Psa brings the best financial outcome but they are shut down on the lower tiers and their turnaround times are still pretty long even at the $79 tier. Beckett shut down their cheap tiers and they were the slowest grading company even before. Cgc is the cheapest and fastest but you won’t get PSA money
ah thats interesting, I agree max financial capture works with PSA for the overall general max average value gain on a card.
heres my side rant it made me think of
With vintage ive seen this guy fredy’s cards and others crack out PSA 7,8,9 english vintage holos to CGC 10 or even pristine. I dont even know if vintage 10’s are possible anymore from PSA from my research and what ive heard others tell me. I even saw this asian streamer open a base set box, grade all the holos and only get 7’s and 8’s LMFAO,
I wonder does max benefit in which grading company that you choose be influenced by what era the card is, so far id say yes. vintage → CGC does provide a chance of mega success 10 , 10 pristine being more reasonably possible but if its gonna be a 123 4,5,6,7 grade yes do PSA but with PSA just know ur 10 or even 9 NOWADAYS is miles harder than it used to be.
the work and luck somone did for their base charizard holo to get a 10, even just 5 years ago is miniscule to now
Has anyone tried cracking open the newer PSA slabs? The bottle opener technique used to work fine but they seem way more tough and sealed off now. Might actually need a good tool for it.
Bottle opener tech is peak
As stated in my post I tried that, and doesnt seem to work as easy as it used to. Only the corner lifted up and the rest seems way more sealed/glued off now.
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Oh no way? I’ve done it with newer slabbies and I just have to be a little more forceful than I had to before. One time the corner cracked but every other time it hasn’t been too bad for me. I still prefer it to cracking the corners. Idky
I haven’t tried in a few months, but last time I did so it was a million times harder. They are using a more flexible plastic that doesn’t crack easily and just bends if you try and pry it open with a screwdriver.
Prior to this, I had probably cracked 70-75 cards and never damaged a single one. After the change in slab material, I cracked 5 cards and damaged 2 of them.
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I don’t know if they’ve always been using different cases at PSA Japan or not, but I’ve never been able to do the bottle opener technique - it’s been this annoying flexible plastic for years now
PSA will miss the biggest release of all time, the 30th anniversary set, if they dont get their act together. People will search for graded 30th cards and find nothing outside of the biggest chases and those will realistically need to be submitted as super express for $350 a card. So those will be $1k plus cards, everything else will be a ghost town. Even if you submit at regular tier, 80 business days is roughly 4 months. Additionally, PSA hasnt hit time frames on any of my latest submissions. Even my express tier cards are closer to 40 days (despite them listed as 20-30 days)
On the flipside, CGC has a $50 tier that is 10 day turnaround…
CGC could easily take a lot of market share here. People will want graded copies of the 30th anniversary cards and cgc will be the main option. If people start buying up a bunch of cgc 10 and pristine copies they will normalize the behavior and demand for cgc slabs. And with no PSA comps for the majority of the set it will be CGC this time that sets the market for all the cards.
I see a doomsday scenario in the making here for PSA. And by that I mean CGC becomes a real player and serious competitor in the TCG space, not just a bulk grader and niche option but a real and true competitor. It wont happen over night but it sets the stage for them to place some serious pressure on PSA
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- There will not be a doomsday scinario. PSA will still grade a lot of cards and will still have a major market share even for 30th Anniversary. A lot of vendors and sellers still swear on PSA with their life, and it isnt changing anytime soon.
- CGC has already been catching up in terms of cards graded, however value hasnt caught up yet. People still see CGC as a bulk option, and until they stop marketing as such, I expect prices to stay normal. Keep in mind PSA grades more than just pokemon cards.
TLDR: There wont be a doomsday event, PSA will lose some share but they still have a monopoly over grading companies. They’re not going anywhere.
and how do you explain they will have a lot of market share for 30th anniversary?
In February 2027? you have to explain how people will grade their 30th cards with PSA. At what price and turnaround?
If I have a few $50 IRs from 30th, am I gona pay $80 to grade them and hope I can get them early next year? Or I can pay significantly less with CGC and have them back in a few days. You didnt at all address the main point of my post
There will be tremendous demand for 30th anniversary slabs. Vendors can beat the psa drum until their thumbs bleed but where is the supply going to come from?
I’m specifically addressing your doomsday situation, not your Celebrations. PSA will have a lot of market share in the TCG space even after 30th. That entire post was for the doomsday theory itself. One set will not determine PSA’s future, its just fearmongering and unecessary strife. Also for your first 2 sentences, Dosent this still mean the high end cards go to PSA and lower end go to CGC? There is still a good margin if you do 80 a card and wait for the cards over 1k. Its just the same premise as before, and unless vendors have a change of heart about cgc after 1 set, PSA isnt going anywhere.
Price of PSA 30th anniversary graded cards will just be CGC price + $80 or more.
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And when will people be able to buy those psa slabs? What month
If its anything like ascended heroes, for instance.
Out the gate in the first two month, psyduck costs $700 and mega gengar SAR costs $500
Now it settles and pysduck is $350 and gengar is $220
Now if i play the wait game with PSA, is it really worth it if the price craters by the time i get my cards back?
People have paitence 
also 80 bucks a card provides more than enough margin.
I think this is a good point. There are a lot of ways that their backlog could affect them. The 30th being one but also Delta being another. I don’t think it’s far-fetched to think that CGC has a great opportunity here. And I think your point about them being able to set/reset their own market value is something I hadn’t thought about.
I really do hope that CGC is able to capitalize off of this. We are already seeing it though with how many people are choosing to grade with CGC even without those sets being out. My cards got there in March, before the close, and I didn’t see them until a couple of weeks ago. And back in January I shipped them and had them back at my door in 2 weeks.
So there’s already evidence of people choosing CGC as a grading medium because PSA is out of commission, and I could see a situation where the 30th and Delta accelerate that.
I also can see (and hope for) a situation where people realize that, hey, you can actually sell CGC slab outside of mystery boxes 
and they wouldn’t be so scared to grade with them anymore
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Been waiting for this to happen for months
They are getting near a million cards a month, I was expecting $12 to be honest lol
I think people won’t make a big fuss over a $1 increase. They have a rare opportunity here to potentially match PSA’s volume if they can scale up big and get TaT below 2 weeks and remain the low cost option.
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