Sorry, but this is just not true. I agree that the condition standards for PSA 10 are higher (albeit only slightly, and with significant overlap). But the price difference between CGC 10s and PSA 10s is not primarily related to that.
The best evidence for my contention is that misgraded PSA 10s, with clear damage making them unworthy of the grade, still sell for significantly more than CGC 10s (or PSA 9s) that are clearly cleaner.
Hell, the same dynamic exists for misgraded CGC pristines, which sell for more than even the strongest CGC basic 10s. Because people care much more about the label than condition.
The reality is that graded card buyers, for both PSA and CGC, are overwhelmingly just purchasing the label. The vast majority of the delta in price between CGC 10s and PSA 10s can be attributed to that rather than the condition standard difference.
One doesn’t need to look to CGC 10s to see that PSA 10s are clearly not priced based on fundamentals…look at PSA 9s. Rather than buying a PSA 10 for 20x the price of a PSA 9, a buyer concerned with getting the highest quality card would obviously be much better served purchasing 20x PSA 9s, the nicest copy of which will be stronger than the average PSA 10. Yet PSA 10 buyers don’t do that, bc they’re investing in/collecting the label and the prestige associated with it.
those cases would be for ultra modern cards, where the psa 10 pop is extremely high. its those cards where ppl generally start looking for alternatives like cgc pristine/bgs 10/bgs BL as an alternative for the grade to be somewhat rare, and there u will likely see cgc pristine > psa 10 price.
for vintage, most “investors” are just buying the psa 10 grade and not even looking at the card
thats another great point, these “mystery pack vending machine” companies have buyers that will just go clear out tables at 85% and put the slabs in their garbage mystery packs since alot of the casual pokebuyers are just degen gamblers at heart who cant get enough of that stuff
No, actually those examples I have in mind are from mid era, so Gen 4-6 and there are quite a lot of them for that era. And I’m talking about Gemrates with less than 10%, less than 5% or even less than 3%, which are quite common in those Gens.
Modern / ultra modern is a completely different story with aboslutely differing dynamics, but we were never talking about modern or ultra modern and it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to bring that up in this discussion
I would agree here, perhaps I went too far by saying the main reason was condition difference. Maybe it’s like 60% PSA hype, 30% condition difference, 10% other reasons. However, I think we all know that when we see a CGC Gem Mint 10 of a high-end card, it’s in that grade and case because it would not grade a PSA 10.
Welcome to the forum, yung peso. That’s probably true. I don’t know why you wrote this post about PSA 9s when we’re talking about 10s though. PSA and CGC’s grading standards for 9s and 10s are, quite literally, two entirely different grades.
I agree with the first part of this post, and I want to point out a key difference and the main thing we are arguing about. The poster thinks CGC 10s/BGS 9.5s are undervalued relative to PSA 10s. The only thing that would prove them right is if CGC 10s/BGS 9.5s went up at a higher rate than PSA 10s, or they went up while PSA 10s stayed stagnant. I believe the most likely event is what you mention in the first sentence: everything is going to go up together. PSA 10s, CGC 10s, PSA 9s, BGS 9.5s, PSA 8s, etc. I highly doubt we will see any gaps being closed between PSA 10s and CGC Gem 10s/BGS 9.5s other than some standard market lag that we see trickle down to lower grades whenever higher grades go up.
my problem with BGS 9.5 is that it’s way too discounted to psa10. People are treating the grade as a true 9.5 on the grade scale and not acknowledging Gem Mint status.
I feel like with no 9 sub scores and 1 or 2 10 subs, BGS gem mints should at least be priced at 80% of a psa10 but unfortunately if looking at modern chases it seems like they are at 40 on the low end to 70% on the high end.
Another thing that doesn’t help is the lack of scans, not just for user protection but for selling. Your relying on average Joes taking bad pictures over furniture in their houses and it gives the listing a downgraded look and feel.
The other big issue for Beckett is that they allow a 9 subscore for gem mint… so many people use BGS strategically. Like man this card is 57/43 top to bottom but its otherwise gem.. no point to send it to PSA because they will just give it a 9, but If I send it to Beckett I can get a 9 in centering and still get a 9.5
So what happens is the 9.5 is treated as just a strong 9 since a lot of the time it actually is.
The problem is that if I have a card so clean that I want to try for BGS Pristine, I might end up with 9.5/9.5/10/10 subscores and the reality is that its a very strong 10 and better than the majority of PSA10s but the overall score is a 9.5 so I’m stuck with a card that is 65-70% the value. Feel like BGS is stuck in limbo
It would balance out if they gave out more pristine 10 golds but most of the time your best case is a 9.5
One of the reasons TAG is starting to grow on me is that your getting much better premiums than cgc and bgs. The 9s that are 930-949 score actually get premiums above psa9s. As for the liquidity? I have no idea but I continue to watch sunday night auctions and look at averages, it seems that cgc 10 and bgs 9.5 are actually falling in relation to psa10. They are already discounted but it seems like the gap continues to grow unfortunately. Thats why if i prepare a CGC sub I actually send my best centered cards since I’m basically pristine hunting
all these discussions about grading details over the years makes me think that
the reason PSA is so cemented as the leader is not just because they were first
they are so solid because they have the grading scale done right
Which is the one thing as a grading company you have to do correctly (and until now it compensates for all their shortcomings in other areas)
Which leads me to think another thing. What if the good strategy for the alt grading companies, was not to try to differentiate themselves on the grading scale, but instead adopt the same standard as PSA, and do all the other things better
A Tag 10 and a PSA 10 are the highest grades possible from their respective companies. There are no black labels or pristines like BGS and CGC. Therefore, you’d at least expect a pristine grade to fetch the same premium, however PSA owns the market share and from what I can tell is the most talked about grading company on any hype youtube channel and has been the go to for Pokémon.
