Is PSA catching up to BGS?

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Was discussing with a friend of mine who only collects YGs in BGS 9.5 and since he's somewhat new to collecting he gets lots of his info from his LCS. Anyways, I get the sense that his LCS doesn't really appreciate (for a lack of a better term) PSA and tells my friend that PSA is inferior and on average it is 1 to 1.5 point lower (value wise) to a comparatively graded BGS. And that PSA is really just for vintage and that they grade easier.

Now I collect PSA for vintage but I always assumed that BGS would pull more for modern cards. So I started looking at some completed sales of current/modern YGs (Price, Getzlaf, OV etc...) and to my surprise all of the PSA 10s were pulling more $ than BGS 9.5s not by a lot but still on average they were pulling more. Obviously I did a really small sample but could this be an indication that collectors are starting to see the value in PSA for modern cards? Or maybe it's just me and PSA 10 has always pulled more than BGS 9.5 for modern cards?

Either way I'm not quite sure why an LCS would say that about PSA when you can easily compare completed sales on ebay....maybe he wants to "bump up" his BGS business?

curious to read what you guys think.
 
It has gotten a lot easier over the years to get higher grades at BGS. Even when it was difficult to get a BGS 9.5, I think a PSA 10 equivalent would still outsell it.
 
Beckett is notorious for being generous with their grading, depending on how much you spend with them. They also have several instances of improper grading (ie: grading facsimile autographs as authentic, re-slabbing cards with higher grades). Also, PSA10 is the highest grade you can get with PSA. With BGS, a 9.5 is only the third highest grade, and with BGS's relaxed standards, those that used to spend a fortune on BGS9.5's have now shifted their focus to BGS10's which have become much more plentiful.

Personally I think Beckett has a lot less credibility than PSA. Just my opinion though.
 
you can find a million instances of each of the two companies having credibility issues, but for me (and I collect both and submit to both almost equally) what's frustrating is that BGS keeps moving the end zone and redefining their grading scale, while PSA has been steady since day 1. a PSA 10 is the top grade you can get there, and their registry is larger and more robust, while BGS 9.5 technically equals that, but now they're definitely giving out more 10's than ever before (don't believe me, check out the Jack Eichel Canvas YG pop report for just one example), and then they move the chains with the new black label. tough to maintain not only credibility, but card value as well, when a 9.5 goes from 2nd to the 3rd best grade you can get. the added tier alone makes those cards instantly worth less as folks abandon them to get higher graded versions of any given card.
 
Did my original post get deleted?

I own a card shop and I will join the club that has seen PSA get surpassed by Beckett even for vintage. I get that the old guys get behind PSA because 1/2 or 3/4 of their graded stuff is in a PSA container so they keep travelling down that gravel road.... I also get to hear them question the grade or ask who the summer student was that determined the grade of their card!

So maybe, just maybe that LCS has heard from their customers as well.

[EDIT] once upon a time, i was all about PSA because we specialized in vintage and 68-88 OPC but today, I place them slightly above KSA.
 
Stadium Sports said:
Did my original post get deleted?

I own a card shop and I will join the club that has seen PSA get surpassed by Beckett even for vintage. I get that the old guys get behind PSA because 1/2 or 3/4 of their graded stuff is in a PSA container so they keep travelling down that gravel road.... I also get to hear them question the grade or ask who the summer student was that determined the grade of their card!

So maybe, just maybe that LCS has heard from their customers as well.

[EDIT] once upon a time, i was all about PSA because we specialized in vintage and 68-88 OPC but today, I place them slightly above KSA.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your answer, it's nice to have the opinion of a shop owner, however my focus was more towards modern cards. A quick ebay search will show that PSAs 10 are selling for more than BGS 9.5 so perhaps it isn't just the 'old guys' that are recognizing the value.
 
My biggest issue with PSA would be the viability of the company going forward. PSA was founded in 1998, I'd be worried about them closing up shop at some point in the future. If they do, their grades will be meaningless.

