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Pristine 10 Vintage English Holos - A Discussion
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8 posts in this topic

From what I have seen, CGC Pristine 10 Vintage English holos do not exist. 

A CGC 9.5 is seemingly the best you can hope for on an English vintage holo, which is 2 overall grades below the best possible CGC grade of Perfect 10. Why set the grading standard so high that the best of the best vintage English holos have no chance at a Pristine 10, much less a Perfect 10?

Why mirror BGS' grading scale if you're only going to be exponentially harder on higher-end cards? Who does this benefit? 

Many argue PSA's grading has become more and more strict over time, although they never have come out and said "hey we're more strict on 10's now" (as far as I know).

CGC should do the same thing, but going the opposite direction, and internally decide to take the top 10-20% of Vintage English 9.5's and bump those up to Pristine 10 status going forward. 

This is how CGC wins the grading game. It's right there for the taking guys, but PEOPLE WANT 10's. Collectors want a chase, and being capped at a 9.5 for a majority of the English chase cards in the hobby is the exact opposite of a chase. Toss a few Skyridge 10's, or Neo Discovery 10's into the market and watch what that does for CGC's brand and market presence. 

People like me will buy PSA 10's with the hopes of crossing to CGC Pristine 10's! 

Everyone wins in this scenario.  

Let me know your guys' thoughts. 

 

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I have no issue with their current grading standards as long as they are consistent across the board. What I would have preferred CGC to do is to add the MINT+ as a 9.5; in that way they could have called GEM MINT at 10. Meaning:

10  Gem Mint
9.5 Mint+
9   Mint

That is what the CGC scale should look like.

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On 8/4/2021 at 11:59 AM, IrishPrince said:

I have no issue with their current grading standards as long as they are consistent across the board. What I would have preferred CGC to do is to add the MINT+ as a 9.5; in that way they could have called GEM MINT at 10. Meaning:

10  Gem Mint
9.5 Mint+
9   Mint

That is what the CGC scale should look like.

 

This is something I've talked about ad nauseum since CGC started grading TCGs! But I think CGC are too far into the grading game (already consensus #2 in Pokemon community) to alter their grading scale to something like what you said, so my solution basically works within the confines of their scale and still achieves a similar result (getting more 10's on the market to compete with PSA while not oversaturating the market with easy 10's -- which I think is achievable and needs to happen). 

But in a perfect world, I agree with your scale 100%. The difference in card quality between a CGC 9 and CGC 9.5 is tough to conceptualize due to it only being a .5 bump in grade. ARGH it drives me insane just thinking about it. 

  • CGC 9 Mint = PSA 9 Mint (perfect match, awesome)
  • CGC 9.5 Gem Mint = PSA 10 Gem Mint <---- so a full 1 point swing at PSA is only a .5 swing at CGC for the upper echelon of graded cards. And the ironic thing is many CGC 9.5's are higher quality cards than PSA 10's especially old cert 10's! :pullhair: doh!
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On 8/4/2021 at 11:36 AM, Murrayj16 said:

Simply giving 10s to the top 10% of cards means you don't know the actual condition of the cards. you just know its in the top 10%. 

this is the FASTEST way to sink a grading company.

the reason psa has become more strict because they do not want to be known as the easy company.

 

So you're saying it's okay for PSA to become more strict so that they aren't an 'easy company' but CGC shouldn't give out more 10's so that they aren't too strict of a company.

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Giving a Pristine 10 to the top (x)% of 9.5's is much better than giving out 9's and 8's on gem mint cards as a PR stunt to revert your image as an 'easy company'. And don't get me started on the population report gatekeeping of 10's. 

And we're talking about the top 10% of an already elite class of cards that would be 10's in any other grading company. 

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On 8/4/2021 at 10:47 AM, PokemanDude90 said:

From what I have seen, CGC Pristine 10 Vintage English holos do not exist. 

A CGC 9.5 is seemingly the best you can hope for on an English vintage holo, which is 2 overall grades below the best possible CGC grade of Perfect 10. Why set the grading standard so high that the best of the best vintage English holos have no chance at a Pristine 10, much less a Perfect 10?

Why mirror BGS' grading scale if you're only going to be exponentially harder on higher-end cards? Who does this benefit? 

Many argue PSA's grading has become more and more strict over time, although they never have come out and said "hey we're more strict on 10's now" (as far as I know).

CGC should do the same thing, but going the opposite direction, and internally decide to take the top 10-20% of Vintage English 9.5's and bump those up to Pristine 10 status going forward. 

This is how CGC wins the grading game. It's right there for the taking guys, but PEOPLE WANT 10's. Collectors want a chase, and being capped at a 9.5 for a majority of the English chase cards in the hobby is the exact opposite of a chase. Toss a few Skyridge 10's, or Neo Discovery 10's into the market and watch what that does for CGC's brand and market presence. 

People like me will buy PSA 10's with the hopes of crossing to CGC Pristine 10's! 

Everyone wins in this scenario.  

Let me know your guys' thoughts. 

 

I just want to say that I was RIGHT and CGC is doing exactly what I said to do in the bold text in my original message. CGC should have done this back in August 2021 though rather than now but whatever, they finally realized people want 10’s and 10’s will keep their company thriving for a long time.

Check CGC’s Instagram right now and you’ll see a CGC 10 Skyridge Crystal Charizard, CGC Skyridge Gyarados holo, CGC 10 Neo Destiny 1st Edition Shining Charizard…..

Called it!

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I really think CGC just made a mistake with what numbers they chose for the grades. People just hate the number 9.5. I think the normal scale is 1 - 9.5 (Gem Mint). There are special cases for more pristine cards which are the 10's (somewhat like a black label). IDK if they should change it some Gem Mint is 10 and then the Pristine and Perfects get a new label. But the sooner the better I think.

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