Are Older SGC Graded Cards Valued Less?

[tbob]

Originally Posted by chaddurbin

i had a "SG" t206 speaker 60 that came back trimmed many years ago, so yes personally i treat them the same as GAI holder...and i'd rather buy a raw card than a GAI card.

derek's gold sticker SGC grades are the toughest!

Never much love for GAI cards I have plenty of really beautiful caramel cards graded in GAI holders from back in the day when GAI was just as strict as SGC. Granted that time has long passed but there was a time when GAI graded cards were very credible.
P.S. I haven't had a card graded by GAI now in 6-7 years....

[chaddurbin]

agreed tbob, if i'm buying GAI the safest ones would be the "First Graded" labels. you can be certain those were the earliest GAI stuff.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by tbob

Never much love for GAI cards I have plenty of really beautiful caramel cards graded in GAI holders from back in the day when GAI was just as strict as SGC. Granted that time has long passed but there was a time when GAI graded cards were very credible.
P.S. I haven't had a card graded by GAI now in 6-7 years....

The problem with buying GAI is that while there is a very new generation holder that should be avoided at all costs in my opinion, I don't know of any way to tell the difference between the early cards that Bob mentions which I agree were quite legit and cards from a few years later with the same holder and flip where the company clearly had started to make compromises.

[chaddurbin]

1st gen GAI can also be iffy because alot of their business came from the $2.50 pre-grade at shows where they looked at the card under a yellow lamp for 10-15sec and assign a grade to it (if you like the grade it costs an additional $5-$10 for slabbing back at their HQ). i suspect lots of altered stuff passed through this way.