards a week. How many of those do you think are errors? Even if theyâre grading 1000 errors a week (which I highly doubt â Iâd bet itâs in the triple digits), that doesnât account for the other 15k cards per week that theyâre grading. So when weâre talking about why people continue to use CGC, error card grading is definitely not the answer for the vast majority of people.
it has now been clarified:
.5 grades remain
old 9.5s with the âgem mintâ label will be upgraded to âgem mintâ 10
new 9.5 is called âmint +â
They are talking live on IG. At the moment everything is really clear for those interested to know.
Iâm not saying that it was the only reason, but that it was one salient reason. There are numerous reasons for why people grade with a company. Clarity of the case is one of many.
Itâs probably something like this:
imo psa is the outlier, where the only reason to grade with them is because theyâre psa and you can resell them based on an established market.
Memes aside, Iâll jump in on the take-sharing on this.
Over the past year or so, CGC lost a lot of their substantive advantages over PSA, namely turnaround time and price. Now that PSA is wide open and has a 2-month turnaround for $15 bulk, there is little incentive to submit to CGC other than preference, outside of the rare cases of error/early release cards which arguably CGC does better.
I think CGC revamping their grading scale and trying to provide a better service to collectors is a good thing, people need more incentives to submit to CGC and a revamp allows CGC to address things that arenât working. As @pfm has pointed out, competition and options in the grading space is a good thing. However, I see this as a huge missed opportunity for CGC. Essentially what theyâve done is eliminated any remaining submission incentives while introducing a ton of confusion.
First, this is CGCâs third grading scale/standards change in three years. Weâre all familiar with the endless 8.5s you would get on cards during the first year or so of CGCâs operation. Once they released the pop report, they made changes to the standards such that higher grades were easier to obtain, especially on modern cards. While this was very obvious to anyone who looked at the numbers, CGC publicly denied that any change had been made. Now we have this change to the grading scale, moving Gem Mint from 9.5 to 10, eliminating Perfect, and perhaps changing the grading standards yet again.
I actually think CGC has got it right this time, 10 is widely associated with Gem Mint in the grading community and having a somewhat obtainable 10 grade is what a lot of collectors want. I also think it would have been much better if CGC just started out this way from the beginning. I donât understand the weird 9.5 to 10 shift theyâre doing, but now introducing a new 9.5 grade as well. If CGC is going to take the massive step of changing their grading scale and shifting 9.5 to 10s, they should have eliminated the 9.5 grade (if not half-point grades entirely).
Over their short three years of operation, CGC has methodically killed off what made them unique in search of more profit and market share. They killed off the harsher grading scale (while generally disliked, some collectors preferred this as opposed to PSAâs perceived lenience), killed off subgrades, and now have killed off the idea that 10 is a halo grade. In becoming a PSA-at-home grading company, theyâve also lost the trust of a lot of collectors. The earlier you submitted to CGC, the more screwed you are. If you submitted right as they opened, you got stuck with a bunch of 8.5s on your modern Japanese cards. If you (re)submitted after the grading standards change, sure you got less 8.5s, but now you have to pay $5 per card to get your cards reholdered and perhaps upgraded. And nobody knows if those cards will be worth more in a CGC Gem Mint 10 as opposed to a CGC Gem Mint 9.5.
Lastly, what happens next year if CGC isnât getting the volume of submissions that they want? Do they make another change to their label, another change to their grading scale? Maybe they do go ahead and eliminate the new 9.5 grade (any CGC 9.5s can be re-examined to determine if theyâre 9s or 10s for the low price of $7 per card). I donât think theyâll actually do this, but now CGC has a track record of major changes when things arenât working out. I donât worry about PSA suddenly coming up with a new Pristine 10 grade or a Mint + 9.5 grade. I donât worry that PSA is going to revamp their label into something completely different, messing up the continuity in my collection.
I definitely believe that people graded with CGC because they provided subgrades. This was a huge part of their appeal. They had a better brand and better service than BGS and offered something PSA did not. I am really surprised to see them dropping subs, because it feels like every CGC card I see has subs on it, but I am sure their internal data suggests this is a feature they can afford to scrap.
It was a huge part of their appeal when only 5% of cards were submitted with subgrades? To me, that indicates the opposite.
I want to highlight the second half of my post, here. I already conceded to the point you are arguing!
Ok, well that part of your post was a ninja edit because it certainly wasnât there when I responded haha. But fair enough! Itâs just clearly the case that most people donât care about the subgrades. This is made even more clear if you look at auction end prices â thereâs no appreciable difference based on the presence/lack of subs.
I promise that this is not the case, that post has not been edited.
Edit: Was trying to force the edit indicator on this post to demonstrate but it does look like âninja editsâ are possible. I guess Iâd need a mod to back me up in court.
I think this statistic may be misrepresented by CGC. From what I have seen, their âjunk slabsâ have no sub-grades (because, why?) but their higher-end cards often do.
If you just look at the total number of cards graded, junk slabs will obviously outnumber the higher-end cards and lead them to believe that sub-grades donât matter to collectors. But I would imagine that a large majority of cards worth $200+ or maybe $500+ were graded with sub-grades.
Lastly, what happens next year if CGC isnât getting the volume of submissions that they want? Do they make another change to their label, another change to their grading scale? Maybe they do go ahead and eliminate the new 9.5 grade (any CGC 9.5s can be re-examined to determine if theyâre 9s or 10s for the low price of $7 per card). I donât think theyâll actually do this, but now CGC has a track record of major changes when things arenât working out. I donât worry about PSA suddenly coming up with a new Pristine 10 grade or a Mint + 9.5 grade. I donât worry that PSA is going to revamp their label into something completely different, messing up the continuity in my collection.
I think this is probably the most valid criticism Iâve read in this thread so far. I can definitely see how peoplesâ confidence could be shaken by the constant changes theyâve made. That said, Iâm not sure how much confidence people had in CGC in the first place.
Itâs because they charged $15 for subs now which is the majority of the margin youâd probably make by selling the average CGC slab. They purposely disincentivized it because it took too long (the reason they gave for bumping the price up to begin with)
Ok, then my apologies â maybe I just misread the post.