For those who grade or buy graded cards from a specific company why do you use that company?
Each one has its own merits but we all collect differently.
Also if you do t grade at all. How come?
I almost exclusively grade with PSA.
- The most important reason is that PSA was the biggest (and really only) company that held market influence in Pokemon when I started collecting seriously back in 2014. Because of that, my original collection goals were mainly PSA-graded sets. As I’ve developed new goals, I’ve stuck with PSA.
- I find the PSA scale easy to understand and I’m experienced enough to estimate the grades my cards will get to a reasonable level.
- I’ve tried other grading companies and found them unreliable, undesirable, or only presenting value propositions in rare cases (e.g. using CGC for errors or dented, otherwise mint cards)
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I have only ever submitted to PSA and will continue to do so until major structural changes happen at BGS. I will never submit to CGC or other 3rd tier ABC-XYZ grading companies.
PSA is the leader because of age and simplistic grading scale. Casual collectors, the masses, and others who make up the vast majority of buyers want a simple scale that is easy to understand. 10. Gem Mint. That is the top. Period. The end.
I wish BGS would redo their grading in the following ways:
- Adjust the scale, no half grades, GEM MINT 10
- Keep subgrades, no half grades if it makes headline grades harder to justify, otherwise they can keep them (unlikely with inconsistent human graders tbh)
- Keep BLACK LABEL PRISTINE 10: 4x 10 subgrades
- Fix the encapsulation process to not produce so many slabs with dust and other junk inside them
Maybe it’s because I like the underdog, idk, but I wish BGS was better. The problem is that they just aren’t, and I refuse to set money on fire submitting cards to them.
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I grade with psa, cgc and sgc. I prefer CGC’s cases to all else for clarity and quality. I hate bgs’ cases with a passion. I also find the market to be wildly inefficient in that you can buy quality cards at typically silly discounts for cgc. I grade marvel and sports with SGC (mostly). PSA makes the most sense for money purposes and for collection uniformity. If they come down to 10 day processing and had better customer support like SGC then it would be lights out for other grading in most cases for me but they are not there yet and may never be
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Agree that PSA could extinguish all other grading companies (at least for TCG) with 2 week turnaround and $10-12 grading fees. I don’t think they will do it for a couple reasons, but biggest are that they already have 75%+ of the market, and they have a backlog. If they had less pressure to keep working, you would see these types of offers.
I think psa acquired sgc
Yes, but allegedly they will still be run as different entities…for now
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PSA purely because it yields the best value. I do prefer the look of CGC’s slab, but if aesthetics is that important to me for that particular card, I’d rather just stick it in a binder.
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My main collection consists pretty much entirely iof PSA slabs since they’re who I started grading with back in 2018 when I got back into the hobby. I do enjoy CGC’s slabs, but PSA has them beat in terms of price, value added and turnaround time so to me there is just no reason to grade with them (I’ll buy a CGC slab occasionally for the discount). I strongly dislike BGS’s slabs and will avoid them if I can.
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Me with PSA:
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If you’ve been collecting long enough, PSA is just the de facto standard.
I also try to put as much money I can into the card instead of into the grading company. That’s why I’ve always liked PSA 9s because almost 100% of what you’re spending on them is in the value of the mint card and not because of some artificial population rarity. Due to this, I have no real intense loyalty to any company.
Realistically, I don’t think there is another viable option to PSA other than CGC. There are companies that exist to sell you a grading gimmick but personally I just want the card not some special label or 1000 point condition scale.
And with CGC, I’ve tried them. But the choices the company has made over time has benefited the company but harmed their earliest submitters over and over. Not to mention, when you’re paying enough attention, there’s some seriously dubious ethical issues that the company seems to constantly be surrounded by. PSA has issues but most are just due to failing to meet it’s own standard rather than constantly doing weird things in some tryhard attempt to gain market share.
No company is perfect. But basically I like PSA because it’s what I know and it’s the least bad option in my opinion.
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PSA if i can, especially now they have sped right up.
Cgc is second, they used to be the fastest but I think PSA might have caught them up now. But they do have the nicer feeling slab IMO.
Any others I don’t really like or haven’t tried. Once I have all the raichus graded i’ll be trying to swap the 3 beckett slabs i have for psa or cgc
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100% PSA since they’re a lot more familiar if that makes sense. They already have a huge market for Pokémon which makes it easier to buy their slabs if something catches my eye I want slabbed since I like to keep my slabs uniform and the same style. Their grading system feels very straight forward.
All of my errors are going to go to CGC once I want to pay to get those encapsulated. I am in absolutely no rush to get those sent over though and honestly, if PSA starts recognizing more errors I wouldn’t be opposed to going to them in the future
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If I’m in the market for slabs, I usually go PSA because a copy is more likely to turn up graded by them. CGC are also on the menu if the right card turns up.
For modern alternate arts, I tend to grade them with Ace for the display appeal of the fancy labels. These cards aren’t ever going to make stonks in a PSA slab, so why not just make them visually appealing for a display instead?
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CGC has far superior label and case IMO, however most of my collection is in PSA cases, as PSA was the only real option when I started collecting. These are the only 2 companies I would use. BGS is only relevant for black label hunting, if that’s your thing.
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I was a huge fan of cgc. Subgrades and blue label with clear nice feeling case, nice that it was trying to be its own thing, error recognition is great, and that the label had clean descriptions without all the shorthand psa has. Then they changed it twice and i really dislike the black and white label. It used to be nice for a discount with a slight gamble on condition.
Psa is standard and you know what youre getting and would now be my go to.
Bgs feels like a plastic brick and unless you are talking paying lower than raw, i wont touch them and currently dislike the few i have.
Ags looks a bit too much like a psa copycat and the slab feels cheaper to me so i avoid unless its a good discount on the card.
I have yet to really find an Ace slab where the custom label enhances the card. Im sure itll happen but for the most part the color labels are a bit too disjointed for me to look at in a personal collection. I cant take them seriously at all yet.
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Im guilty of only picking psa when i have boughten slabs or considered grading. Only due to the recognizability it has and the prices are pretty universal. I will say the cgc pristine labels and black label becketts look really nice though
PSA is my go to. That being said I do grade with CGC from time to time, as they grade lighter on printlines, anything I don’t think will get a PSA 10, I will always consider sending it to CGC.
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Vintage goes to PSA. Modern/Ultra Modern goes to Beckett and CGC first and crack all non BGS black/gold 10 or CGC gold 10 then resubmit to PSA.