Grading plans for the next 6-12 months

[jjcan]

Originally Posted by towerymt

You're referring to raw cards, right?

I've slowed considerably on buying raw, and stopped buying low end raw I would have graded at $15/ea.

I've tried to pick off the lowest priced PSA-10 rookies I feel OK about holding. Basically price enforcing, staying disciplined, and not winning a lot of auctions.

Also buying some BGS-10 rookies.

I am still buying newer raw low end rookies, prices are dipping on the a lot of 2021 with the production (overproduction), bad class for BB and BK, good time to hold, just storing them in card saver 1's for now. Also buying raw soccer rcs

I did send close to 450 cards to CSG, but with their TAT being almost 10 months. No need to send anything NEW to them for awhile at bulk price.

With the option to send to SGC and the only reasonable TAT, I am debating in sending maybe 10-20 cards, but at this rate $30 (lower ROI) for grading bulk, is just seems better use of money to buy raw cards, or low graded GOAT rcs (7s, 8s of PSA/BGS/SGC) Lots of value with prices dropping

[rhineland]

By and large I'll be waiting for PSA to re-open. However...

Just finished my first go with SGC, and it was a solid experience. Quick turnaround from submission to getting the cards back (roughly 2 weeks overall). Note that none of my cards were ultra modern. Everything was between 1980-2000.

They grade just as tough as PSA in my opinion. For the person looking at resale, their specialty is really the 9.5 grade. For those cards that you know won't get a 10 from PSA but are better than most 9s, it's a good option to get true value out of your card.

An example of the difference would be looking at the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. PSA 9s have recently sold for roughly $200 USD ($250 CAD) on average, while recent SGC 9.5 sales have floated between $380-$620 USD. I'd consider the mid-range of $500 to be the appropriate settling value for that.

I know it's a single card, but it goes to show that there's a place for the grade in the market and that for those of us who think we have cards caught between a 9 and a 10, there is a middle ground that lets us maximize value.

More to the question at hand - I'm going to comb through my many raw cards that I have waiting for PSA bulk to see if there are any that would fit that middle-ground billing. Those I'll send to SGC (if the economics work out) while the vast majority of the rest I'll wait for a PSA re-opening.

[cafenjl]

It's quite the pickle. Lots of people say they wish another grader would generate the ROI that PSA does. In the very next breath, they say they will only submit to PSA.

[Spacemanspif]

Originally Posted by rhineland

By and large I'll be waiting for PSA to re-open. However...

Just finished my first go with SGC, and it was a solid experience. Quick turnaround from submission to getting the cards back (roughly 2 weeks overall). Note that none of my cards were ultra modern. Everything was between 1980-2000.

They grade just as tough as PSA in my opinion. For the person looking at resale, their specialty is really the 9.5 grade. For those cards that you know won't get a 10 from PSA but are better than most 9s, it's a good option to get true value out of your card.

An example of the difference would be looking at the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. PSA 9s have recently sold for roughly $200 USD ($250 CAD) on average, while recent SGC 9.5 sales have floated between $380-$620 USD. I'd consider the mid-range of $500 to be the appropriate settling value for that.

I know it's a single card, but it goes to show that there's a place for the grade in the market and that for those of us who think we have cards caught between a 9 and a 10, there is a middle ground that lets us maximize value.

More to the question at hand - I'm going to comb through my many raw cards that I have waiting for PSA bulk to see if there are any that would fit that middle-ground billing. Those I'll send to SGC (if the economics work out) while the vast majority of the rest I'll wait for a PSA re-opening.

your take on SGC is interesting. basically taking over the BGS 9.5 spot (back when BGS was sub $50 and we didn't know it would take a year). might be worth a shot for those in the $100-200 raw spot, guess it can't hurt to toss $25 as an experiment, otherwise those cards are just sitting around anyway right

[Ericc5Bears]

Originally Posted by rhineland

By and large I'll be waiting for PSA to re-open. However...

Just finished my first go with SGC, and it was a solid experience. Quick turnaround from submission to getting the cards back (roughly 2 weeks overall). Note that none of my cards were ultra modern. Everything was between 1980-2000.

They grade just as tough as PSA in my opinion. For the person looking at resale, their specialty is really the 9.5 grade. For those cards that you know won't get a 10 from PSA but are better than most 9s, it's a good option to get true value out of your card.

An example of the difference would be looking at the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. PSA 9s have recently sold for roughly $200 USD ($250 CAD) on average, while recent SGC 9.5 sales have floated between $380-$620 USD. I'd consider the mid-range of $500 to be the appropriate settling value for that.

