I’ve never been a fan of CGC. They have a quick turnaround because of decreased demand. PSA needs competition though.
I only use CGC for errors that other company’s don’t recognise. I sent in 350 mint cards when they first opened submissions and got 90% 8.5’s which tanked their resell value hard. I learnt my lesson pretty quick lol!
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Value proposition has evaporated in the past 6 months. We don’t have to pretend that anything besides PSA is worthwhile anymore 
Pokemon grading is still an incredibly new thing – based on pop report trajectories, it only really took off within the past five years. So PSA’s dominance in the Pokemon market is far from longstanding. I’m not saying CGC will ever overtake them (in fact, I very much doubt they will), but I think it’s a bit presumptuous to assume that PSA is untouchable.
Something a lot of people don’t realize is that PSA was the dominant MTG grader for years. That is, until they got butchered by the competition (aka BGS).
Ultimately, here’s how I view it: if you collect high quality cards, you’re doing fine regardless of which brand of third party plastic encapsulates them. If CGC were to drop off the face of the Earth tomorrow, I could cross the CGC portion of my collection over to PSA for a relatively insignificant sum. And vice versa.
People (mistakenly) seem to view graded cards as having terminal, fixed properties. Whereas, in reality, the only thing separating a strong CGC 9 from a PSA 9/10 is $15, and the only thing separating a strong PSA 9 from a CGC 9/9.5 is $15.
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Just adding some context to these points. PSA has always been the standard for Pokémon. I don’t know what qualifies as long-standing, but ever since I started grading around 2008, it was just psa, until the past few years.
Pop reports require a bit of context. Collectibles and grading exploded in the past few years. Naturally they are going to have more cards submitted in the past 2-3 than the previous 7-10. Also during that explosion, psa was either behind and/or closed.
Imo it’s easier to grab market share in a hot market and when the leader is closed. I think the true test for psa competitors will be in the coming years, with a more cooled market, and PSA fully operational.
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I realize that PSA has always been the dominant Pokemon grader. Importantly, though, Pokemon grading was a very niche phenomenon up until relatively recently. And so I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that PSA will remain the dominant grader until the end of time. (For the record: I think it’s likely that PSA will always be the dominant Pokemon card grader – I just don’t view it as a fixed reality in the way that some do.)
Imo it’s easier to grab market share in a hot market and when the leader is closed. I think the true test for psa competitors will be in the coming years, with a more cooled market, and PSA fully operational.
Absolutely. Will be interesting to see.
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Here is a screenshot of some market research I done. Backing up smpratte’s statement.
CGC was doing very well, getting almost 20% market share around July. Reached 12% around end of Sep. There are too many factors behind this decrease, like the PSA reopening, CGC possibly changing the grading standard. But one thing is certain, for pokemon, volume wise, PSA is dominating.
85% of cards sold are graded by PSA.
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This is an evergreen question with an evergreen answer. CGC has an objectively better case, but a subjectively worse and distracting label. PSA labels have a premium tax and will hold significantly more value for most cards. There are more PSA cards in circulation so uniformity of your collection is something to consider as well. Comes down to personal preference and your expectations for your collection.
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how is the case objective and the label subjective, just curious
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While interesting and of some importance, sales volume has to be considered relative to the supply coming onto the market. In other words: can we attribute the increase in PSA sales volume to increasing consumer preference for PSA – or merely to the fact that PSA-graded cards comprise a growing proportion of the slabs available for sale? Based on PSA’s grading output over the past couple months, my bet would be on the latter.
In terms of actual auction results, the value difference between PSA and CGC slabs has actually narrowed over the past few months – which, ironically, is probably because it’s faster and more inexpensive to cross-grade with PSA right now than it was a few months ago (and so the demand for CGC slabs from cross-graders has increased).
Always considered them the “value” grading company. Non-sub cards are ugly imo and the fact that they changed their grading so obviously essentially overnight to attempt to take more of the market is something to be worried about. Weird how it coincided around the same time PSA started opening up more types of subs huh? For $15, I will be grading PSA over CGC 100/100 times.
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My graded slab collection has always been 100% PSA. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
My reasons are all of the usual ones (maximizing card value, slab aesthetics, collection uniformity, and a preference for integer grading, especially in the 9-10 range).
If I ever got into the grade-and-flip hustle I might do some CGC grading. However, even then it would only make sense for certain kinds of cards, and would depend on the pricing and turnaround times relative to PSA.
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BGS: I don’t feel so good.
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This entirely. Their error grading has no parallel at any other company.
I probably submitted 500+ cards in total and got 4 CGC 10s with zero perfects. The 8.5 meme was a real phenomenon too. I found most of my brand new Japanese newbacks would get 8.5/9 and LP english cards I sent in would also get 8.5.
The subgrades are a double-edge sword because it’s nice to know why the card got what it did but also comparing the subgrades given to two different cards just quickly reveals how inconsistent the process is.
It was hard to sell 8.5s and 9s even when everything had peaked. With things slowing down and the obvious change in how many 10s they pump out, they have effectively punished their most early adopters. I have no interest in grading with them again outside of error card submissions
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Just to add onto the above, I think it’s good that they stick around though. I think that competition is extremely important when it comes to grading any company becoming complacent as the only realistic option for grading does not benefit anyone
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I’m also only really a fan of CGC for errors, wouldn’t send anything to them for grading. I bought some 8.5s on PWCC a while back, and they’ll likely all be getting cracked for PSA at some point.
As to the conversation on longevity, I think there is a lot of value on being “first”. PSA was first in Pokemon, and has developed a foothold. It would take a massive shift for established collections to move away from that, or a massive shift in people not wanting all of their labels to match. In the coin world for example, people want all PCGS (CU) holders. There are of course NGC (CGC) coins around, and NGC has a strong following, but PCGS has maintained it’s top dog position.
CGC was the option for Pokemon whilst PSA sorted out their pricing a backlog. For me, in most instances, they were essentially a pre-grading service for cards I eventually wanted to send to PSA once prices became reasonable. Unfortunately, CGC raised their prices multiple times and it became less economical and worthwhile to use them for this purpose.
As soon as CGC raised their base grading fee + sub-grades to 30 dollars, they became the exact same price to grade a card with PSA at the 30 dollar sub tier. So, for me, they are essentially useless when it comes to grading cards for my Pokemon card collection. But, for the hobby at large they are still the best bet for error grading. I will continue to use them for my Final Fantasy Opus collection, as they actually grade Wave 1 cards properly whereas PSA will just slap Wave 1 on any Opus 1 card that people ask.
They have really shot themselves in the foot by effectively changing their grading standards, despite swearing they haven’t, because now every card 8.5 or above from before the change has a chance at a PSA 10 (depending on the faults). PSA is by no means perfect, and they do a lot of things that annoy the shit out of me, but at the end of the day they add more value to my collection and have a grading scale that the public accepts and (somewhat) understands.
It’s a real shame because they have a superior label to PSA.
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I do like CGC case because it is transparent. I also like CGC label because blue is less eye-catching than red. Of course, CGC grades misprints and art academy cards, which PSA does not do so. However, I don’t like subgrades. I also don’t like the fact that CGC grading standard has became more lenient lately. It makes me want to regrade my older CGC slabs or cross them to PSA for better numerical grade.
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Is it cheaper to crack it yourself first and send it in to grade? Because i know psa has a crossover option. Why not just do that instead?