I dont have one

On 4/24/2022 at 5:44 PM, northkorea said:

What's funny is I don't actually think of you as a CSG hater. You hate that the green labels were tough. Have you tried to sub since CSG loosened their standards last month?

No. I don’t trust their judgement now. I highly doubt I’ll ever send another batch here again. I’m inclined to sit back and see if the market tanking sinks demand enough to start forcing pricing back down at other graders. If I were to send any bulk orders at all right now it would be SGC first. HGA second choice if I want sub grades on some of them. I may send half a dozen higher value cards to PSA because I prefer PSA first but I’m not paying $50 a card for any large batches. I won a 20 card allotment there last week and couldn’t justify paying $50 a card on enough of what I want graded so I didn’t fill the order. 

On 4/24/2022 at 4:00 PM, northkorea said:

No one, not even the CSG haters, would say people should use GMA. GMA has a reputation for grading cards deemed altered or questionable authenticity by the major grading companies.

I agree. This CSG “hater” wouldn't ever use GMA. 

You can say that but SGC claims to still have many of the same graders there now that worked there ages ago. There’s been continuity. The corporate entity that controlled at the time is of little consequence. This debate is about the CURRENT philosophy of grading at the CURRENT CSG. Not what CCG may have done at a different company at a different time. It’s a false equivalency. And I do not intend to imply PSA and SGC over grade. I don’t have a 100% firm opinion on HGA yet although I’ve been happy in general with HGA so far on the one order I sent them. And no I’m not attempting not to be held to what I actually said. These posts get long sometimes so to keep it simple, I have said and am still saying PSA and SGC grade fairly and CSG under grades in my opinion. No need to read between the lines. 

On 4/22/2022 at 10:56 PM, northkorea said:

You never said SGC and PSA grade fairly. You said repeatedly that PSA grades soft, and that's why you think people use them. The reason PSA graded cards sell at a premium is two-fold: Registry Points and a high acquisition cost. If SGC and PSA graded exactly the same, people would STILL pay a premium for PSA cards for those reasons.

You started your complaints by saying no one would buy your CSG 8.5 cards for PSA 10 money. When confronted about how PSA costs more for grading services than CSG, you said you would use SGC for regrading, claiming that your CSG 7.5 and 8 graded cars would grade out at SGC as 9.5 or 10.

If you submitted those cracked out 6.5 & 7 cards to PSA, you would have PSA 7s that you would have paid (at the time) $125 to grade.

Clearly, you wouldn't spend $125 to grade commons, if you're saying you wouldn't pay the current PSA Economy price of $50.

I've found, that PSA 9s on pre-junk wax era cards and ultra-moderns *sometimes* get a premium above what should be expected, since PSA has a large gap between grades 9 and 10. For junk wax cards, PSA 8 - PSA 9 cards garner a slight premium to raw... but nowhere close to the grading fees incurred.

Green SGC 92 (8.5) might get PSA 8 or PSA 9 grades, but they also seem to garner Black SGC 9 & 9.5 grades at similar rates. Essentially, we're talking about grade inflation of a step grade from PSA to SGC. Based upon my limited sample size, CSG has about the same step (0.5 pts) grade inflation when transitioning to SGC.

Assuming you had raw cards that you just wanted to flip, then I would understand the decision to use SGC for your cards. After all, SGC does a good job of getting higher prices from new speculators who don't fully understand or appreciate why different grading companies have different grades.

If you're saying that inflation is closer to two or three steps (1-1.5 points), that puts SGC into the same category as BCCG. Although I don't buy many SGC graded cards (I think I own two greens and one black), I sure do hope you're wrong. If your claim is right, it won't be long before SGC is out of business, yet again.

