Do PSA slabs *really* sell for more than SGC?

[Snowman]

We are constantly told that PSA slabs sell for more than SGC. This is probably the most common argument we hear whenever someone asks if they should get their cards graded by PSA or SGC. And, while it may be true that a randomly chosen card at auction in a PSA 6 ends with a higher hammer price than another copy of the same card in an SGC 6, it certainly doesn't always outsell it. The card inside the holder always matters more.

That said, the current state of grading vintage cards drastically changes the conversation. The more important question now is, "will my raw cards sell for more if I get them slabbed by PSA or by SGC?" This is a much more important question to ask if you're sending cards off for grading.

The reality today is that you have an extremely high likelihood of getting your cards severely under graded if you send them off to PSA, especially for cards sent at the lower service levels (sub ~$500 cards) where they have inexperienced graders evaluating your cards. It's been happening for a few years now, and I kept waiting for them to correct the issue, but it only seems to have gotten worse. The majority of their vintage graders simply don't know what they're doing. At all. It's really unfortunate. There are still a handful of vintage graders there that do give out fair grades, but they are becoming fewer and further between than in years past. And they're mostly just handling the cards that are sent through at the higher service levels. And even then, they're often still overly harsh on grades.

Contrast that with what is happening over at SGC, and it's a vastly different landscape. I've graded thousands of cards with both companies over the past few years and I keep meticulous records. The gap between grades awarded is now generally at least a full grade difference and often reaches 2 full grades or more. And it's not because SGC is grading soft. They're grading accurately and consistently. PSA simply is not.

I could post endless examples that demonstrate this from cards I've graded and regraded with both companies and cards I've crossed over in both directions in recent months and over the past few years. Here are just a few cards from some of my most recent submissions showing the grades they received at PSA and the grades they received at SGC. Again, this is just a snapshot. I could post endless examples just like these.

Also worth noting is that any color differences you see in the images are due to the images being generated by different scanners and/or scanner settings. None of these cards were improved in any way between submissions. They were simply cracked out of the PSA slabs and sent directly to SGC.

To be fair, any random submission can get hammered by any random grader at any company on any given day. Even the same grader can be more lenient on one day than they are on another. Grading is a human process and variance should be expected. I have gotten fair grades at both PSA and SGC. But what I'm reporting on is my zoomed out look at my experiences grading thousands of cards with both companies over the past few years over at least 100 or so different submissions and where the state of grading is currently at today. And in general, these results shown below are now extremely common.

PSA does not outsell SGC today. Not if we're talking about the same card being sent to both companies.

Note - the Lefty Odoul Goudey was previously a PSA 3 that I cracked and sent back to PSA because it was under graded. They then rejected it as "min size" the second time (it is not). Also, none of these cards have any hidden creases or other hidden surface flaws.

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