Honest question, how does CGC manage to get their paws everywhere? At this point, I’m surprised companies are still willing to work with them given how young they still are and the controversy and rumors surrounding them. Big shock move at least to me
Cause outside of efour most people REALLY like CGC and they have decades of experience and track record. Also, PSA doesn’t need to do things like this (nor should they want to) and BGS is run by those toy monkeys with cymbals.
then why are they so desperate for submission? im on insta mostly and don’t see what you are describing
Word on the street is CGC bulk is down to about 10 days or so turnaround so you’re paying a decent premium per card to not have to deal with shipping and reshipping. Deferred payment is nice but you need to make sure the cards are worth the $20 grading fee. The amount of cards that it would be worth doing this for and not worth waiting for PSA, even taking into account the ability to flip multiple times in the waiting period, seems really really thin and situational. Not sure if I’ll use it but I’m sure there’s a use case for others.
There are definitely CGCs fans out there but it’s also hard to deny a lot submitters stopped or slowed down in terms of sending stuff there. I still sell CGC slabs but it’s much harder to find buyers today.
Regardless, it’s not really surprising to see a relationship like this. CGC is the second biggest grader in Pokemon today, there’s no reason for PWCC not to take advantage of an exclusive partnership like this. With the ebay and PSA vaults coming soon, it’s only a matter of time before a huge segment of their market share is consumed by these competitors. They need to have some sort of exclusive perks to have an advantage over their competitors. Worst case, it’s just a service no one will use; best case they retain customers because of it.
I have no experience selling CGC slabs, but I’m pretty satisfied from the buyer’s side. I’ve picked up a handful of cards for my binders and even some 8.5 1st Ed Base that look as good as my PSA 9’s. That being said, I would most likely crack and regrade with PSA for the premium if I ever resell them.
CGC’s clear plastic case is also a lot nicer for viewing, IMO. I am planning on sending some of my childhood cards there soon now that the turnaround times are shorter.
grading companies should not partner with the auction houses that sell their stuff at all. Just grade cards and keep the backlog small, thats all a grading company needs to do
I sent in twelve cards, which I had planned to sell once graded, likely via PWCC anyway, so this saves me money on return shipping from CGC. I would classify them as the higher-end of a typical bulk sub I would do; worth roughly $50-100 once graded. The no-upfront fee is super appealing to me, and I have many cards worth grading at $20 but not at $50. Even if my post-tax profit is <$10 per card, that adds up quickly. For example, in December 2021, I sent a 118-card CGC bulk sub to PWCC, with cards selling for between $11 - $290.
The question was “omg why does anyone want to work with cgc” and the truth is that they have decades of experience with collectibles and people like the cards. I’m not sure I’d call working with eBay and pwcc “desperate,” it’s a good business move. Without a doubt overall submissions are down versus early 2021 but that’s to be expected.
go to trollandtoad and search “collectors vault” - sort low to high, youll find cgc
in all seriousness they are a legit company and grade fairly, they are just so overflowing with junk slabs that they get a bad rep
One man’s junk is another’s treasure. I have been trying not to buy as many cards this year, but I enjoyed bidding on cheaper ones last year.
I know it just can’t be a good look for the brand when 90% of the slabs selling are less than 100$
(those are made up exagerated numbers, not trying to offend anyone)
I own many cgc cards and like the quality a lot, it just is painful to see cgc sub returns from the average timothy
The same was true for PSA until very recently. Thousands and thousands of black star promos, Base / Jungle / Fossil unlimited holos etc. The concept of a Pokémon card being worth grading at $100 is new because there were so few cards worth $100 at all.
Overall I think people don’t realize there are huge quantities of cards with ready buyers that are worth grading at $20 but not at $50. Remember, PWCC straight up takes your card if they don’t get a bid at $10. There is a large market for cheaper graded cards.
My December 2021 PWCC auction brought in $18,991 for 324 cards bulk submitted to PSA & CGC. That is a mean of $58.61 and the median is more like $30. These cards were submitted at between $7 - $11.50. When you account for grading fees, taxes, shipping, etc I made like $8k profit from mostly cards I had sitting around the house for years or purchased in bulk lots.
Many of the cards I want are expensive and I prefer to swallow any pride and work towards them little by little $10 at a time instead of complain about prices and not bother to do anything with my Pokémon knowledge / skillet. Most recent PWCC weekly auction I made a grand total of $38 pretax pre grading costs! That’s like $10 profit! So what! I’d rather have $10 than nothing!
I am not commenting on the validity of grading sub 100$ cards. Most of my collection of slabs is probably worth less than 100$ each.
I just mean the look that they undoubtedly get as a grading company due to this has to be damaging to people who want to compare them to other companies. It makes sense because they were born in 2020 with no competition and mostly new graders sending stuff in. Eventually it became obvious that they are legit and people who had previously graded at the longer term grading companies tried them out in mass, but the swamps of low grade low value bulk is astounding.
The ebay authenticity guarantee thing and this now with PWCC and the fact that heritage only seems to get cgc high end slabs every week and never psa or bgs tells me that CGC is working on altering public opinion on them being the grader for cheap stuff. All of us here on e4 know a cgc grade of a high value card is worth the premium, but I am not convinced that the general public knows this (making them THE value buy currently). Overall CGC has done an outstanding job of entering and commanding some portion of market control in a very very established and trust based market.
I think it’s good to keep in mind that the business model is different. CGC doesn’t really have an incentive to draw in ultra high end cards because they do not have an enormous upcharge policy. Their highest tier is <$150 whereas PSA is $10k. It’s better for their finances to keep the lights on and have a steady income stream than to be the go-to for trophy card grading.
that is true, I guess I just assumed the goal of any grading company would be to dominate the market in all aspects. Not just dominate a subsection of the market
So is this sort of a way for them to compete more eBays new authentication/vault service? By having a more reputable grading service to go along with the vault/auction concept? It’s a smart revenue stream for PWCC potentially, but I’m still not sure if the market in sports and other TCGs are ever going to see a big shift from PSA/BGS to CGC (CGS?) to a point where going through this type of grading service and then immediately going to auction would be more profitable than sending to PSA or BGS where traditionally it has been the place to maximize value. I guess it all depends on the sellers or how the market changes over time.
Anyway, I don’t mind the CGC cards too much. In the higher grade ranges I’ve been pretty satisfied with them and they can be a strong value purchase from a strict collecting perspective since they tend to get discounted in Pokemon similar to BGS and others. I’ve been particularly happy with my CGC Magic cards but I only have a couple of Pokemon so far but they meet my standards for grade/condition just fine.
Data point for anyone who cares, I’ve been doing about the same amount of appraisals for Pokemon CGC and PSA cards for items that have been sent to the vault over the last 2 or 3 months. With this deal I can see them overtaking PSA (for volume of cards not average sale price) in the near future. I honestly keep getting surprised by the sheer number of Pokemon that they grade.
This is very good news in my opinion.
Imagine those people ( include me) with hundreds,thousands card ready to send for gradin to PSA when open value service, in these pile of cards just 10% of cards it’s for personal collection, all other cards are duplicates or just for sale. Now these people can send it to CGC the 90% of these cards. Of course potential 10 high value cards where the difference of price from PSA 10 and PSA 9 are excluded. This helps PSA have less low value cards for grading.