I know it's a single card, but it goes to show that there's a place for the grade in the market and that for those of us who think we have cards caught between a 9 and a 10, there is a middle ground that lets us maximize value.

More to the question at hand - I'm going to comb through my many raw cards that I have waiting for PSA bulk to see if there are any that would fit that middle-ground billing. Those I'll send to SGC (if the economics work out) while the vast majority of the rest I'll wait for a PSA re-opening.

Hit the nail on the head, when you hit a 9.5 SGC you know you got the absolute most value possible out of any grading option currently available (as long as you're fairly confident the card wouldn't have PSA 10'd). Even for modern cards, I see 9.5s consistently mirroring PSA 9 values and in some cases even doing 20-25% higher. Then as you said, as you get more vintage the SGC 9.5 to PSA 9 gap only continues to increase.

[warderjack769]

Originally Posted by rhineland

More to the question at hand - I'm going to comb through my many raw cards that I have waiting for PSA bulk to see if there are any that would fit that middle-ground billing. Those I'll send to SGC (if the economics work out) while the vast majority of the rest I'll wait for a PSA re-opening.

I've made similar deductions - there's some middle sweet spot where you can do alright on SGC cards. You can't be too low because of the $25-$30 a card to grade, but once the raw value gets to be maybe $500 at that point it may be worth bump from Regular or Express with PSA. I've also found with SGC that you don't want to be sending in stuff to them where there are high populations of PSA equivalents. Stick with pre-boom 2018 and earlier where the populations are a fraction of what they are in 2019 and later products. I primarily grade football, with occasional basketball and baseball and it seems like basketball buyers/collectors/flippers have a stronger bias to PSA than the other sports. Will be interesting to see how it goes.

CSG was fun to submit cheap cards to for a minute, but now with the stated TAT being 10 months, you have to be sending in low end cards for established or HOF players, however with their bumps in prices you may as well hold out for a QS or value with PSA if they retain a $20 or less per card offering.

[SupermanBrandon]

Originally Posted by cafenjl

It's quite the pickle. Lots of people say they wish another grader would generate the ROI that PSA does. In the very next breath, they say they will only submit to PSA.

There's ZERO reason to be a guinea pig. IF someone else actually catches up to PSA ROI, then I will make that move.

[Dr kicker]

Originally Posted by imbluestreak23

It's possible it's over johnny.

Was a good run

Even if bulk would ever come back at 15$ , seeing them there for close to a full year is a massive downer.

[Arianny_Fan]

Lol! Reality setting in for the bass (base) flippers I see?

[Y2Hood]

When possible, I'll send a few pre-war cards to SGC. I'm sending about 8 or so per week to CSG but as far as my BGS registries go, I'm just holding tight. Not really buying anything else for them in the meantime.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by Dr kicker

Even if bulk would ever come back at 15$ , seeing them there for close to a full year is a massive downer.

It would be a downer, but so long as you know going in it can be planned for. If they get to the point of $15/year, $25/6 months, $50/3 months I think I'd be happy. The problem is that might be years (plural) away.

[letsgocapitals]

Wait n see.

Wait n see...

[MOONBASE1]

Much has to shake out for the rest of the year. The Nat'l resulting effect as a future barometer going forward for the market. The PSA/BGS oncoming card flood entering the market. Covid winding down. Gov't $ slowly drying up by Sept. for all states. Much to consider. Am sitting back and will watch the shake out.

[k13]

PSA made the market and killed the market.

They should lose 80% + of their business in a year.

[solt0131]

Originally Posted by k13

PSA made the market and killed the market.

They should lose 80% + of their business in a year.

Zero chance this happens....if anything, they will become stronger.

[letsgocapitals]

Originally Posted by k13

PSA made the market and killed the market.

They should lose 80% + of their business in a year.

Awful take.

[imbluestreak23]

Originally Posted by k13

PSA made the market and killed the market.

They should lose 80% + of their business in a year.

Wut?

[Ericc5Bears]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

It would be a downer, but so long as you know going in it can be planned for. If they get to the point of $15/year, $25/6 months, $50/3 months I think I'd be happy. The problem is that might be years (plural) away.

I think a singular year turnaround time on bulk is veryyyy optimistic thinking. It was basically at a year already even before the shutdown. Now, regular and express is way too expensive for probably 90% of cards being submitted for grading, DV on bulk was raised to $499 which means even medium/high-end raw cards can be submitted, and people have had 3+ months to stack massive piles of bulk subs that they're all going to unload at once the second bulk re-opens. I legitimately think it will be 2-3 years turnaround time.

