Recs for Japanese Baseball Card grading company?
 

I'm looking to get a variety of vintage Japanese baseball cards graded and encapsulated. Any advice on which grading companies are most familiar with the cards would be greatly appreciated. Most of the cards are late 40s through early 60s, with a just a few earlier and handful of later Leaf and Calbee.

Most of the graded cards I come across are from PSA, but I am hoping to find a decent alternative. The very long wait at PSA is a turnoff and, since I'm not grading/slabbing them with any specific thoughts of resale, the PSA premium for sales isn't worth much to me. Has anyone had good experience with other grading companies handling their Japanese cards?

In particular, I was thinking about giving CSG a try but haven't seen any menko cards in their slabs yet.

Thanks!

I would opt for SGC. They claim to have beaten the backlog and they are pretty good (or have been in the past) about taking oddball stuff.

I'll probably do that. Wish I had thought of it last week, before they raised their rates, but still they seem to offer a reasonable turnaround. And I opened a submission ticket and found the first four cards I was looking for in their database, so that bodes well.

Thanks!

PSA opened a branch in Japan and they seem to be a lot more knowledgeable about Japanese cards than they were a few years ago (SCG does grade Japanese cards too but I'm not sure if they cover all the same sets that PSA does). Not sure if that is relevant to your decision but thought I'd mention it.

If you look in the upper left of the home/main page, there's an ad there for (I believe) Prestige Collectibles Auctions' Japanese stuff (keep refreshing the page until that ad appears). You may want to reach out to them to see if they can provide some insight, or look through their auction catalogue to see who they (or their consigners) used to grade the items. It may help you decide.