Some SGC thoughts and questions (T206)
 

I'm a fairly newer collector but with the help of this site and eBay i've recently put together a Tigers T206 set (minus the cobbs) over the last year or so. The goal for my display was to have every card graded by SGC, simply because I like the look of their new holders. However, as cards came available either raw, old SGC or PSA graded I would scoop them up to fill holes. I had two submissions to SGC. I was thinking the one I just got back would be the last one but maybe I was wrong.

Submission 1 - Lesson learned. Three of the crossovers I submitted were PSA cards that I asked to have the MIN grade be the same as the PSA grade. If it goes up great, but I didnt want to take a hit if they went down. I received all three cards back with "MIN grade not met" and was charged $90 for all three. That sucked.

Submission 2 - This was basically my last 12 cards to get re-holdered or crossed over for my display. The first thing I did was made sure that every cross over card was marked "ANY numerical grade". As long as they came back in a new SGC holder I was ready to accept my fate.

The first thing that was interesting was that I had a T206 Sam Crawford PSA 2. It was one of the cards that I got charged $30 for on submission one and came back as couldnt meet MIN grade. On this go round with ANY grade checked it came back as a SGC 2. Of course!

The next thing I noticed was 4 nice T206 PSA graded cards ALL came back at either 1 or 1/2 point lower than the PSA grade.

The last thing that frankly ticked me off a little was a T206 in a PSA 5 holder. I submitted it as ANY grade acceptable. It came back as couldnt meet min grade. WTF?

I just hoped this second submission would complete my display. Any thoughts on what the heck happened with this PSA 5 card?

I very rarely submit cards (like 1-2x/year), and when I do, its almost always to SGC. I have never tried to cross a PSA to SGC, but i have crossed an SGC to a PSA, and PSA downgraded it. So, based on my limited experience and from what I read/hear from others, here are my thoughts:

1. Grading companies often downgrade a card submitted in a competitor's flip. Perhaps its because SGC's and PSA's standards are different, but I think, especially with PSA, they want to appear more difficult/better than SGC/the competitor

2. With all grading companies, the same card submitted 5 different times could get 5 different grades. This used to be the PSA game -- submit, dont like the grade, crack and submit, rinse and repeat., Eventually you may get that grader who gives you the grade you want.

3. Grading is a bullshit crapshoot. These companies are not always capable of detecting alterations -- in my opinion, PSA downright sucks/fails at it. And, even if the grading companies correctly "authenticate" the card, grading is subjective, and the people grading the cards are so diverse in terms or knowledge (or lack there of and they are all so busy and over-worked, that grades are very inconsistent. Also, a company's standards in 2021 are very different from 2015, which are totally different from 2008 -- so a 6 can look better than some 8's and worse than some 4s.

4. DONT submit. But cards that are already graded. This way you can buy the card you want in the holder you want, and its takes the unknown out of it.

On whole, I strongly prefer to SGC to PSA, especially when it comes to old and/or rare cards. But they all make mistakes and can be quite inconsistent.

my 2 cents:
1) your cards were not downgraded because "SGC is a harder grader". nor would it be the case vice versa. grading is tougher today than even just a few years ago. I regularly cross/crack from PSA to SGC and they are downgraded most of the time.
2) grading is a crapshoot.
3) I am not sure I believe that crosses are downgraded due to grader biases. A lot of people think this, but I personally believe it is due to number 1 above- grading became a huge business recently, and it got tougher.

I also went with SGC , mainly because I want my cards displayed in the same holders. I now understand why PSA cards sell for a premium. its just easier to buy slabbed from your grader of choice - and PSA has a lot more cards.