May Grading Numbers - CGC and SGC
 

From Gemrate:

May 2025 - Grading Recap
Overall grading activity was ⬆14% in May compared to April and ⬆36% YoY.

May results set a new high for the fourth consecutive month.

Grading activity crossed 2.4 million cards in May, up ~300k compared to April.

PSA graded 1.65m cards - ⬆6% vs Apr, ⬆21% YoY. [Record high]

CGC graded 570k cards - ⬆67% vs Apr, ⬆209% YoY. [Record high]

CGC appeared to benefit from a few large bulk orders, including nearly 100k Topps 50/50 Ohtani cards.

SGC graded 145k cards - ⬇13% vs Apr, ⬇17% YoY.

Beckett graded 59k cards - ⬆3% vs Apr, ⬇1% YoY.



There were 21 business days in May ’25, 22 business days in Apr ’25, & 22 business days in May ’24. On a per business day basis, PSA was ⬆11% in May vs Apr, CGC ⬆75%, SGC ⬇9%, and Beckett ⬆8%.

Whats going on with CGC and SGC?

I think CGC is rising because they have become the choice for grading most TCG cards now...

So if SGC is down year over year, then why are they slower than this time last year?

Wonder if Collectors made them cut staffing.

Scott, it is an excellent question. Another concern I have is their marketing. I really haven't heard from them at all in 2025.

There's no way SGC should've been down in May. They had received a flood of submissions from multiple Card shows in mid-late April in addition to their regular mail-in submissions. Collectors (the company) must have put the brakes on them for some ridiculous self-serving reason.

Also, I would love to see the numbers with Ultra-modern cards and Pokemon factored out. Those segments likely represent 90% of this published data (or more).

The decline of Beckett is stunning.

Seems like SGC is now the vintage route for non-registry folks, as PSA and CGC face the Pokemon deluge.

EDIT: (noted in first post)

According to a few notes on Twitter, CSG large increase came from a 100k bulk graded Ohtani 50/50 cards.

This graph is just for sports, but also includes modern. Most of CGC's sports is modern, but that is a pretty stunning number.

Peter, agree. I am wondering if either a buyout or shuttering is in its future.

CGC also benefited from PSA not accepting submissions from countries outside the US due to terrifs. Look at the number of hockey cards they graded last month in comparison to PSA.

I don't know how recent the practice is, but it appears Fanatics is now offering tons of modern cards graded AUTHENTIC by CGC and put in a sealed card saver.

They do vintage cards too. CGC took over for MBA doing the authentic card saver thing at fanatics a little while ago.

That whole program has been going on for a couple/few years I think…first with MBA and now CGC. Can send in your raw stuff to Fanatics and for $3/card get that service and put up for auction.

There are a ton of CGC holders out there. And, as noted, they seem to have their fingers in a lot of different grading endeavors. I believe the parent company is, of course, the largest grading company (of all things together) by far, if you include comics, paper, coins etc....
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CGC got a bunch of mega topps now bulk submissions from what I heard. I think this month was an outlier for them and not really indicitave of how sports card folks are actually grading outside of PSA. The 400+% month over month and the 600+% year over year increases makes me think it was a fluke and no way is it sustanible on the sports card side. I bet SGC goes back to #2 after next months numbers are released.

SGC processing times are up while submissions are down. I echo the previous posters in hoping this is not an indication that they're being throttled long term.

Not enough graders apparently.
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I just read that SGC is no longer bulk submission rates effective June 20.

Interesting.

Probably too backed up with submissions and not enough graders.

Marketing is exactly the type of function that PSA is going to kill first. Any horizontal function that is duplicative of PSA is just extra cost.

It makes no sense for PSA to operate SGC as a competing brand. The cost to hold that up destroys the value accretion.

But PSA doesn't need to shutter the SGC brand; they just need to remove the incentive to use SGC as an true alternative to PSA and (effectively) rebrand it as a lower-cost, non-premium option with longer wait times and less resale viability. Essentially use it as a low-margin option for people who would never pay the premium price for PSA. What they don't want to do is have it cannibalize PSA's existing share. That's a disaster.

To many important big piece cards that are owned by prestigious collectors reside in SGC Slabs with RECORD SALES. They will never be considered as non premium price pieces to PSA.

The only way this could change in my mind is if PSA Crosses those Big Cards Owned By the Important people at equal even grades.

Disagree. A two-brand monopoly should always be stronger than a single brand monopoly because it gives them more strategic flexibility. To protect their overall market share, Collectors Holdings should decide on a unique brand strategy for SGC (vintage, value, etc) - this will create a larger barrier of entry for competitors and effectively protects the PSA brand and market share. Letting SGC die a slow death creates opportunity for new/existing competitors to eat away at PSA's market share which is exactly what CGC is doing.

Ray Van

Since the majority of PSA's current business (and virtually ALL of their growth) is now within the Pokemon segment, Collectors should use PSA as their resource for TCG and modern cards.

They should use the SGC brand for the grading of vintage sports cards. That's what makes the most sense for consumers and collectors, so I'm sure they'll do something completely different. :rolleyes:

https://cardhoundvintage.com/grading...future-of-sgc/

Lots of chatter today about SGC. Interesting article.