I agree they get more for PSA than SGC and registry is likely one reason why. I don’t think you can quote anyplace where I said those services grade softly. While HGA is new and I’m not totally sure how I feel about them yet, PSA and SGC have both been around a long time. They set the current standards and CSG under grades by comparison. That’s just fact. If you look through my posts you’ll see “more fair” and “fairly” multiple times as regards to PSA, SGC or HGA. No place will you see “soft”. Maybe your opinion is that PSA and SGC over grade. I have no problem with someone else having that perspective. But I’m also not new at this. Ive been collecting for over 30 years. I’d say I’ve found you to be reasonable and we’ve had a good back and forth debate. We agree on some things and disagree on others. And that’s fine. What a small group of people here just can’t seem to admit is that maybe it’s CSG that is under grading. Or that other people have that opinion and it might be valid. There are obviously variations from card to card but the major glaring issue for me is CSGs ridiculous surface grading. Other graders simply do not agree with their take on surface. We don’t need a sports card scrutinized with the Hubble space telescope to be graded properly. If you can’t see it with the eye and you can’t see it with the 10x lighted jewelers loupe that I use then it’s not important to a collector. Let me get more specific. So if a CSG card gets 9 centering, 9.5 corners, 9 edges, but a foolishly harsh 7.5 on surface they totally devalue the card giving it an overall  8. It’s a joke. They’re likely only about a half point low on centering to me but comparable on edges and corners in my personal opinion. In this example the card would be 9.5 centering, 9.5 corners, 9 edges and their surface grades in particular are off the reservation needing the 1-1.5 adjustment in a lot of cases so 8.5- 9 surface. This card should grade at worst a 9 and they grade it an 8 usually due to that one factor they are way, way off on. Clearly other people feel this way as well. And we’re entitled to that opinion. And it’s backed up currently by ROI despite other factors including registries. I don’t think it’s going to change either but in the end time will tell. 

On 4/22/2022 at 9:39 PM, northkorea said:

While I agree that SGC tends to overgrade cards, you may want to temper your expectations. If SGC's standards are truly two steps (one full integer grade) worse than CSG's, SGC might start being viewed the same as HGA for grading standards.

I didn’t say SGC over grades. You did. So we don’t agree on that. I said SGC and PSA grade fairly and comparably. I said CSG under grades in comparison to all the other reputable TPGs. Maybe you like it that they under grade compared to the others. The resale market certainly doesn’t appreciate it from an ROI perspective and thats hard to dispute right now. To each his own as they say. And it’s all subjective to a degree but a year or so ago some people said SGC was too harsh. So there you go. The major problem I have here is there’s a few fanboys who refuse to respect some peoples opinions that CSG under grades and devalues. They condescendingly tell you to learn how to screen cards like we haven’t done it hundreds and hundreds of times and gotten better results elsewhere. Even those that speculate that this CSG under grading will create value in the future somewhat agree the value isn’t there now so it’s not some far out position I’m taking.  I won’t be sending any more cards here ever again but good luck to anyone that continues to do so. You’re entitled to your opinions and to spend your grading dollars as you see fit  

. 

On 4/22/2022 at 9:25 PM, northkorea said:

Again, rather than wasting $50+ to have these commons regraded by PSA, hoping to get 10s, you really should just sell them in the CSG holders.

I have no intention to regrade the majority of these cards for $50 a card. I’ll send 8-10 of them that graded 8.5 or 9 to SGC for regrading and will probably get 9.5’s & 10’s. Then I’ll sell those. The rest will be thrown in the closet for a few years. I’d rather that or light them on fire than sell them under graded in CSG 8 or 8.5 holders for $1.49

On 4/22/2022 at 9:12 PM, JohnBurke said:

On 4/22/2022 at 9:12 PM, JohnBurke said:

Reasons why your argument is null and void and ridiculous: 

- you’re commenting on overall market fluctuations. That has nothing to do with grading companies. that’s on you for sending it in after the decline, csg wait time on bulk has been like 3 weeks 🤡 
- if you claim that csg graded one grade lower than should be, what do the dozens of people who have that’s same Jordan card in csg 9.5s and 10s, ACTUALLY have? 10.5s and 11s? No obviously your card is just inferior and you can’t accept it. 
-people agree with you because they like easy psa 10s. Csg is strict grading agreed, and that’s because many believe it is a long term play in terms of value.

