Opinions about GAI

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Posted By: Matt R

The owner of my local card shop said they are a pretty respected name in the graded card market. On the PSA board, most of them insist they are a third rate company equivalent to GEM or PRO. I had always considered them one of the big 4 along with PSA, Beckett, and SGC. I've seen a few high end Mastro and Memory Lane auction items graded by GAI. Do they really make more mistakes than the other companies? Or are people still hostile over their recent relocation nightmare? I don't consider their screw up over the relocation as an indicator of the actual grades given to the cards. Sure it was poor from a public relations view, but does that really affect the quality of the work done by their graders?

As I'm not going to renew my PSA membership, I am looking for another service. I think now it's between GAI and SGC. What's your opinion on the 4 of these companies? If you have any facts that lead to your opinion whether it's good or bad, please post up.

By the way, I actually tested GEM one time. I had a counterfeit Jordan rookie and submitted it to see if they would slab it or not (I had no intentions of trying to sell it as authentic). I must give them credit as they correctly detected the card was fake and I got the card back in under 10 days from the time I sent it. And to top it off, they didn't charge me since they didn't slab it. I thought they were good from a service perspective.