Recently Ive been purchasing some of my favorite cards in CGC 10 grades simply because the price of CGC 10 is normally pretty close to PSA 9 price, and id like to hear people’s opinions on cgc graded cards for the future (specifically post-bubble / craze).
personally a lot of the time its for PC purchases so im not too worried about resale value, but sometimes you can get pretty lucky and ive successfully crossed plenty of not pristine CGC 10s over to PSA 10s.
For me, If I’m buying a cgc slab, its to crack it. If I see a cgc 10 gem mint, I automatically assume its psa 9 quality. Same with 9.5. 9 i think 8, and so on.
If the price of said slab is cheap for the grade(like an auction), I’ll take another look and see if its a good candidate for a psa 10(some are for sure but not all). I then crack and grade with psa. I don’t buy cgc slabs to collect, the card is either going into my binder, going to psa, or to consignment.
Honestly PSA will not fall from the top for at least 20 years, kids now are seeing the hype and will carry it into their 30s. With cgc I’m not seeing much happening in Pokemon for a while
Full disclosure: I collect slabs from everyone, and prefer CGC sometimes for aesthetic reasons/uniformity (e.g. CGC 10s for a mini-set etc.)
I think CGC will be fine, but:
Will it always be at a discount to PSA for the foreseeable future? Yeah.
Is that discount justified? Probably
Fwiw, I think this is a little too harsh on CGC (on average), but just my 2 cents. Certainly, I think you have to assume a discount and reasonable ppl can disagree here.
This is the future of CGC. They function as a comparison to PSA, not a well-oiled separate entity. Their upside and differentiator is willingness to slab errors, faster turnarounds and cheaper grading costs. Those are great for what they are, but long term I just don’t see them truly breaking out to be a standout option, particularly in comparison to the inertia of PSA.
Full disclosure, I do own CGC graded cards, and I also intend to submit a square cut Psyduck I have to them since PSA won’t accept it
I liked them when they were blue and strict but i held off to see how theyd go after a bit more proof theyd stick around in cards. They are trusted in comics and as a business are quite established. Then they reconfigured their grading style and were more lac with higher grades. Then they did it again with black labels which are really boring to see. I really wanted a playtest card graded so cgc was my only choice.
So now I still buy them, if the card inside is worth similar to the graded price. I dont stan for them anymore and even with error cards it sounds like theyve backed off of the more interesting ones.
I like CGC. I think their slab design is superior. I wish they wouldn’t fly so close to the sun every 6-12 months and get caught up in drama. If they can keep their nose to the grindstone and stay away from risk, I think they’ll do even better long-term.
I don’t dislike CGC but if I’m collecting a series of related cards I like them to all be by the same grading company. For instance; all my trophy cards from the world championships are PSA. I just passed on an auction for another card I needed in that pursuit because it was CGC and I didn’t feel motivated to crack the slab and cross it over.
I had an interesting thought that I’d like to hear some thoughts on. As more and more people collecting cards in the poopoo QC era (some ex, DP, BW, XY) get priced out of the PSA 10 versions, CGC 10/Pristine is the only logical way to go about set building.
In fact you already see cgc pristine variants of low pop PSA cards go for pretty good premiums. Two examples that come to mind is the team plasma darkrai promo full art and the gold star torchic.
I don’t think they will fare well long term, especially if long term involves a cool-off which it probably does. They are under the yoke of a monopoly.
They grade too many vintage 1st edition a 10 it’s insane… their scale actually blows. The only cgc slab I own is a creatures mewtwo and it will stay that way or I eventually crack the slab.
They have been successful and will be around a while. However they’ve set themselves up as a the budget option, and because of that, I and many people just associate them with junk and slop.
I completely agree here. If they can get the “scandals” under control, there’s more potential here than with the overpriced PSA slabs. People who make comparisons like “CGC 10 = PSA 9” or “CGC 9 = PSA 8” are in for a rude awakening one day. One thing’s for sure - there are outliers with all three major grading companies. And scandals too.
PSA is still living off what it built over the past years - almost no competition. A lot of money is still tied up in PSA slabs. But in my opinion, that’s going to change.
Regardless of all that, buy the card, not the grade. That’s actually much easier to judge with CGC slabs anyway since they’re clean af. Many don’t want to admit it, but those nice PSA slabs often hide a flaw or two in their PSA 9s or even 10s.
And as always: collect what you love and be happy with it.
