CGC Changed Their Grading Scale & Label

Grading
,
445

If they were competent, then they would have been testing prototypes with focus groups/existing customers - and if this is the result, then I have more faith that it will be a good decision or at least a better one than doing nothing.

The social media feedback is something that should really be minimised. The reality is people like to react and exaggerate and then almost everything blows over - especially something as ultimately irrelevant as grading cards. That’s what’s wrong with journalism today - relying on some random Twitter users unrepresentative of society and presenting it as the consensus.

Furthermore, it seems most piling on here aren’t even CGC’s customers/users in the first place, which makes your perspective worth less to the company. Of course, they would hope to convince non-users, but as some have admitted, it comes down to $ at the end. If CGC are successful, you’re going to switch eventually or in some cases whether or not you like the label or these decisions.

To reiterate, if they have done their market research/testing etc like they said they have done, I think this will be a success. (Did BGS even consult anyone when they tried to change earlier this year?) If they are just using those lines as PR, then they’ll pull a BGS and run scared from anonymous social media users.

6 Likes
446

This. There’s really not many complaints on IG either just a few loud and consistent people, many of which have IG pages with 99% PSA slabs lol As an example their posts from today have 500-1000 likes but the comments are in the 200-300 range. Many of those comments are replies to others. Let’s say there’s 75 legit complaints. I’m positive they surveyed and focused many more people than that.

2 Likes
447

Selling rare blue label cgc cards
Discontinued error

Im not reading thru 500 posts to see if anyone else made the same joke

11 Likes
448

You’re safe with that one. Nice.

2 Likes
449

I feel the second part of the last paragraph; recently sent some film to be developed and currently in the right city but package is not at said location :frowning: submitted a USPS claim so we will see how they do with tracking it down since it seems doable. But patience is hard with emotional items especially cards and hard to reaquire moments.

Hopefully there were enough oddish graders out there for you to keep going with old slabs and are just waiting to put on market! :slight_smile:

2 Likes
450

That’s the thing, I have checked the pop reports and it’s not possible because a lot of them have never been graded :frowning:

2 Likes
451

I was thinking of the new 9.5 grade and how weird it is. It is better than the current 9, but it is worse than the current 9.5. One can only guess how many new cards will get the 9.5 grade, but it should not be a lot if they try to keep the grading scale intact. A weird move for a company which is simplifying their grading scale because there was so little difference between the grades.

1 Like
452

They’ve upgraded their meme grade to a 9.5 mint +

2 Likes
453

Regarding the grading scale:

Bumping the image @handschoen shared because it got drowned out by the many posts and I saw a lot of questions about the grading scale after the post was made.

I was going to summarize the sentiment felt on both sides, but as I was writing, this podcast of @gemmintpokemon and his cohost spoke to both sides of CGC’s new grading scale at 39:06:

My thoughts:
Whether current CGC customers agree with the rebranding, CGC determined that they needed to make adjustments to their current business model in order to achieve their goals (which seems to be the direct competitor of PSA for the position of future leading grading company). High risk, but if they already determined that their current trajectory will not meet their goals, I don’t think any of us can really fault them for making a pivot in their brand (Facebook abruptly changing to Meta as a loose example in terms of vision boarding and company direction). As for the timeliness for making such a change, I would wager that between the data collection and review, the decisions to identify their brand and vision, and ultimately the necessary capital to account for such drastic changes caused the seemingly slow and delayed change.

Hope this helps,
cpbog1

10 Likes
454

I’ve been struggling to sell a CGC 9.5 for a few months but woke up to it being sold.
An old CGC 9.5 gem mint is the same card / grade as a new CGC 10 gem mint.
Bumping 9.5s to a 10 isn’t an upgrade, it’s just a new label. Not sure if some people understand this haha but it’s great for sellers!

6 Likes
455

The psychological appeal of a 10/10 is the upgrade, not the grade itself

11 Likes
456

Watching all of this play out feels surreal and makes me feel old.

I remember back in like 2018, there was strong evidence that BGS was giving one baseball submitter special treatment. His cards were earning loads of 10s and Black Labels, making his collection super valuable. It was a huge scandal, and if I recall correctly, even the FBI got involved.

For collectors, one guy getting preferential treatment eroded the trust that a card’s potential value had no bearing on the grade. The integrity of quantifying a card’s condition meant impartiality, regardless of any outside forces. There seemed to be a high value and belief in this type of integrity. People were pissed for a number of reasons, but this was definitely a major one.

Fast forward to today: With CGC’s announcement, it feels like they’ve just decided we all get to be that one guy. By adjusting the scale to bump up 9.5s and the convoluted tiers of 9s and 10s, they’re obviously trying to make it easier for CGC collections to appear more pristine and thus potentially more valuable (which probably won’t happen since this seems like a dumpster fire move, but I’m highlighting the intent here). These guys said fuck working on refining our grading system to be more valid and reliable, we know our customers are just here to make some money, so let’s focus on making that easier for them.