Also, for modern cards, the BGS 10 and now the black label, add a lot of value. The PSA 10 might sell for as much as the BGS 9.5, but definitely not as much as the BGS 10.

Beckett has a bigger name and is likely to be around longer.
 
Taxi said:
My biggest issue with PSA would be the viability of the company going forward. PSA was founded in 1998, I'd be worried about them closing up shop at some point in the future. If they do, their grades will be meaningless.

Also, for modern cards, the BGS 10 and now the black label, add a lot of value. The PSA 10 might sell for as much as the BGS 9.5, but definitely not as much as the BGS 10.

Beckett has a bigger name and is likely to be around longer.
Click to expand...

You worry about PSA going under because they've been around for almost 20 years? I would think their success and longevity are reasons to believe they're a stable company, not the other way around. They're part of a parent company that's traded on the Nasdaq, so I don't think they're going anywhere any time soon. Same with BGS. Both as stable and/or active growing as can be.

As to the grades themselves, BGS 10 doesn't equal PSA 10 on their respective scales, so that's comparing apple to donuts. That being said, it doesn't concern you that BGS actively changes their grading scale? Black label didn't exist just a few months ago, and a 10=10=10, and it was up to the market to decide if an all 10 subs Pristine was worth more than a 10/10/10/9.5. Now they add a level that didn't exist before, and boom, all of sudden the market has artificially shifted. That concerns me.

Like a previous poster said, a GEM MINT 9.5, is now only the third best possible grade at BGS, so all previously graded 9.5's are instantly worth less, not to mention that makes someone with a MINT 9 card now feel like they have garbage in their hands.

Would you like if they added a 9.75 GEM MINT+ level out of nowhere for 10/10/9.5/9.5 subs (which would be a 9.5 right now)? That would devalue a 9.5 even more. It's not the company's stability that should concern you, it's the fact that they can, at will, shift the marketplace entirely. The cards themselves should what dictates the marketplace, not the companies that grade them. (Oh, and BGS sells graded cards through their auction services... conflict of interest much?)
 
charnick said:
You worry about PSA going under because they've been around for almost 20 years? I would think their success and longevity are reasons to believe they're a stable company, not the other way around. They're part of a parent company that's traded on the Nasdaq, so I don't think they're going anywhere any time soon. Same with BGS. Both as stable and/or active growing as can be.

As to the grades themselves, BGS 10 doesn't equal PSA 10 on their respective scales, so that's comparing apple to donuts. That being said, it doesn't concern you that BGS actively changes their grading scale? Black label didn't exist just a few months ago, and a 10=10=10, and it was up to the market to decide if an all 10 subs Pristine was worth more than a 10/10/10/9.5. Now they add a level that didn't exist before, and boom, all of sudden the market has artificially shifted. That concerns me.

Like a previous poster said, a GEM MINT 9.5, is now only the third best possible grade at BGS, so all previously graded 9.5's are instantly worth less, not to mention that makes someone with a MINT 9 card now feel like they have garbage in their hands.

Would you like if they added a 9.75 GEM MINT+ level out of nowhere for 10/10/9.5/9.5 subs (which would be a 9.5 right now)? That would devalue a 9.5 even more. It's not the company's stability that should concern you, it's the fact that they can, at will, shift the marketplace entirely. The cards themselves should what dictates the marketplace, not the companies that grade them. (Oh, and BGS sells graded cards through their auction services... conflict of interest much?)
Click to expand...

BGS didn't add a new level. They just renamed an existing label. The perfect 10 cards were always a more valued level than a 10 with a 9.5 subgrade.
 
Taxi said:
BGS didn't add a new level. They just renamed an existing label.
Click to expand...

Um, how is that not creating a new and different level? What once was 1 (gold only), is now 2 (gold and black label). And actually, PSA has done this as well, when they added half grade levels too. Folks with old cards were able to resub (and repay) to get a half grade bump, which could add value, even when the physical condition of the card hadn't actually changed!