Does CGC have potential for future value growth? Absolutely imo!
CGC’s long-term outlook appears very poor. Even CGC Pristine 10s are seeing their prices move closer and closer to PSA 10s, especially with the latest sales data for modern cards. It has become easier to get the Pristine 10 grade, and I have seen numerous examples of Pristine 10 with obvious OC issues.
In the past, cracking a CGC Pristine 10 and submitting it to PSA was almost a guaranteed PSA 10, but that conversion rate has dropped significantly. While CGC Pristine is undoubtedly still a much tougher grade to achieve than PSA 10, the data reflects this change.
For vintage cards, the situation is tricky. Collectors overwhelmingly prefer to complete sets with PSA, and the satisfaction of achieving a high PSA Set Registry rank is a major factor. It is extremely difficult to assemble an entire set in CGC Pristine, and the standard CGC 10 does not offer the same ‘premium’ appeal.
With all due respect, I don’t think this card is the best example, tbh.
Completing sets - sure! But I think a lot of newer collectors will start to shift their perspective, especially with how much cleaner CGC slabs look compared to PSA.
I’ve got slabs from both, but CGC is definitely my favorite. Hard to get an objective take from most collectors - too much money tied up in those PSA slabs.
You are never gonna convince PSA people to try CGC. If you “buy” the PSA premium as a justified premium then you’ve drank the Kool aid and there’s not much chance of going back. It does not matter how many weak PSA 10s or weak CGC 10s you provide, the default is that “grading is subjective” but the premium is anything but subjective. Spending 6 figures on a clearly damaged PSA 10 can seem crazy to those who don’t view a graded premium the same way the general population does, but it’s built in now and people have a lot of money tied up in it.
If you want high quality cards and don’t personally believe in the PSA premium then you buy cgc. I say this as someone who gets asked all the time why I use CGC, to the point where I generally don’t respond to those DMs anymore. All grading companies make mistakes and it’s up to us to determine how much value we wanna put on their service. When I see the prices of PSA 10s I assume that company has never ever made a single error to be able to charge that price, but it’s not the real world. Trying to convince people to go for CGC is wasted time. People have made up their minds if they’ve been around. You can’t complain away the PSA premium (not saying you’re doing that), you either believe in it and buy it or you don’t and you don’t buy it.
Too many people fall into the camp of not believing in the premium and still buying into it and then complaining
It’s not about grading scale or prices today. And as much as I think the scandals should matter, they really don’t.
The one thing I can see holding CGC back is the association with mystery boxes and junk slabs. When you’re dealing with luxury goods, it’s not a great look to appear like the discount option.
That’s not to say CGC cant grow their market share, but I think they have to do more if they want to appear like a premium option
I completely agree that CGC slabs offer superior optical clarity . The transparency of the holder is appealing; when holding a graded card, you can appreciate both the card itself and the quality of the case. In contrast, PSA’s frosty casing is less aesthetically pleasing, focusing the eye almost entirely on the card and the label. However, the emotional value of owning a PSA 10 remains exceptionally powerful due to its market dominance and prestige.
While many new collectors are submitting to CGC, they are often still collecting PSA as well. As others have noted, CGC is strongly associated with the perception of junk slabs." This reputation stems from the large volume of bulk submissions, where graders, often working under high-volume special deals, are paying low per-card fees (perhaps under $7). This allows low-cost cards ($0.50–$1) that receive a Gem Mint 10 grade to be sold for a small profit ($10–$20), maximizing volume over quality. The CGC x Fanatics partnership is a clear example of this mass-market strategy.
The observation that money is intrinsically tied to PSA’s value proposition is accurate. The vast majority of collectors (I estimate 90% or more) grade cards primarily for the value increase, not for protection. If protection were the sole goal, simple, less expensive solutions like semi-rigid holders, top loaders, or magnetic cases would suffice, and these even allow the owner to physically handle the card. Protecting a handful of cards is fine, but choosing to encase hundreds purely for preservation, without a value motive, seems like a poor financial decision.
While CGC will certainly continue to exist as a grading option, I remain skeptical about their ability to challenge PSA’s long-term dominance regarding card value retention and growth.
On the subject of the Mcdonald’s Pikachu , I genuinely ask why it is considered a bad example. A card that has been massively graded by both companies, resulting in huge sales volume for both, provides the most comprehensive data set. I thought the more sales data available, the more precise and accurate the market comparison would be.