Duh. Maybe you don’t but who else that buys graded cards doesn’t like PSA 10’s? You live in some alternate universe where this so called tougher grading has some value. In the real world where people spend their money guess what, it doesn’t. And I don’t think it’s going to change either. They’ll just drive more and more people who submitted once to abandon ship here like they did with me and many others. We can keep arguing about it for weeks but instead we will see who’s right a year or so from now ok. I’m done with this. It’s boring now. You can keep sending your stuff here. Good luck. 

🙄. 

On 4/22/2022 at 3:56 PM, JohnBurke said:

So I'm the clown but you're the one sending in $1 cards to get graded and "flip" for profit. And then coming onto the message boards and whining that your Near Mint card did not get a Gem Mint grade.

Did you even check the pop report for this card? There are 126 graded and 93 scored higher than yours. By the SAME company that you are saying is unfairly grading your cards too harshly. Do you see the flaw in your thinking yet bud? 

(let me guess now you're going to say CSG has a personal vendetta against you)

Either way thanks for the afternoon humor. 

 

Once again you can’t read. You think you can use what the cards are going for today in this argument? That’s irrelevant.  If you knew anything at all you’d know last year when these $1 cards as you call them started getting sent in to the TPGs they were getting far more. $25-$50 raw on eBay if they looked good. Well, well over a $100 if they got PSA tens. 1992-93 Upper deck Jordan base card PSA 10 was getting $400. 1992-93 Fleer Ultra Jordan base card PSA 10 was over $300. That Jordan common in the picture was getting $60 as a PSA 9 last year so stop blowing your BS would you please. This is why the graders all got overwhelmed with a flood of cards they couldn’t handle. And no I don’t think they have a “vendetta” against me. Thank you for the humor. I just think they’re grading is a minimum of one grade low in almost all cases. Theres a load of people that agree with me here, on blowout and elsewhere. It ain’t just a couple of us ok? Do you see me on any other message boards complaining about grades given to me by PSA? SGC? HGA? No, you don’t. Because they grade fairly. I just got a 5 card allotment PSA order back and have a 15 card HGA one on the way back now. I’m fine with the majority of my grades on those cards. Im happy with almost none of the CSG grades I got. It’s only this low rent outfit I have an issue with. You see a disconnect there? CSG devalues your cards just so they can try and prove they’re the toughest kid on the block. The verdict is in for me and many others. You won’t convince me otherwise and I’m sure I won’t convince you but I’m fine with that. But as far as CSG goes for me  NEVER AGAIN. And to answer your question yes, you’re the clown. Ok bozo 🤡?

On 4/21/2022 at 10:13 PM, Shockmaster said:

I hope you sent that plastic to be recycled. 

I did. The clarity of the plastic was the ONLY good thing about this grading company so it should definitely be recycled into something more useful. 

On 4/22/2022 at 11:59 AM, JohnBurke said:

LOL this same ($1-3 raw) base card isn't worth anything in PSA 8 either. Because it's a cheap base card. 

Nooooooooo. Really 🤔? Let’s not play Mickey the dunce ok? We all know what these type cards were getting raw or graded at 9 or above back when they were getting sent in to the TPGs in the first place. Otherwise nobody would have sent them. You think you’re the only one that knows what a common is? Please, go try and fool somebody else with your nonsense. By the way the card pictured is no worse than a 9 anywhere else. At the current prices a PSA 9 isn’t worth much now. So what? That has nothing to do with the argument CSG is under grading and devaluing cards so I digress. Didn’t I just say in that post PSA 8’s aren’t worth much and CSG 8’s are worthless? We already know the PSA 8 is worth nothing now but it sure is a good thing those CSG fanboys that can’t even read the post they quote are here to explain it all to everyone isn’t it? What a 🤡 you are. 

