Just documenting my experience sending to CGC EU. I’ll update as I go.
I mainly grade with BGS USA but due to tariffs and not wanting to give BGS EU any more money for their wildly strict and inconsistent grading, I’m trying CGC EU. They also have onsite grading.
I sent 4 submissions in the same box:
1x crossover (economy)
2x Autos (card + auto graded) (standard)
1x Standard
10x economy
Process:
Payment is taken after submission is graded (unlike BGS). Although I haven’t put my card details in yet. I assume it’s because they send you a final invoice with your return shipping costs when it’s all graded.
Only negative and difference so far to CGC USA is you have to fill out a separate EU shipping form and include it with your package.
CGC USA support on social is superb, but I’ve noticed EU is separate and much slower to get responses via email.
Which shipping company did you use? Were you worried about your cards going missing during shipping because CGC Munich says to put “CGC CARDS” on the box?
I’ve been eyeing the CGC Munich submission form and really going back and forth if I should do it myself or via 3rd party.
You don’t put CGC cards on the box, but you do have to send it to Certified Collectibles Group GMBH
I used UPS and once it was collected, I had no issues. I insured the box which cost €80.
I’ve only ever had cards go missing once using ups and it was when it needed to clear customs when heading to the USA, and was at the Barcelona warehouse (other people have had cards go missing from there too who were also sending to the USA).
My card was a 1 of 1 moduwa sketch and later appeared on ebay 3 months later…definitely stolen.
I had another ups package go missing in the UK but it turned up 8 months later, lol.
There is nothing during the submission process or submission packing slip that says that - and mine went through fine without it. Dont think it is needed!
What kind of cards are you grading? I have a couple vintage cards plus slightly cheaper cards Im thinking of grading through PSA or CGC, but am struggling a bit deciding which company to go for.
I suppose its just a matter of pregrading and looking at comps for both companies(the more expensive cards are in the PSA 5-8 range and probably worth grading with PSA) but there are some cards where a PSA 9 vintage is worth 100 bucks and in that instance, the cost difference(40 bucks vs roughly 20 bucks equivalent) seems to make CGC worth going for. Especially considering the insane turn-around times at PSA(I’m looking at 8 months on my current PSA order and they havent even gone through grading yet).
A mixture - some vintage autographed cards, shadowless and some modern one piece. I split them up as I didn’t want the vintage to go in with the one piece for bias reasons.
Here are the ones I wanted to scan for the insurance. All should grade 10 or P10 but with grading, who knows haha.
I am really hoping the Shadowless Raichu get’s a 10, it is very clean. BGS kept denying the graded card review but giving different reasons each time lol. It’s extremely clean, maybe 9 surface only on a bad day.
It does indeed. I’m hearing 2 weeks turnaround time even for the lowest tier which is great. It’s gone up a bit now, but CGC seems to be taking market share for Europeans away from BGS.
Yeah, it was a massive submission that a middleman did, so I’m not privy to all the details regarding shipping, tariffs etc But yeah, even the fastest tiers took a looong time. Think the express tier cards just arrived like a week ago. Or least were completed at PSA. The middleman also ships cards through Canada due to Tariffs/shipping issues which adds another 8 weeks so its a whole mess.
Yeah that would be a no from me.
BGS Europe is also 4 months for economy which I CBA with.
CGC right now seems the best option turnaround time -wise. Grading consistency is to be seen (but hopefully better than BGS EU which is a travesty as they seem to use a completely different grading scale than BGS USA).
