Ron Churches

You nitpicked the 250k example. I can't tell if you're just really obtuse, a troll, or you just complain about everything. The problem with how you are going about your 'critiques' is that they aren't serious. CGC is obviously an extremely better value for faster turnaround times, it really erodes your ability to complain about anything when you go at it. You become unserious and easily dismissed. Your reputation lags, so now when you go complain about TaT extending, you're not taken seriously there, either.

PSA charges 600 dollars for a walkthrough.

I am awaiting the buying opportunity over here. Let me know when you are ready to sell.

I am begging you to sell me your CGC slabs at the pricing you are stating. I will pay you money for them right now. Please sell me a 100 dollar CGC slab where the PSA same grade is going for 300.

I hope you sell your slabs for 50% PSA. When you post them, please send me a message. I will buy 100% of your slabs that are priced at 50% PSA prices, and I will do so immediately.

Dude, PSA slabs are not double CGC, not on the whole. I'm sure you can identify a handful of poor sales, but I suggest you collect a LOT more data before spouting off that level of nonsense.

You should really apply for a job at CGC and bring your expertise to the masses. These ideas around increasing capacity have got to get to the boardroom quickly, so they can implement them.

The margins on bulk submissions would still be rather worth it on cards that are actually worth grading, should they double the price of bulk grading. CGC prices are rivaling PSA on most things and if you see slabs for 'value', now's the time to be scooping them up, as that gap is closing very fast. Gap aside, they should still raise the prices. Constrained supply with rampant demand puts inflationary pressures in order to squash down arbitrage. PSA raised prices, reduced the demand for their product, increased their brand's quality, and they seem to be accelerating through their backload a little faster (they haven't hit the wall of submissions sent right at their price increase, though, which will set them back in the near term). Card grading is too inexpensive for non-premium cards.

They just need to raise prices on bulk submissions.

Price at the tier you're willing to pay for that you think covers the insured value of the card that you desire, just knowing that if they disagree and bump you, you'll pay the difference.

My 2/24 delivery entered the system yesterday, for reference on where they are for non-express.

I'm not sure this qualifies as 'merchandise', but if you throw a big enough stink to them through proper channels I imagine they'd go find your parcel and mail it back to you.

Use the packing slip! It has the address on it that you need to send it to.

I emailed them about a 2/24 delivery and they indicated currently working on week of 2/22 deliveries. If you have one from 2/10, I wonder if you sent it to the comic book PO Box or something.

Obviously we don't know what their process looks like exactly, but I'm imagining they have a queue that goes to each grader that splits out from the mass pile that comes out of research, so maybe my guy finished faster than your guy? I have no idea what triggers the accounting, either. Grading and QC go into the same status, so it's possible they grade > see if they need to bump tiers, then simultaneously do QC and accounting? Idk. I would appreciate more transparency, but they'd be better off investing whatever that would take into hiring more graders :P.

I was charged yesterday, FYI. Meant to add that in on my previous post.

my 2/11 standard order w/subs (10 cards) finalized a couple hours ago. It was in 'grading' stage for 2.5 days. Should ship tonight! No surprises on the down side, but I did pull a 9 on a base set 1st edition German Clefairy, which I sent in as a lark just to see what it'd do.

From a biz perspective, the flip side of a house full of cards sitting there waiting to be billed is that you KNOW what your revenue is going to look like for 4-5 months right now if you're CGC/PSA. It's basically locked in, you just can't tap it yet. Obviously that gives them an incentive to get through it quicker, but it also is a disincentive to completely staunch the flow. Customers might be mad, but they sure as hell aren't 'I'm going to stop sending cards' mad. I imagine if offered a couple of years ago as a potential situation, the CGC CEO would have been ecstatic to take the current situation. I imagine their big arguments are around how long this demand stays high like this. If they expand 50% and the submissions drop by 75%, they will not be in good shape.

I think so long as competitors are facing the same situation we wouldn't see this happen. Maybe nixing a tier, but not across the board submissions. PSA did that and I don't think it really squashed demand, just moved it around. Price might be the only lever that really makes a difference, as margins are just too damn high on the secondary market to knock down the demand for grading the cards.

I guess the problem is that folks see this as 'lying'. What would be their motivation to do that? It's completely asinine. They are raising TaT because they cannot push through the cards at the previously estimated timeframe. Card graders would fail the marshmallow test, I guess.

Can you please explain to me how CGC would know that PSA was going to double their prices, thereby increasing the cards being submitted significantly? They can't just poof the cards into the slabs. I get it, your patience is being tested. It seems you cannot comprehend the challenge that is being faced and it's weird. It's just weird. You're gonna really lose it on the next price hike, aren't you?

Tempering the bad news, for me at least, my Standard 2/11 sub went into grading today. If it hits the mail today I'd be ecstatic.

Yeah, that's a huge part of the frustration and it makes sense. I am so glad they shifted to end of stage billing on these, as I would be miffed if my capital was getting tied up while the TaT get shifted, whether it's logical to see it increase or not.

These sell regularly on eBay, though sometimes it's hard to find an exact match. Some are 1-2 bucks a piece, others can be worth much more to the right buyer. If you ever want to sell them, I'd be interested, though. Fair prices, especially if we can find comps on ebay and stuff.

PSA will grade...some of them. It depends on which one and I'm sure they have a way of authenticating. CGC isn't grading these. I hope one day, I'm amassing a lot of these and think they are super fun to collect.