Hey everyone, I recently bought a Blue-Eyes White Dragon SDK,(Unlimited) graded CGC 8.5
If the seller had sent card to PSA or BGS instead of CGC, what kind of grade do you think it might have received?
Also, which of the big three (CGC, BGS, PSA) is the strictest and most consistent when it comes to grading?
I’m not worried about resale value or label looks — I just care about which company is the most accurate and fair. And i want your opinion if i make a good chose!
I always see the majority of Yugioh cards in a PSA slab, so I assume that collectors consider them the safest “bet” for their money, when buying or submitting. So, purely from a logical standpoint, I would say PSA.
In the end it’s a tough question for pokemon forum, but there are some members who collect YGO like @ascendedbidoof , and maybe they could be helpful
It’s impossible to say as each company evaluates a card differently. There isn’t a 1:1 comparison between a certain CGC grade and a BGS/PSA grade. I can only speak to Pokemon as I don’t collect Yugioh, but for example, PSA requires a card to have 55/45 centering or better to get a Gem Mint 10. If the card is flawless but slightly off on centering, the same card could get a PSA 9/BGS 9.5/CGC 10.
The opposite is also true where your PSA grade could be higher than CGC for the same card. CGC was well-known for grading very harshly when they first started, early CGC 8.5s with strong subs frequently crossed to PSA 9s while CGC 9s and 9.5s often crossed to PSA 10s. However CGC loosened their grading standards once they released their pop report and cards graded after that often do not cross to a higher PSA grade. I would say the prevailing wisdom now is that a CGC 10 is easier to achieve than a PSA 10.
With your CGC 8.5, you could be anywhere from a PSA 7 to a PSA 9. My BGS experience is minimal but I do know that lower grade BGS is more lenient than PSA, so you’d likely be looking at a higher floor. Maybe BGS 8 to 9.
This is also a difficult question to answer because professional grading is inherently subjective and each company has different scales as I mentioned above. PSA stops at Gem Mint 10 but BGS has Pristine 10 and Black Label 10, CGC had Gem Mint 9.5, Pristine 10 and Perfect 10 but now that’s collapsed to Gem Mint 10 and Pristine 10. If you’re just asking how difficult it is to obtain the top grade, BGS would be the “strictest” because of the comparatively small number of Black Labels which get awarded. However, it’s not a fair comparison because PSA’s highest grade by definition encompasses more conditions of cards. If you’re asking which company across the entire grading scale is the harshest, PSA is probably the answer as lower-grade CGC and BGS are known to be more lenient, even though PSA’s top grade is the easiest to obtain out of the three.
In terms of consistency, it’s well-documented that submitting the same card to the same company multiple times will result in different grades a non-insignificant percentage of the time. There’s no comprehensive data or investigation which has been done into whether one company has a wider variation of grades than another. I haven’t seen anything that indicates to me that one company is more consistent than the other.
I can only speak to cards that are graded 8-10, as I do not collect cards in lower condition, but in my experience, they are all comparable. While there are fringe cases due to certain grading scale discrepancies between companies, generally speaking I find that they all grade relatively evenly and accurately. i.e, my PSA 9’s, CGC 9’s, BGS 9’s all are in what I would agree to be “mint condition” as a grade of 9 is meant to imply.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an exact science; nobody here will really be able to give you anything more than anecdotal evidence. Additionally, most people here will have less experience with YGO, though I’m sure there are a few that may be able to give you more definitives.
Thanks for the shoutout @decoypalmette. I collect Yugioh but I haven’t graded any of my own cards or tried crossing any over to another company. All of the cards in my collection are PSA. Not because I am a strict PSA collector but because the cards I wanted only had PSA copies available when I purchased them.
The grading scales of the three companies are on average very similar. Just assume the card would get 8.5 + some noise regardless what company sees it.
In other words, if you took a random CGC 8.5 and asked me to bet if it would get higher or lower at PSA or BGS, I see it as a coin toss and not something you could consistently predict without more information.
First of all, i am sorry to make the post in a forum that have do more with Pokemon! So, thank for your time and answers. Me i don’t even want to sell again. I want only to know that i make a good chose for my favorite card, i chose a seller that grading on CGC. So, can you saggest me a more indicated forum for yugioh grading. In any case, thank you all of you for your time!
The only one I know of is Pojo. It looks like it’s mostly about discussing the game rather than collecting. There is a tab for collecting but it looks like it’s updated infrequently.
The only other things I can think of are discords and some subreddits like r/yugiohshowcase
First of all, how dare anyone talk about yugioh in this forum. I discourage that as this forum is for Pokemon discussions only.
Second, there arent any. Ill make one eventually so that yugioh collectors have a place to spread their misinformation in a chaotic and unregulated manner inconsistent with any legal requirements.
Last, grading with CGC is discouraged. Owning CGC graded cards is hard to understand. They have no known authentication standards, which is why they constantly grade forgeries.
why are you so aggressive? in a previous comment I apologized. So is it that so terrible? I am sso soery, I was very polite and didn’t want to cause a problem
I think people were initially joking about not talking about yugioh. There are people here who collect everything, your question is fine and this is probably the best place to ask, as there isn’t a yugioh equivalent of E4, and your question is about the condition of a card.
As for answering your original question, @fourthstartcg did a good job breaking it down! Also it might help to show photos of the actual card. If its an old blue cgc label, there is a stronger chance of it upgrading with psa.
