Anyone actually buying CGC cards ? I’m seeing more on eBay due to PSA delays.
I personally only buy PSA. I like the uniformity of having all my cards in one case style and I trust PSA as the industry standard for Pokémon.
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I bought a few CGC cards recently. I like the design of the case more than PSA’s (it feels more modern and sleek), the only thing that bothers me is the numerical grade isn’t centered in the box for some reason.
Gradewise, I do feel like CGC grades are pretty consistent within their own grading standards.
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No.
I only buy PSA as the industry standard for Pokémon cards. No other company has the quality of service.
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Why does everything become a tripartisian issue in this hobby
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This is an interesting perspective on a company from someone who would never buy or own a card, much less grade one with said company.
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I’ve bought one CGC card which I intend to crack for a binder set. It was a CGC 9 which cost about 30% less than a PSA 9 and would most likely grade a 9 at PSA. I’d been searching for a mint copy for months and finally saw that one after letting a couple of PSA slabs get away because I didn’t want to pay up.
I don’t mind the slab design, but I have relatively few graded cards in my collection and mostly do binders. If/when I finish my binder goals I may start collecting more graded cards. I’ll consider CGC. I expect that will be at least a year from now, probably more if prices keep skyrocketing, so I’ll have to evaluate what the market looks like at that time.
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I like the look of CGC, sub grades nice too. Big history in comics etc.
I haven’t bought any yet. I see that they grade the Pokemon Base 1999-2000 print, I plan to get a lot of these graded with them. I also saw that they might be opening up branches elsewhere? If they open any in the UK or Europe that make things a lot easier for me.
One issue I can see with CGC/the sub grades. With a PSA10, psychologically it is like ‘this is the best I can buy’. But with CGC and the sub grades, it is so precise that your desire for perfection will not necessarily be quite there unless you get the four 10’s ‘perfect’ grade. Irrational perhaps but I think this is psychologically significant.
Also (and I would like to get others opinions on this), but from what I have seen they are harsher graders than PSA and BGS? Would a lot of PSA10’s get CGC9’s and CCG9.5’s?
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Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?
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Not yet, I plan to submit some myself for the cards that PSA doesn´t grade - I´ll stick with PSA as my main grading company, but CGC will complement it for everything they don´t acknowledge. It´s a great company and I´m glad they entered the market, hopefully they will light a fire under PSAs butt.
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Let the market speak for itself in 6mo - 1 year
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I just can’t get beyond the horrible, billboard size, blue label so nothing of consequence will ever be sent there. Now I might send in an item PSA won’t grade so that’s something.
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I’ve picked up some stupid value from CGC auctions and will continue to do so while they have little to no traction. I’ve always been one to find value similarly with BGS cards that don’t get love but they’ve come around a lot more and I don’t find as many deals.
I’ve been grading stuff for my collection with them that I dont plan to sell because why wait a year and pay hundreds or thousands when I can pay $20-30. Also have been grading some modern and base 1999-2000 with them and non holo stonkers. Loads of 9.5’s that would have been 10’s at PSA for sure on the non holos.
I’m confident in my small sample size so far that they hold up well to the PSA grading scale at the top end (if anything equal grades are stronger and many 9.5’s would be PSA 10’s). Itll be interesting in a year or so once I get back the CGC cards that I cracked to grade with PSA and itll be interesting to see if the market picks up on them more.
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You might warmup to the label in the coming years. It’s not like the psa label is perfect.
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The PSA label is discreet. The CGC label is like a neon Vegas marquee;)
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maybe cgc will change the label like psa did 20 times. Its hard to collect psa when theres a new label every other year
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Would only ever send something niche to CGC that PSA either wouldn’t grade or wouldn’t acknowledge in the label.
I think the PSA label isn’t perfect but it’s pretty solid. The CGC label on the other hand looks like a junior school student went on WordArt for 5 minutes and shoved some Arial font text boxes in there on a background of their most favouritest ever colour to make a super sweet label.
I really think the label should be as small as practically possible; any additional info like sub-grades and the set should be printed on the reverse side of the label so as not to detract attention from the card itself.
In a thread full of PSA shills this is the dumbest post of them all. Commendably stupid. Well done.
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*It’s not like PSA is perfect, either.
FIFY. 
I would buy CGC cards for sure when they are more available in the U.K, especially if they end up being cheaper for the same condition card that’s been graded elsewhere. At the moment though there isn’t a single CGC card for sale on ebay in the UK.
I do agree the label is too big, IMO they could just get rid of the top strip all together where it says “CGC UNIVERSAL GRADE”. It already has the CGC logo transparent across the whole front of the label and a huge CGC sticker on the backside. It’s not a deal-breaker for me personally though, I’m not very keen on the PSA labels either to be honest mainly because of the messy text.
I’m still excited to see what CGC’s Booster Pack Grading will look like.
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