CGC is slowly becoming the better company, change my mind.
discord is leaking again
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While both companies saw a steady increase in volume in 2024, there is still a massive gap between the 2 companies. By USA definition, PSA is a monopoly.
What timeline do you think this gap in volume will converge to a flip? What makes you think CGC will continue gaining volume and PSA suddenly start to lose volume? PSA being a monopoly while charging a higher price for bulk means they can pull a lever anytime they want to eat away at CGC marketshare. $9 vs $14 grading for bulk is pretty significant.
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stonk up on them 10s now
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Burden of proof is on you
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TP’s future grading company will flip PSA.
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CGC has a faster turn around time, better looking slab, more consistent in grading policies (PSA will not or will grade Art academies or similar cards depending on the season)
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Im a firm believer that CGC will eventually take PSA’s crown, but it may take 10 years. And 10 years of PSA sitting on their hands.
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PSA owns 76% of the TCG grading market share if we ignore all of the basement companies and those created outside of the U.S. It’s taken CGC 4 years to gain 12% of this market share. That’s actually pretty impressive, but CGC would need to gain an additional 33% of the market which amounts to 43% of PSA’s business (if BGS and SGC operate as normal).
How do you suppose CGC will take away 43% of PSA’s business when their slabs consistently sell for less and the majority of submissions are for modern quick flips where profit margins are already razor thin?
Can CGC gain more market share? Absolutely. Will they “flip” PSA? I would guess no, pending a black swan event.
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I got no dog in this race. From the outside, and with what I observe as a buyer of cards, and what I know from youtube videos on the BS the various grading companies pull, I’d say that CGC is the most cynical company. Therefore, given enough time and if they don’t end up in actual legal hot water from the things they do, I can see their monthly/yearly stats eventually catching up.
I make no comment on which company is “the best” or what “the best” even implies. Nor will I pipe up about what “winning” looks like. These are all nuanced discussions. I will say that there are two major aspects to how graded cards seem to work from my personal, noob perspective. First, is that there are the people grading the cards en masse to resell. Second is the actual end customer, who buy the graded cards from those mass graders.
Maybe an interesting topic is how many people who grade cards do it for themselves? But I won’t suggest to derail this topic for that.
I don’t know what the grading market share rates were before CGC’s involvement, but I would be interested to see exactly where CGC is taking market share from. I recall the prevailing take from well-informed people when CGC launched was that it wouldn’t touch PSA, but could take the grading share of smaller companies like BGS and SGC.
Here are the market share statistics for the previous 3 years, numbers in millions of cards graded:
2022:
- PSA: 77.1% SHARE - 10.65/13.81
- CGC: 11.3% SHARE - 1.56/13.81
- SGC: 6.2% SHARE - .85/13.81
- BGS: 5.4% SHARE - .75/13.81
2023:
- PSA: 78.5% SHARE - 13.5/17.2
- CGC: 9.9% SHARE - 1.7/17.2
- SGC: 7.0% SHARE - 1.2/17.2
- BGS: 4.5% SHARE - .77/17.2
2024:
- PSA: 75.9% SHARE - 15.34/20.2
- CGC: 11.5% SHARE - 2.32/20.2
- SGC: 9.3% SHARE - 1.87/20.2
- BGS: 3.3% SHARE - .66/20.2
Interestingly, the past three years have seen PSA and CGC stay fairly consistent in market share, with PSA between 75-80% and CGC between 10-12%. The main trends have been a steady increase in SGC’s market share (now owned by PSA) and a steady decrease in BGS’ market share. I think this lends support to the idea that the lesser grading companies are mainly fighting it out for themselves in PSA’s shadow. They are certainly very viable, but their gains/losses in market share come at the expense of each other, not PSA.
Tl;dr CGC isn’t “flipping” PSA anytime soon, if they increase their market share it will likely be at the expense of other smaller companies.
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This is an interesting idea. My additional thoughts:
Also, maybe we will have to observe whether newer trophy cards/exclusive high end Pokemon cards are increasingly sent to CGC over time? This could be a proxy on how the market views the added value that a PSA/CGC grading certification holds over the value of their cards.
It seems to me that there are more high value trophy cards encased in CGC slab these days.
(Side note: maybe the prototype test cards are an example of how CGC tries to one up PSA).
Based on the limited CGC cards I have seen in person, I don’t think CGC is off the mark when it comes to accuracy of grading and the slab actually looks fine to me beside a PSA slab so I think they can coexist in a persons collection.
Side note- grading or not grading art cards and prototype cards does not factor into the total volume when the units are in the millions.
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This is because of a few things:
- A few of the largest buyers/sellers of trophy cards in Pokemon are banned from PSA. Others who aren’t banned from PSA have very close relationships with CGC execs, which influences where they grade high-end cards.
- PSA 6s often crossgrade to CGC 8-10. Differences in the grading scales (i.e., how dents are treated) can lead to appreciable gains for trophy sellers who source high-end cards with minor indentations.
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The relationship between high-end submitters and CGC’s grading practices is one of the most questionable things in the hobby right now.
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what is this absolute nonsense opinion
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ARS will flip the whole game
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okay so at this point before it goes further, uh, it seems like this ought to just be put in the unpopular opinions thread right? Or is this a neutral/popular opinion? I feel like I got baited by a shitpost ngl
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It not season dependent it money dependent
It’s Triple stirring up the pot