On 4/20/2022 at 3:31 PM, northkorea said:

Are you selling the 50 cards?

Not now. Wouldn’t make sense. I’d be giving them away pretty much for free. Can’t even get a $1.99 starting bid on eBay for these with CSG 8’s on them now that the market cratered. I tried just for laughs. I’d rather light them on fire than let someone come in last minute and buy them for .99 cents.  PSA 8’s aren’t even worth much now and the bottom line is CSG 8’s are totally worthless. I’ll have to hold them and hope some of the fanboys here are right and the value increases a little bit down the line. If I thought I could get even $10-11 and recover half the money I wasted sending them here I’d do it. I’d say 40 of the 50 aren’t worth spending the $ to regrade. The other 10 will go to SGC or HGA. PSA is far too pricey right now for anything but high value stuff. It was a learning experience that cost me $1,000 +. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Not going to happen. 

Just got my online grades from orders I sent to HGA and PSA. While there were a few disappointments as there always are the grades were much more in line with my expectations. I have plenty of experience screening my cards before submitting them but I admit I second guessed myself a bit when an entire 50 card order sent here comes back so grossly out of line on grades. You can think what you want but these new results elsewhere only confirm my prior conclusions they’re under grading and needlessly devaluing cards here. Definitely all set with CSG. They’re a hard pass for me now going forward. 

On 4/18/2022 at 3:22 PM, northkorea said:

I'm not sure I agree with this. I grasp what you're implying, but I think it only applies to high print run base cards... ergo: commons. A big part of the reason why sub 9 graded cards get "less than raw" is because most sellers on eBay define raw as NrMt/Mt+. Sellers will use this definition, even with cards that would grade out as a 6 with any of the top TPGs. Essentially, buyers are paying 8.5 money for 6 cards, just because they are "pack fresh!!!!!" raw cards. If you truly compared apples to apples, honesty creates a huge marketplace bias.

A huge part of PSA's value comes from the added value of the registry. With CSG having registry awards, hopefully that offsets even a small amount of the registry bias.

I’d somewhat agree with your take on why raws are worth more than all CSG grades under 9.5  But nonetheless they’re worth more so it is what it is. And for the most part high print run base cards are pretty much the only ones even worth sending to CSG because the fees are a cheaper. But if they are going to devalue the great majority of them below raw value why even send those? What earthly reason would you have for sending a high value card that you’re almost certain will score a ten to CSG instead of paying the extra to send it to PSA? First of all you subject yourself to their ridiculous surface grades opening yourself up to possibly getting a 8.5 or 9 that makes it worthless and needing regrading elsewhere. If it does get the CSG 9.5 or 10 the PSA ten is still going to get you back a lot more on resale than the CSG 10 will. The greater return will far exceed any extra cost you incur to send it to PSA instead. I’ve yet to hear a solid dollars and cents argument why you’d want to send cards here given the current grade scale / ROI reality. You have to be wishing on a star that sometime in the distant future public sentiment turns against PSA and towards CSG? We’re all entitled to speculate and have an opinion on that but I personally don’t see it happening.  Seems to be some of the fanboys here willing to go down with that ship though. To each his own. 

On 4/18/2022 at 10:10 AM, Jtp1389 said:

The added value when reselling doest seem to be worth the $20 grading fee. With lower grades, nobody will pay a premium for CSG graded cards. Simple as that, unfortunately. It seems like a great company, but they add minimal value. As a buyer, it's nice. As a seller, pass

Minimal value? They don’t add any value. At all. Ever. Their 9.5’s and 10’s sell for substantially less than PSA and anything lower than that actually causes the value to go down from raw card value in most cases. CSG 9 and less you won’t even get your grading fee + shipping and insurance back on eBay when it sells. It’s a loss on the grading costs and you give the card away for free. Bottom line it makes no financial sense to use CSG at all if you’re selling. Don’t waste your money here. 

