Trading Card Grading Services

Back in my day there was no such thing as a grading service for trading cards. We simply eyeballed our cards and decided if they were in mint or very good condition, etc. I’m not complaining, I think it’s great that the hobby has became more sophisticated for serious collectors. I can see where this standardization has probably helped bring more investors to the market, it’s a good thing.. However, as someone who once collected for the fun of it 50 years ago I can see where it’s probably not as fun as it once was seeing as how a 3rd party has so much control over the values of cards.

I have mentioned on here a few times that I’ve recently brought on some help to assist me in liquidating my sports card collection. My decision to do this was because the whole objective for hanging onto all of these cards for all of these years was to one day pass them down to my son. Well, think again… my son, Spencer, has no interest in my trading card collection and probably won’t for the forseeable future, and that’s totally fine w/ me, trust me!

With this in mind I made the decision to start liquidating my collection. Well, one of the things you need to do these days is to get your cards graded so that you can get the maximum return on your investment and also to help the cards become more attractive on the marketplace, especially the junk wax year cards (which is a lot of what I have in my collection going all the way back to 1948). I started researching how to get my cards graded and it blew my mind. This is an industry all to itself. It’s expensive… The advice I found online about these different grading services was essentially…

Choose PSA for maximum resale value and global recognition. Select Beckett (BGS) if you want detailed subgrades or are chasing a rare “Black Label” premium. Opt for SGC for vintage cards or competitive pricing and customer service. If you prioritize fast turnaround and lower costs, explore smaller companies like CGC or TAG.

Here’s a breakdown of the popular grading services out there…

• PSA: The industry standard. Best for liquidity and high-end modern cards.
• BGS: Renowned for its 10-point scale with subgrades (centering, corners, edges, surface).
• SGC: A favorite for vintage collectors and often faster than PSA with excellent customer support.

Some others in the industry that get a lot of mention include CGC and TAG.

I spent a great deal of time looking at each of these service providers, and I think at some point I will probably use each of these depending on the card, situation, etc. However one thing that I did notice about the cards once they’ve been graded. They come back to you in these slabbed plastic holders, they are actually really cool. the card is essentially locked into this plastic enclosure and cannot ever be damaged from that point it was graded. It’s a cool concept, however, a lot of the cards that are graded by PSA just look dull in comparison to some of the other services. They just don’t look as attractive sitting on a shelf or on your desk. Granted, I understand the importance of PSA… I get it, but hear me out…

We know that AI is just now starting to gain traction and everyday we are finding more and more uses for it in our everyday lives. Well, card collecting is no different. I’ve found multiple apps out there that allow me to take a picture of a baseball or football card and it scans the card for me and returns information about the card including value. Heck, one of them I’ve been using even gives you an approximate grade on condition so you will know if it is worth the investment to have it graded… this got me to thinking.

It’s totally conceivable that soon we will have card grading services (which are now hands on by actual humans) completely replaced by services utilizing only AI (which would be much more standardized and consistent). it’s for this reason I’m kind of going to go my own route and just hang on until we start seeing cards graded using AI in the very near future.

I would love to hear from other collectors and get their thoughts on this. I have about 200 cards that I’m waiting on to be graded from a couple of different services and I plan to unbox those and video my initial thoughts when they return to me.