Taxi said:
The perfect 10 cards were always a more valued level than a 10 with a 9.5 subgrade.
Click to expand...

Yes, but that's because the marketplace dictated it, not the grading company. I also don't think the additional value was as pronounced until they started differentiating between the two. An Eichel Canvas YG goes for around $200 in a 10, and almost $500 for a black label. For a microscopic (possibly non-existent) difference in physical condition, it defies logic to explain other than to say folks are buying the label, not the card. Which again goes to my point, that the grading company is dictating the values, not the marketplace.
 
charnick said:
you can find a million instances of each of the two companies having credibility issues, but for me (and I collect both and submit to both almost equally) what's frustrating is that BGS keeps moving the end zone and redefining their grading scale, while PSA has been steady since day 1.
Click to expand...

I have to respectfully disagree with you here. You may not remember or collected when PSA only gave out whole number grades and then suddenly introduced their half point grades to follow what most of the other companies were doing. So the same thing you are criticizing Beckett for is the exact same thing that PSA did. Only difference is Beckett added one black label, whereas PSA added 8 half grades and do not even have a 9.5, but all other .5 (except 0.5) grades. That inconsistency alone drives my ocd wild.
 
terry1hockeyfan said:
I have to respectfully disagree with you here. You may not remember or collected when PSA only gave out whole number grades and then suddenly introduced their half point grades to follow what most of the other companies were doing. So the same thing you are criticizing Beckett for is the exact same thing that PSA did. Only difference is Beckett added one black label, whereas PSA added 8 half grades and do not even have a 9.5, but all other .5 (except 0.5) grades. That inconsistency alone drives my ocd wild.
Click to expand...

no, you're right, and I should clarify I'm criticizing both companies here, though I wasn't as clear about that upfront, since I was ripping BGS more (and for a moment forgot about PSA's scale, my apologies). BGS just went for higher end, bigger money modern card (since more of those would be likely to 9.5-10), instead of low-mid grade, primarily vintage, lower money cards that PSA did with their shift.

they both did what they did as a cash grab to be sure. get the masses to not only submit new cards, but resubmit your old cards again too! it would be sheer genius if it wasn't so insidious in the first place!
 
Another silly and annoying thing PSA does, imo is their grading with qualifiers - i.e. giving a card the old OC (Off-centered) designation. I don't see much point in this practice. Why not just grade a card as is? - no need for qualifiers. All this practice does is grade the card without grading the qualifier, i.e. the off-centering, etc. So a card that gets a PSA 9 (OC), had that element been graded, would have gotten a much lower grade, overall, like maybe a PSA 6.
 
cburt said:
Another silly and annoying thing PSA does, imo is their grading with qualifiers - i.e. giving a card the old OC (Off-centered) designation. I don't see much point in this practice. Why not just grade a card as is? - no need for qualifiers. All this practice does is grade the card without grading the qualifier, i.e. the off-centering, etc. So a card that gets a PSA 9 (OC), had that element been graded, would have gotten a much lower grade, overall, like maybe a PSA 6.
Click to expand...

I agree with that also. It's a well known fact that a qualifier decreases the grade by 2 or 3, depending on the qualifier. I know that I avoid any kind of qualifier card, in fact I would rather have a 6 then an 8 with Q.
 
Taxi said:
My biggest issue with PSA would be the viability of the company going forward. PSA was founded in 1998, I'd be worried about them closing up shop at some point in the future. If they do, their grades will be meaningless.

Also, for modern cards, the BGS 10 and now the black label, add a lot of value. The PSA 10 might sell for as much as the BGS 9.5, but definitely not as much as the BGS 10.

Beckett has a bigger name and is likely to be around longer.
Click to expand...


PSA is a large publicly traded company making lots of money.. They are going no where!

Heck Id give them $5 million for the card grading business right now!

BG


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
LeafCeo said:
PSA is a large publicly traded company making lots of money.. They are going no where!

Heck Id give them $5 million for the card grading business right now!

BG


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Because no large company has ever gone under in the card business...right?
 

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