On 3/19/2022 at 3:58 PM, DrPaul47 said:

Welcome to the club!  No such thing as a perfect card The human eye cannot detect the flaw!

Trading cards don’t need to be looked at via an electron microscope. Seems to be the standard being used here. If it’s undetectable to the eye when looked at closely and undetectable under a lighted magnifier it’s not a flaw that matters to a collector. 

On 4/15/2022 at 1:39 PM, Billy Donovan said:

I have no idea how this original post was made by my account but I didn't post it!

Yes. Happened to me a few times weeks ago. Not lately though. 

On 4/15/2022 at 4:19 PM, JPalm52 said:

Its interesting and frustrating at the same time.  The only card grading experience ive ever had is following PSA and BCG standards and it seems like PSA would hand out 10's like candy with obvious flaws on the cards.  Maybe thats what made collectors keep submitting with them? I guess thats what makes customers happy.  It would be nice if the hobby had a standard grading system and someone to actually police it.  Thats far fetched though.  In the meantime, im sure ill see more and more people complaining about CSG's tough grading system while PSA 10's sell for a premium dollar.   

I’ve never had a card I sent to PSA returned to me with a ten grade where flaws were visible. Maybe people don’t properly care for them and damage them after the fact by banging them around. Holders are good but they still need to be cared for and handled properly. For arguments sake even if you were right why fight the tide? It’s a losing battle. If it’s something you want to keep for yourself personally then send it to CSG. I actually do like their holder quality and clarity better than the rest. I sent a 50 card lot here to try them out once and got the sub grades. I only wanted the sub grades to gauge what they’re looking at because I never used this grader before. My prior experience told me the lot should probably have had between 8-12 of them out of 50 come back 9.5 minimum even if they weren’t “pristine” 10’s. Two 9’s for total grade were the highest of the 50. The other 48 were all lower mostly 8’s and 8.5’s which are essentially trash for resale value. It’s like they’re using the Hubble space telescope to look at these things. I broke out several of the CSG graded cards and put them back under the lighted magnifier a second time and still disagree with their conclusions. Now they’re dumping the sub grades so you won’t be able to even scrutinize what they're making these overly harsh errors on. If the eye and a lighted magnifying loupe can’t pick it up then it isn’t important ok? Ever hear the old saying the customer is always right? Well the customer will pay for PSA 10’s and even if you can get one here they won’t spend even close to equal money for a CSG 10 much less more. And no, that won’t be changing in the future either so go die on that hill if you want to. In the end why subject your inventory to this overly harsh scrutiny? You’re better off selling your cards raw than grading here because you won’t even recoup the grading and shipping fees. You end up giving the card away for free and at a loss on the grading. Never again for me after one terrible experience here. It’s really that simple. 

On 3/8/2022 at 6:29 PM, Jruck1227 said:

I've done 3 50 plus card subs and got 0 tens

Haha. Zero 9.5 zero 10 for the one fifty card bulk order I did as well. Forget doing 3 of them. I learned after the first. I’ll never do a second one. 

I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. I will not be re-grading the majority of these. Not worth it. You’re only seeing the start and the worst of what’s in this lot of 50. Other than that 1989-90 Fleer Jordan card which is real a nice card (7 surface grade is a freaking farce). I know most of the lower graded ones won’t get 10’s so I won’t ever re send them anyplace just to go from an 8 to a 9 even though I’m confident that would happen. Theres 3 or four of the 50 card lot I’d admit to a “miss” on on my part. That happens and it’s to be expected. Nobody gets them all right. My point was not that I expected all 10’s. It’s that the entire lot is consistently low by at least a full grade with some most likely a grade and a half. I have a about a dozen or so out of 50 that were graded 8.5 or 9 with subgrades by CSG that have a legit shot at 10’s from PSA or SGC. None of them will be going for re-grading at $100 a pop or $50 a pop or even $30 a pop. But when the value service reopens at PSA or SGC brings their prices back down to a realistic amount $20 a card those that were clearly under graded with three 9 sub grades but a ridiculous “surface” grade will be going to be crossed over or broken out and re-regraded from scratch. This lot was a first time test experiment here at $22 a card with sub grades to try it out once and compare it to others graders I’ve used in the past. And they are definitely the worst of the bunch. They flunked. Plain and simple. 