I also feel old because to me anything CGC does seems unmistakeable as solely profit-driven. Reputable grading companies make changes to improve their goods/service: New, more tamper-proof cases; New, less forgeable certs. These changes might be annoying, but they are fundamentally to strengthen the integrity of the product and service. CGC’s cert changes are because of…??? Aesthetics? Maybe the merger of TCG and Sports, best case. And yeah, every business is trying to make a profit, but the focus on profits over service first is the point.

And to be super meta about this, I think I’m really just outlining the difference between collectors and flippers (yes, flippers can be/are collectors, too, but you know what I mean). Collectors are focused on the cards, and flippers are focused on the cards only insofar as they can be quickly converted to cash. It honestly feels like someone at CGC handed a Timmy the card grading department and said “have at it.” All the moves feel hollow and out of touch—at least out of touch with what used to be the fundamentals of grading. But there I go, sounding all old again!

Tl;dr CGC’s new grading system feels like an attempt to help their customers sell more cards via doling out more grades at the pristine end of the spectrum. This feels obvious to me and is a negative, but I think I am in the minority, which feels like a departure from what I am familiar with and thus feel old.

24 Likes
457

I will preface my opionion by stating im not a psa homer, i use sgc. I find it kind of nuts that consumers are ok with:
A.) Cgc basically acknowledging they were previousky undergrading cards with a 9.5 to a 10 bump
B.) Being an sgc homer i do find the label for regular cards an upgrade but that 10 pristine weird gold thing they have going on looks like something out of a third grade classroom
C.) Why in the hell are you charging for upgrades to the new label you dont do it for 5 bucks you do it for 1 dollar a card because its a 5 cent case and employees can reslab lets say 30 cards an hour. This is a cash grab reslab for cost.
D.) 3 label changes in 2 years??? Next year “we want to be unique were now providing Rainbow :rainbow: labels” psa = same label 30 years, beckett same labels, sgc one change in decades. Like bro pick a label

2 Likes
458

image
image694×197 47.8 KB

3 Likes
459

in the live yesterday, they said the 9.5 mint+ grade would be given to something that would receive a 9++ (9, 9, 9.5, 9.5). (9.5 on the label now is actually a 9.25 grade)

this should mean that even new gem mint 10s are just 9.5s (9, 9.5, 9.5, 9.5 - 9.5, 9.5, 10, 10)
(9.375 - 9.75)

with pristine 10s essentially being at least 3/4 subgrades receiving a 10.

while 3/4 isn’t perfect, its still at worse a 98.75% perfect grade.

maybe the new pristine label won’t be too far off from what the perfect 10 was as far as the market goes. idk… just some thoughts.

2 Likes
460

Nailed it. While there are a couple of actual CGC collectors here stating reasonable complaints about the change (@qwachansey and @JoshsOddCollection, in particular), the vast, vast majority of critical comments are from people who didn’t collect CGC slabs in the first place. It’s like, cool – continue not using the company you weren’t using in the first place :rofl:.

It kind of reminds me of the peanut gallery that comes out whenever there’s a new Pikachu Illustrator sale. Just as my opinion on a Pikachu Illustrator sale is more or less entirely irrelevant, the opinions on this change that actually matter are those that were doing business with CGC before the change. Again, this isn’t to say only CGC customers should comment on the matter – just that it doesn’t really matter what people who weren’t going to use CGC regardless think.

2 Likes
461

Your oddish collection and your work to improve cgc were the first thing that came to my mind after seeing this change, feel truly sorry for you and i hope you find a bearable solution for your collection

8 Likes
462

I mostly collect PSA but I have 95% of my favorite character collection in CGC slabs. I’m at an impasse of what I should do with the slabs. They look great in the old CGC slab so I’m inclined to keep them put. But also wondering about cracking it all and subbing it to PSA. I really don’t want to buy any of the new label CGC. Does not look good at all to me.

2 Likes
463

Is now a bad time to show my bgs to CGC cross grading results :frowning:

I was so excited to show yal my very first attempt at CGC since they opened, but geez idk anymore. Still glad I did it though

4 Likes
464

I have had some time to reflect on changes. Heres my upfront “interest” measured in value:
60% binder cards
40% Slabs (All PSA)

Context: PSA is effectively inaccessible to grade from the UK unless you risk using a middleman so majority of ppl locally use basement UK graders or CGC. I have had a grading pile slowly building since the Ludkins meltdown and was/am considering using CGC.

So as a potential new customer, I actually prefer the fat label to avoid the letter spaghetti on the PSA cards. I also prefer the black label to the blue. I dont like that is third effective change to the grading scale which removes confidence that the scale/label wont be fiddled with in future.

The storm that has been generated by 9.5 → 10 is rather bemusing, shows that people care about the number being two digits too much. From my understanding the “grade” is not changing just the number is being changed. Reintroducing the 9.5 grade though is bizarre, this is effectively a new grade and some cards that have currently been graded 9 or old 9.5 would naturally be graded a new 9.5. To preserve past grading integrity they shouldn’t introduce a new grade.

The worst thing to me is removing the option for subgrades. I would definitely opt for subgrades on higher end cards, removal of a differentiating element compared to your main competitor is a L.

3 Likes