P.S- Sorry quoted the wrong person meant to quote Dr Kicker

[hearseguy]

I have a stack of about 100 cards that I will just be holding until it makes sense financially to submit them to PSA. Although, I have been considering sending the portion that are not PC or long term investments to SGC.

[f2tornado]

Buy and hold. Mainly staying in the $10-$40 raw range. PSA is bound to have a cheaper service sometime in the next few months otherwise the competition will gradually devour it. Maybe they could have limits to amount of cards a person can submit to keep things from backlogging hard again.

[imbluestreak23]

I am getting excited about my subs currently at PSA and PSA re-opening.

[Hectekk]

I am currently mostly buying raw modern football and grading with HGA to flip for this NFL season. Also buying basketball prospects but not sure if waiting for PSA value is worth it. Nat Turner in recent interview said when they open up again they do not want a flood in because they still have to assign many of their graders to do backlog. They said they would control that with pricing. So I don't expect modern value to be less than $50 and will probably start up again in January with a 10-12 month wait.

[kyaa]

My two cents...

It made sense for PSA to suspend services due to the backlog--I think they should have done it much sooner. But I'm beginning to worry that they will not reopen a lower price level ($10 to $15 per card) any time soon, which I think could have a very detrimental impact on PSA and the hobby as a whole.

The way I see it, PSA became overwhelmed largely because it was very profitable for people to buy raw cards and get them graded for $8 to $12 per card. That low price point, combined the recent sportscards boom and two great rookie classes in the major sports--2018 and 2019 mean there were a ton, maybe too many, cards out there worth grading. The demand for PSA's services was very high.

But now things have swung in the opposite direction. Grading fees are high, card prices have been falling, and the rookie classes of 2020/2021 aren't nearly as good as the previous years in baseball and basketball. So even if PSA reopened $25 per card ultra-modern I don't think the demand for grading would be anything close to what it was a year ago after an initial burst of cards being sent in.

The bottom line is, if it isn't that easy to find cards worth grading, and if it isn't that profitable for people to grade them, demand for PSA's services will fall, along with card values for lower end cards. I'm sure many people would welcome lower prices. But if I were in Nat Turner's shoes, I'd much rather have someone paying me $10 per card to grade 100 cards that might sell for $35 each as PSA 10s, that not have that person submit those cards because grading fees are too high.

I get that PSA is still working through the large backlog and they can't take on a new tidal wave of submissions if they aren't ready. But the sooner they can offer a low price point again--even if the turnaround time is a year or slightly longer--the better off PSA and the hobby will be.

[Hectekk]

Originally Posted by kyaa

My two cents...

It made sense for PSA to suspend services due to the backlog--I think they should have done it much sooner. But I'm beginning to worry that they will not reopen a lower price level ($10 to $15 per card) any time soon, which I think could have a very detrimental impact on PSA and the hobby as a whole.

The way I see it, PSA became overwhelmed largely because it was very profitable for people to buy raw cards and get them graded for $8 to $12 per card. That low price point, combined the recent sportscards boom and two great rookie classes in the major sports--2018 and 2019 mean there were a ton, maybe too many, cards out there worth grading. The demand for PSA's services was very high.

But now things have swung in the opposite direction. Grading fees are high, card prices have been falling, and the rookie classes of 2020/2021 aren't nearly as good as the previous years in baseball and basketball. So even if PSA reopened $25 per card ultra-modern I don't think the demand for grading would be anything close to what it was a year ago after an initial burst of cards being sent in.

The bottom line is, if it isn't that easy to find cards worth grading, and if it isn't that profitable for people to grade them, demand for PSA's services will fall, along with card values for lower end cards. I'm sure many people would welcome lower prices. But if I were in Nat Turner's shoes, I'd much rather have someone paying me $10 per card to grade 100 cards that might sell for $35 each as PSA 10s, that not have that person submit those cards because grading fees are too high.

I get that PSA is still working through the large backlog and they can't take on a new tidal wave of submissions if they aren't ready. But the sooner they can offer a low price point again--even if the turnaround time is a year or slightly longer--the better off PSA and the hobby will be.

No way they offer Ultra modern at $25 ever again. Even after they raised prices it did nothing to stem the flow. My guess is it will ultimately come back at 35-50 if we lucky that is. Just like Disneyland's main issue is that they have too many customers filling park and the only way to control that is with higher prices it still didn't stop people from going. Same with PSA.

[vthobby]

Just sent a 16K order to SGC.

Only game in town! Smart money already knew that!