Same with any of it, its a gamble. Psa is a sure bet but you might make a little less because fees. Tag is newer and hyped, its got some die hards (people who are in too deep), and some auctions perform at psa levels. Do you risk less money involved and maybe get the same return? Theres no way to tell if those auctions are shilled but it might be a decent bet. Or will it miss and you are at cgc levels, leaving money on the table if you had gone through psa.
Lots of variables that can probably be shortened to a relatively easy formula depending on raw value of the card and graded value
yeah Iām still trusting psa for now but carefully watching tag momentum.
I dont think it helps that deep pocket monster (millions of subs and the biggest influencer) likes to grade with Tag. Hes not affiliated and doesnāt resell but itās a reality that he grades heavily with them and shows off the tag report in his shorts that gets millions of views. I think they are making inroads here. time will tell
if your a vet your mind goes directly to psa but its your new to the hobby and following these popular channels, TAG is very normalized to you. and when you get going and start to grade you think of them being very viable. I can see the next generation of collectors loving tag
Didnāt the person who bought a TAG 10 crystal Charizard for some record price work for TAG?
Iām all for competition in the marketplace, but letās not take some cherry-picked sales numbers as heralding a massive and fundamental market shift.
Iām not trying to cherry pick, these are literally last nights auctions. tag 10s (at least for umbreon) are literally getting psa level comps. Like I said I didnt do a full analysis as Iām not really vested in tag or their success and I dont have any of their slabs
but just doing a search on last solds for tags they are getting the comps.
then there is the pristine tags. See with cgc the pristine sometimes doesnt even match the psa 10 price. however tag pristine (japanese) are getting 3x on average
thats like a bgs premium but without the drawback of having a much lower valued bgs 9.5 (which will happen majority of the time as bgs 10s are hard and your usually stuck with a 9.5 at best). wheras with tag it would be a normal 10 with psa comps with the chance for pristine.
You canāt do an apples-to-apples comparison to sale price when there is a 10x population difference between the two companies. I remember people handpicking CGC sales to try to make that argument too a while back. But itās hard to say if youād have the same TAG sale prices if there was 10x the amount of supply availability
Any influencer that large is 100% affiliated with anything that they show, most influencers are affiliated with anything they show more than once. Their persona is a business and their job is to influence with or without being blatant. That people dont immediately pick up on that is part of why hype and shilling is suspected for most of those sales.
While i like the clarity of their slabs, im not a fan of the clear label, their stance on ai usage, and abhor their marketing strategies. For that, iāll never submit with them even if psa imploded and they took over the spot.
Everyone tries throwing money and freebies at him to get his coverage. If he gets anything for free he gives it away
Hes probably the highest goodwill in the entire Pokemon community
Take your fanboy glasses off and stop circle jerking psa
He also grades with other graders to keep from bias. His umbreon is psa graded. He also did a black label video from bgs and does cgc stuff ro
Keep things balanced
You can always see the stuff he grades in other videos as he doesnt sell anything and also not even that big into grading or card values
The people on this forum are miserable when it comes to anything not psa
Acknowledging another company wont tank the value of your psa graded cards ffs so stop with the insecurities
I would respectfully disagree with this. Iāve been in the E4 community for almost 7 months (which is almost 2 years in dog years btw. So no short amount of time), and I donāt think that anyone is saying that PSA is the greatest company ever, but there is instead a healthy recognition that thereās no one even close to them in terms of community impact and value. There has been a slow transition to recognizing CGC as a viable grading company, but even their long-standing reputation in the graded comic community doesnāt hold a candle as a competitor with PSA. I would suffice to say that most people in the graded collection/seller community donāt like that they have to keep sending their cards to PSA, and I would also say that they wish that literally any other grading company could be a good enough competitor to give them their business, but again, itās not even close.
That being said, TAG is not the answer. Itād be like saying āhey Iāve been selling blue bell ice cream for 30 years and theyāre the ice cream with the highest value. But I donāt like them as a company. Shucks, I sure do wish the ice cream community was different.ā Then someone says āwell what about Great Value ice cream?? They use AI to scan their ice cream so that the customer knows exactly what is wrong or right with the ice cream theyāre buying. Also it misses a lot of stuff and only really works about 40% of the time.ā If that were me Iād be like, naw imma stay with blue bell. Itās not great, but Great Value brand aināt worth it.
Right now my fellow citizen it seems like that you are in fact the one with glasses on! lol but seriously though I think deep pocket monster makes good content, and is a great guy, but NDAs are a real thing so I wouldnāt put it passed him if they came to him and told him not to say anything
I remember you getting hot about PSA before and just want to add some context that might help you or other readers. Some of the biggest non-PSA collectors are on E4. I remember when the Tag 10 illustrator was shared here, from one of E4s longest time collectors. There are numerous conversations about cgc having opportunity. Hell a cgc director even has an E4 account.
The reality is PSA has majority market share, naturally it will be the majority of conversation. Tag is the opposite, and at times feels promoted or inorganic in order to gain market share. Thatās not necessarily my view, again just explaining the average reaction. With that said, I personally couldnāt care less what company people use, Iām just reminding you and everyone that 18,400 users checked into E4 last month, and their graded collections vary.
Have you ever considered that maybe you are the issue? Thatās a crazy thing to generalize just because a couple people disagree with you. There are plenty of people on this forum that either donāt grade or prefer other services like CGC. Iām sure there are even people that use TAG as their preferred grading company, but you donāt see them frothing at the mouth accusing people of these things.
PSA is the market leader. For many collectors that have been around for more than a couple years, the longest committed relationship they have been in is with PSA.
If youāve been around long enough, youāve seen many players in the grading space try and fail to capture a significant part of the market. The skepticism towards these companies is just a reflection of reality.
Basically this same conversation has been on repeat for as long as I can remember, just with a different company every time. Either TAG slices out a real piece of the market for itself or just falls off. Honestly I donāt care either way, I just collect cards.
nobody is fighting that, but the other grading companies were not getting psa comps. And me pointing that out means:
Iām cherry picking
DPM is deep in bed with them and on their payroll
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The comments here are a reflection of the sentiment and its not matching
If they are mentioned the vitriol spews as if they have commuted some crime and that even making a passive remark in their favor means your part of their campaign and a shill. Iāve watched others mention them and get flamed heavily. Sorry Iām not wrong here, there is too much insecurity revolving around their existence. I dont even grade with them ffs
I think its fair to point out how Tag has earned PSA comps. Its also fair to suggest those could be outliers and might not scale if they had comparable volume to PSA. Also, its fair to mention how people affiliated with tag have made record purchases; Iām not referring to DPM, actually confirmed individuals affiliated with tag. Similarly to how a psa employee cracked a black label to grade PSA 10. Naturally those type of corporate strategies make people suspicious.
Yes thats a fair point. Psa sellers have to compete with one another and since pop is so much higher its often a race to the bottom. Pop could absolutely affect things
With that said, bgs has always had much lower pops and their gem mints are very heavily discounted comparatively. Same with cgc, yes they have seen an uptick in grading recently but even going back to 2023 and 2024 their 10s are not anywhere near the psa 10
So i thought it was very noteworthy what i noticed with Tag and absolutely worth mentioning. I thought e4 would think the same so i was surprised by the pushback
I can understand the idea of outliers being non organic (employee shill bids) but there are way too many cards and they cant buy them all
