psa vs sgc - a grading company showdown

I’m team PSA.

My entire collection is PSA and really the thought of moving over to a new grading company scares me a little.

PSA is what I know, and you know what they say about the Devil you know.

But honestly, it’s getting hard to stick with PSA.

The cost is absurd and the turnaround times archaic.

The days of $15 subs that come back in 6 weeks are long gone, and they are not coming back.

So my interest is peaked.

What else is out there.

A little research, and SGC keeps popping up.

A little more research and it seems SGC is now owned by PSA.

So there’s that.

But let’s dig into it a bit. Maybe there is an opportunity here.

cost

PSA - $80/ card

All lower value tiers are currently paused so the price starts at $80/ card.

You read that right.

$80/card.

So grading a $10 card to hopefully Gem it up and sell for $75, well just doesn’t make financial sense when it costs $80 to grade.

Accountants can back me up on that one.

The reality is, grading with PSA at the moment only makes sense for high end cards

SGC - $15/ card with declared value of $1,500.

That’s where it should be and used to be at PSA.

This price is obviously less than $80, but it also lets more collectors and people in the hobby grade cards.

That’s a big plus in the SGC column.

Turnaround

PSA - Forever.

Maybe longer. Who knows.

Have orders from last year still sitting over there.

But I’ll wait patiently like a good boy.

SGC - 75 days

That’s obviously better than what we are seeing at PSA, but honestly, I was hoping it was a bit better.

Maybe it’s a thing where they say it takes longer than it actually does. PSA used to do that.

Or maybe not. But still almost half the time or better, that’s another W in the SGC column.

slab

PSA - The label for PSA is recognizable with the classic red and white design. It has the QR code on the back which links to the card so you can be confident in what you have which is critical in this industry.

PSA is the leader in the clubhouse for grading cards, but to be honest I don’t love the look. I think Becket looks the best, but they aren’t in this comparison so I’ll ignore that.

SGC -

I actually wasn’t sure here. I had to look these up. I don’t own a card with an SGC label and I’ve never searched for one.

Let’s take a look…

It’s not great.

It looks like someone printed this bad boy out on an old inkjet and the lettering doesn’t really jump out at you.

I kind of like the black around the card so it’s not a total bust. It could maybe grow on me, but at first glance it looks a little amateurish.

Advantage PSA

resale value

PSA - It’s really the biggest driver for using PSA. Most of us send cards out with the goal of selling those.

We might PC some slabs here and there, but most orders are meant to be shipped out.

You want to get the most bang for your buck, and that is just going to happen with PSA no matter how many people complain about this.

It just is what it is, until one day maybe it isn’t any more.

The fact is you know with a PSA slab you will get good resale value and more importantly a lot of interest because most collectors go with PSA.

SGC - According to this search, SGC has good resale value, but not has high as PSA.

Let’s put this to the test.

The images above are for a JJ Wetherholt Bowman Chrome 1st 10. Let’s take a look at some recent sales.

PSA - Seeing several ‘sold’ PSA 10’s of the base chrome at just over $100.

SGC - Definitely a drop in the return value here as several sold options are sitting in the $65 range. So that’s a big drop, but not as bad as I thought it would be. The real win is that there are sales here. I’d be worried that you wouldn’t find any interested buyers and that doesn’t seem to be the case.

final verdict

Look, if all things were equal I’d keep doing what I was doing and sending cards off to PSA.

That’s just not doable in the near term, so it might be time to experiment.

Doing this breakdown, I think it makes sense to send out an order to see how it plays.

Maybe PSA will be strictly for cards $500 and above and those in the $20-$100 range need to go to SGC.

So I’ll give it a shot, see how it goes, and of course report back here.

Let me know your thoughts.

PPC’s