I still don’t think it’s a bad idea to purchase CGC 10 or BGS 9.5 for personal collection goals to hold long term. The thing is when you go back to sell they most likely won’t yield the returns that PSA otherwise would have.
Having said all that I like PSA and CGC. I’ll likely collect both at prices that make sense to me, which ultimately means I’ll be buying more CGC 10s and PSA 9s.
thats not true.
Tag Pristine is 990 and higher
Extremely hard to achieve for english though but they fetch very large premiums
Most people dont know they exist because they are so rare. You will will see japanese pristines once in a while but english pristines are a ghost town
since charizard is so easy to grade there are actually 3 of them in the pop report but usually everything is pop zero. For instance bubble mew still pop zero. Umbreon SIR prismatic is still pop zero.
For comparisons sake there are 2 black label umbreons and over 50 gold label pristines from bgs. The general consensus is that their pristine is at black label level of difficulty but when people have a perfect card they usually send it to BGS for a chance at black label so most of the pops on tag stay pop zero
It doesnt help either that the label isnt distinct enough but i heard they are working on a revision
Yea if i have a pristine anything, i want it to punch me in the face and say wow
Cgc did a really good job. And BGS black labels look incredible
Tag has a problem in that they dont print labels and the way it’s etched onto the slab reduces their options. Its a shame but I’m interested in seeing the revision
I just mentioned PSA 9’s since you said you send your PSA rejects to CGC. 100% without a doubt, CGC is more generous with their 10’s today than PSA for vintage. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. With that said, it’s also worth noting that most vintage PSA 10s were 10’d when PSA had far looser standards; 2 certs and below for non-1st-ed stuff are borderline 5s by today’s standards. 6 certs is when they started getting stricter, and that’s during evolving skies times; 8 certs started with Obsidian Flames.
Most CGC 10s wouldn’t 10 with today’s PSA standards, but >90% of PSA 10s were graded pre-6 certs, and most of those would struggle to even get an 8 PSA if cracked and resubbed. Overall, I’d say that BGS 9.5’s on avg are cleaner than CGC 10’s, even with 9 corners, but vintage gem mint cards from the BGS or CGC graded after 2020 are usually stronger cards than their PSA 10 counterparts despite being worth 1/10th the price same with some new cert psa 9’s.
Well, right now we are seeing neither, which is really interesting. There’s a decent number of unique bidders on these low-pop 10 auctions, but the ones that lose aren’t buying the same copy in a 9 or in a gem mint grade from another grader; instead, they’re just waiting or bidding on a different low-pop PSA 10 auction. Like the Treeko above is like 5k in a PSA 10 or 100$ in a CGC 10
I understood what the poster was saying. I generally agree with him from the perspective that the demand for vintage low pop cards in a PSA 10 is so high and with the amount of unique people interested in them that some of that demand has to spill over to either PSA 9’s or 10’s from other graders, and given that these cards have such a high premium becuase of the 10 grade it’s probably going to “Alt” 10’s that win instead of PSA 9’s.That’s just because they’re the cards are both cleaner than the avg 9 and they have the number 10 on them (this assumes the BGS revamp is live). This also lines up with how the slab vending machines will market themselves once there are no more PSA 10s to stock them; people will want to gamble for vintage grails in a 10 vs a 9.
The amount of variance in PSA 9’s is actually not discussed enough, same card, same grade, but vastly different condition. I used to be a PSA hater but I respect them a lot more now after handling cards from other graders. I feel like a lot of the PSA hate just comes from poor people who want 10’s are angry they can’t afford them and then project that hate onto PSA instead of themselves. For the amount of volume of cards PSA goes through on a yearly basis its honestly impressive they’re able to stay open let alone offer the best service out of all the grading companies.
With that said, that Pichu as a 9 is wild, I’m not even sure this copy is pack fresh, and the corner wear alone should knock it down to an 8.
This one might have a chance to gem at another grading company, but even then, if you look at the scans, there are white dots in 3 corners and 2 dots on the bottom right edge, so it’s a coin flip, but defo a pack fresh, clean copy.
Even this min gem BGS 9.5 I saw on z and g is objectively cleaner than any PSA 9 I could find on eBay, yea there’s 1 corner dot but like that’s it if you cracked every listed 9 on eBay I’m not sure any of them would 9.5 at BGS.
