Have you guys ever got a black label? If so, what does it look like?

[Quuador]

I’ve only graded with BGS once (send around Fall 2018 and got back early 2019), and did try for a Black Label as well. I had roughly 35 sealed WotC promos of each of the three legendary birds with error illustrator. I’ve looked at the Moltres with the best centering and least amount of whitening while they were still in their seals, and opened about 25 out of 35. Then I selected the best of those again. Unfortunately, most I pre-graded as PSA 9s or low 10s, so not too many great candidates for a BGS black label.
I ended up sending in the best three, plus an additional corrected illustrator one I had (and two Chinese EX Legend Maker cards I pulled myself).

Unfortunately, no luck on the Black Label, although I did get very close with one of them, with three 10s and one 9.5 as subgrades. To quote my return collection post:

@Quuador

My first BGS submission came back a few days back. Since it is way too dark in the evening when I come back from work I waited until the weekend to take pictures.

First of all we have a BGS-10 (subgrades 10/10/9.5/10 ) error illustrator Moltres as well as a BGS-9.5 (subgrades 9.5/10/10/9) corrected illustrator Moltres. Unfortunately the 10 isn’t 0.5 higher on edges to have that illusive Black Label 10, but I’m still very happy with these results!

Next we have my own pulled Chinese Registeel Gold Star and Flygon EX, which I was lucky enough to pull from my only Chinese EX Legend Maker booster box opening thus far a few months back. The grades are BGS-9.5 (subgrades 9.5/9/9.5/10) for Registeel and BGS-9.5 (9.5/9/9.5/9.5) for Flygon:

And the last two are two more error illustrator Moltres, since I’ve send in three for a higher chance of a 10. These two will be for sale/trade probably.

All and all I’m very happy with the results of my first BGS submission. I’ve used @pokemonoscar’s Swedish middleman service for collectors within Europe, and I can certainly recommend him for anyone else looking to grade cards with BGS. If I ever want any other cards graded, I know who to go to.

So yeah, no black labels graded myself, although 0.5 off isn’t too bad all things considering.

A few months later, I came across a Black Label of this Moltres on someone’s IG whom was also active on E4, and was able to buy it (for ~300 bucks). Here again a quote from my collection post:

@Quuador

It finally arrived! About 2.5 months ago I bought it from @ssjc after I saw he posted it on Instagram, and after it was (luckily temporarily) lost in Paris for 2 months, the tracking code finally updated again two days ago. And here it is!

Very happy with the addition (and that it wasn’t lost after all…). Although I already had a BGS-10 with subs 10/10/9.5/10, it just isn’t the same as a Black Label 10/10/10/10. A very nice addition to my collection. And currently also POP-1:

Thanks again @ssjc !!

Seems like it’s still pop-1 these days (with 120 graded in total thus far).

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Since it’s my favorite artwork of the entire TCG, I’m still very happy to have it in my collection despite the Black Label controversy. The red card with black label also just looks great imo.
Having said that, I’ve paid 300 USD back then. I feel like Black Labels, especially for WotC era cards, are a few thousands of USD these days, which wouldn’t be worth it at all. Especially since the card itself is basically on par with the BGS-10 (with one 9.5 subgrade) I graded myself.

Greetz,
Quuador