I agree, I think this is a fair assessment of these companies at this point. I actually don’t mind high-grade BGS for Pokemon. I think the gold label still looks great with a lot of cards, including some modern ones and it’s generally a solid grade when you get up to 9.5+. It’s clear though that many people are opting for PSA or CGC more and more though based off the amount of ads alone.
I dabble in graded Magic some and what I find is people are mainly cracking CGC slabs out for most Magic cards & sending to BGS. They have quickly built up a reputation & trust around Magic collectors though, and I would say are ahead of PSA in Magic because of the sub-grade option which MTG people love. Depending on what happens with the BGS label and how fussy people are, they might even take more market from BGS in Magic.
I would say that the mid-tier grades in Magic for CGC are generally better conditioned than mid-tier BGS on average and it’s way better than having that crappy white BGS label. BGS it really needs to be a silver label or ideally a gold label to be attractive IMO.
For Pokemon I’m something like 70%/30% PSA to CGC. CGC has better cases, PSA has better liquidity and inherent value. For my vintage and modern sports I have PSA and SGC. I have one CSG card and one BGS for that and I tried crossing the BGS at a lower grade PSA and it didn’t cross so it’s staying there. My two magic cards are BGS.
In total I have the most PSA, then SGC, then CGC and then finally Beckett.
PSA for all TCG. Then I have a few random grading companies like HCCG and MG Grading for things like Poker and Non TCG cards. I’ve purchased a few CGC but cracked them to send to PSA.
I have a mixture of all three in my collection, but I certainly prefer buying BGS or CGC off eBay with subs because it’s easier to gauge what I’m getting. On PSA cards, I have to rely on the integrity of the seller and my own eye to check for flaws while with BGS and CGC they become easier to identify. As someone that puts emphasis on surface, I can’t guarantee that the PSA 9 slab will have a 9 surface. I recently picked one up for an RH card that I wanted to crack and slot into a collection binder that had abysmal surface scratching that I was shocked (ok maybe not really) it received a 9 to begin with. I was disappointed. If I’m going to buy a card slabbed, BGS and CGC w 9.5 surface grades are what I shoot for nowadays.
When these companies are all in normal operations again then we shall see whats what. I graded at cgc because it was super quick at the time and priced great. I dont mind cgc but if both were similar prices and turnaround was similar id have graded at psa. Cgc must know whats coming and i wonder what the cgc special will be. Error recognition is great but thats not enough revenue alone i wonder how they will keep their customer base.
Ive been kinda doing this when I can find them cheap. The problem is that people price them like they are PSA/CGC/BGS graded. I have a few random companies so far but only because the card was worth more than the label.
Sometimes I buy Cross Gradable Cards (CGC) but those are all destined for red and white at some point.
The only exception being errors. I don’t actively collect errors but I do have a few that are “core” in my collection. Those and any additional errors will all match in CGC.
My MTG is all BGS, aside for a few CGC that, again, I bought to cross grade.
I’m definitely the minority here but I exclusively collect CGC. All PSA cards that I have are in the process of being submitted to CGC.
I believe that having HD scans of all cards available to the public is very important. It helps cut down on scams and helps the buyer know exactly what they are getting.
CGC grades errors and actually recognizes them with special labels. This is huge for error collectors
CGC is actually knowledgeable about card variants. PSA refused to acknowledge some card variants for a long time and was straight up ignorant to the existence of some variants. I want the grading company I use to know about card variants without needing a mass petition or vast amounts of emails from the community. If you grade cards, you should know what cards exist, period.
CGC doesn’t randomly stop grading cards. PSA has done this many times and I think it reflects poorly on them. If someone else has submitted a card and had it graded, I should be able to as well. I’m not talking about NFC controversies - I have an article dedicated specifically to cards that PSA no longer grades for those who are curious.
CGC prices are more reasonable
CGC offers subgrades (I hate the PSA 6 due to a dent and you have no idea why)
CGC’s trading card forum is great for transparency. You can publicly communicate with the employees, and they are very receptive to feedback. All communications that I wanted to go anywhere with PSA I had to do via email, and only with an employee that I had built up an ongoing conversation with over the course of months.
I prefer CGC’s Set Registry, and it doesn’t take years for requested sets to be added
Overall I think CGC has picked up a lot of the slack that PSA left behind, and for that, CGC has my continued business and respect.
Not sure that this will be an unpopular opinion in the coming years. CGC has garnered a lot of love from the Pokemon community and I think that it is well deserved.
In all honesty i dont dislike cgc and there are not many flaws with them. The main ones (and not to downplay these because some are big deals)
They are willing to grade whatever someone throws at them be it stolen or unheard of. They also give them fancy labels for that
The label is unarguably awful and distracting
They loosened their standards dramatically after being open for only a short time leaving long term consistency in question for me (the looser grades generally are good unless you paid top dollar before they were giving out high grades easier)
That being said they are still a solid option and id probably use them exclusively if they had any common sense on that label
My 13k+ card collection is mostly ungraded, but because of this thread I decided to count my graded cards (66 in total apparently) and the companies/grades:
The last grading company I’ve never heard of, but it was a 30 USD Pikachu misprint, so it being graded it irrelevant.
I also have about ten more PSA-10s and some BGS-9.5s and 9s I have yet to sell, so those don’t count. But every slab mentioned in the counts above is part of my personal collection.
Is this the HCGS company you’re talking about?
Out of PA, still grading stuff looks like since their Facebook is active. Let them grade some poker and non TCG stuff for next to nothing close to when they started up couple years ago. Adds 0 value but looks cool with the black label I guess.
When it comes to labels, those that dislike the blue CGC label should offset that dislike by actually being able to read the text, instead of poor abbreviations that PSA does.
I use bgs Exclusively for the labels but im in a very small minority. But hey, i know what is most important to my collection and have adjusted accordingly
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