On 4/8/2022 at 4:50 PM, PunsRTonsOfFun said:

Why would you send them 6.5s and 7s? Cards like that might gem at PSA, but they won't at a company that actually has standards. If these had been 8.5s and 9s and you missed by a little, I'd be more understanding. But if you expected 6.5s and 7s to be 9s and 9.5s, you might not be as sharp a collector and grader as you think you are.

Ah, because they aren’t 6.5’s and 7’s. Hello? These are the worst of the bunch. Probably should be 8 or 8.5’s That’s exactly the point. And this is only the start. I’ll be busting out 40+ 8 and 8.5’s that should be 9’s and 9.5’s as well. Pretty much all of them are a full grade to grade and half low out of line. And seeing nobody that spends their money buying graded cards agrees with you yes, give me the higher ROI at PSA every time over these worthless slabs that fetch $6 on eBay OK?

On 2/6/2022 at 1:21 AM, Jaesin said:

I sent in 125 cards in March of 2021 and just got them back. Well almost a year later and 125 cards all but forgotten about, I didn't get one 10 out of 125 cards. Cross me off the list for CSG. Not only will I be lucky to make my money back since the market has went down down down, but after sending 20 cards to SGC a few months before here and getting seven 10s and a way faster turnaround, I will not be submitting or paying their rejoining fee. I will go SGC all the way. With including this 400 card order I been working on for almost a year now debating where to send, I now have no question. SGC or PSA. Maybe split or something but very unhappy with these grades. Oh and attached is the lucky winner of a cleaned Jordan Love card that couldn't be graded. 🤷🏻‍♂️ God Bless.

Anyone looking  at my posts knows what I think of this grading outfit. If you want to waste your $ spend your time breaking your cards out of the CSG holders and then repaying to have them graded elsewhere then by all means go ahead. I personally wish I could get a refund and charge them per hour it takes to bust my cards out of their worthless cases. Then add a fee for someone to come to my house and clean up the broken plastic mess. 

The long process of spending my time breaking 50 cards out of these holders I wasted my money on has begun. Under a lighted magnifier which was also used prior to sending it in the notion this card has a flaw so bad that it’s a 5.5 on surface dragging the whole grade down to 6 is an outright joke. Oh they’ll be a couple fanboys that will defend the grading here as there always is. I say you might as well throw a CSG 6 into the trash. Seeing their 9+ grades don’t even stack up favorably on ROI why send anything else here and subject your cards to this grading? This card, in this condition will either sell for far more on eBay as a raw card or will be regraded somewhere else where they have a clue. Took a one time shot here. Lesson learned. Never again. 

Not to beat a dead horse but I’ve sent hundreds and hundreds of cards over the past few years to 4 different grading companies (PSA, SGC & HGA being the other 3) so I have extensive experience regarding what grades to expect. I use a lighted magnified jewelers loupe to inspect my cards before I send them to any of these graders. Do I expect all 10’s? Of course not. Can I miss something on a few of the cards out of a 50 card submission that they pick up? Of course I could. But these CSG grades were way out of line to the low side. I don’t miss on all 50 cards. Never happens. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions and to send their cards where they want or not send them at all. After my experience here I personally will never use CSG again. 

While I’m in Florida someone else in Philadelphia is posting here on my screen name.  Even changed to “strong” password and it’s still happening. They can’t even get a secure chat board going at this shabby operation. No wonder they can’t grade cards properly 😂