Why The “PSA Premium”? - Hobby Numbers Episode 6
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- In this video, I discuss three reasons as to why PSA 9s outsell SGC 9s and BGS 9s. This is a curious phenomenon to me, as “Mint 9” should equal “Mint 9”… right?? How can the same exact card in the same exact grade sell for vastly different values? Why does this happen? I seek to address this exact question in this video, perhaps bringing up new considerations to mull over.
I do not mention the set registry in this video, but that would be a valid 4th reason as well. Enjoy!
And of course, two additional reasons mentioned tangentially:
4. PSA set registry - creates more demand and therefore higher prices for PSA graded cards
And finally, the most 19:45 controversial one…
5. Grade for grade, at this current moment in time, PSA cards are actually in better condition than other companies’ cards. You are paying more for a higher quality product. Period.
If this weren’t the case, then why aren’t people buying up all the BGS 9 Jeter SPS and just crossing them over to PSA 9s for a smooth profit of $3k - $4k a pop? It is because deep down, we know most of those BGS 9 wouldn’t cross to a PSA 9. Now some of them that have those “sneaky high” subgrades may! But not the vast majority.
Great conversation and thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Orlando! I hope to meet you at the National next week!
Some great points about the levels of grades higher than a 9 in SGC and BGS. The next test would be to crossover some 9.5’s to see what PSA thinks. Great experiment. I have two CSG 10’s that I may crossover to PSA.
That would be a great test! I suspect most would return 9s. I’ve seen a spate of SGC 9.5s recently on 90s inserts that have not impressed me - some I think would probably cross to PSA 8s, but some would probably get 10s too. But the big question is which would be more prevalent in the SGC 9.5 crossovers - PSA 8s or PSA 10s? I honestly don’t know, and it would be a great experiment.
As far as another experiment, I think that it would be fascinating if someone took 100 PSA 9s, 100 BGS 9s, and 100 SGC 9s, cracked them ALL and resubmitted them ALL to PSA. How many from each company would return as PSA 9s? Obviously, the original PSA 9s would have the highest rate of maintaining the 9 grade, as in theory it should be the same standard used again, but I do wonder how many of the BGS 9s and SGC 9s would come back as PSA 8s… 50? 60? 80 from each company? There’s no way to know, but these are the kinds of things I wonder about sometimes.
i would say if all things being equal (no PSA registry being a HUGE thing)...
The main reason is that with PSA you get 9 or 10, thats it. plain and simple.
With the other companies you can get: 9, 9.5, regular 10, Gold 10, Pristine 10.
and with BGS there are like a million combinations of 9.5's with all the subgrades.
i typed the above out while watching. you nailed it! :)
Yes! I really do feel sorry for Beckett. I mean, PSA is putting out all this press about their new “grader’s notes” while Beckett is sitting there shaking their heads as they’ve been giving feedback for almost 25 years in the form of subgrades! 😂
But ironically, it’s the feedback in the form of those subgrades that partially undermines the stability of the market for any given grade! Not all BGS 9s are created (or valued) equally!
Thanks for watching!
Great take Brian - agree. At the same price, would you rather have a card in a PSA 8 or a (weak) BGS 9?
It totally depends on the card itself and the slab. If I’m planning on selling the card, I suspect that a BGS 9 would bring more value than a PSA 8. If it’s an older BGS slab, I may choose that, as I think an older “weak” BGS 9 is probably a stronger card in general. If it’s a newer PSA lighthouse label maybe from cert. numbers starting in the mid 6s and forward (from mid boom and after), then THOSE cards tend to be strong specimens. And yes, I’m aware that unlike Beckett, PSA’s cert numbers do not 100% ascend in numerical order chronologically, but it’s still a useful guideline. I happen to think that most newer PSA 8s are stronger than new BGS 8.5s, so that’s a tough one.
The hilarious part about this is that in this case, the market pretty accurately reflects the reality of the card condition / quality with respect to cost / value.
Thanks for the comment, and I can’t wait to head to Cleveland with you NEXT WEEK! MAN, I’m PUMPED!! 🤩
@@HighPopProfessor Looking forward to it BM!!
Is it a PSA premium or a BGS discount...?
Aha!! THERE’S the flip side of the coin! That’s exactly right! IF I could reliably find the cards I’m looking for in BGS slabs, I 100% would!
GREAT Point!
@@HighPopProfessor Problem is I've done several crossovers from BGS slabs to PSA, CSG, and SGC and BGS always had the higher grade....all other 3 had lower numerical grades every time...
@@Dufex_of_Life That doesn’t surprise me. What WOULD surprise me is if PSA had the highest grade of the various companies.
It’s not entirely fair for me to generalize as I’ve been doing in making broad, sweeping statements that have so many examples that will inevitably run counter to the generalizations. There are absolutely tons of BGS 9s and SGC 9s that have crossed to PSA 9s, and vice versa. But there have also been a LOT of disappointment when PSA returns a startling number of 8s back to people in these situations.
I’m not trying to speak poorly or sing praises of any grading company - I think they all do a solid job and each has their strengths. I hear lots of praise for SGC’s consistency in grading vintage cards and how they take eye-appeal into account more than PSAs colder, more technical approach. And I hear lots of praise for Beckett in how they handle thicker patch cards. There’s definitely room in the hobby for more graders, because when they compete for our business, we the collectors win.
Nice conversation in your video. I’ll be releasing a video soon with a study done in late Dec. 2023 video comparing various key 1950s rookie cards in 3, 5, & 7s. The main difference between my video and others is I only factored in higher eye appeal cards. I saw zero difference in sold prices between PSA and SGC for 3, 5, & 7s. In fact, SGC sometimes came out on top in grade 7s. The data suggested that the difference between these two companies don’t start to become paramount until you hit grade 7.5 and higher.
I need to do the same study again to see if the data results changed since late 2023.
So far all higher eye appeal cards that are a 7 or lower, I see no difference between PSA and SGC .
This suggest to me that the PSA Set Registry is the number one reason for the difference once you cross the 7.5 grade
I LOVE this analysis and response! THANK YOU for this! I had a suspicion that for lower - mid grade vintage, that SGC had really closed the value gap with PSA, particularly as SGC tends to grade more holistically and less technically than PSA (which often makes more sense for vintage cards anyway).
I know my experiences are mostly with 80s and 90s cards in grades 8 and higher, but so many cards from this era live in this grade range, so I thought it valuable to focus on “Mint 9”. 10s are their own strange world that I’ve already posted videos about at length.
I would be quite interested to hear any other results of your findings!
nice job
stay connected
Thanks for watching!
What nobody talks about for the higher price for PSA cards is this
The price of grading with them,it cost more to grade a card plus people pay for the club fee
So there for they are trying to get their money back from that
But I never hear about that,it's always PSA commands more on market
but if you have to pay more just to get it slabbed,plus wait forever for it to come back,then yes people will ask more
SGC has been around just about as long as PSA and years ago Beckett was number 1 grading company
A 9 is a 9 but only if you pay the same amount of money to have it graded
Great points! PSA DOES charge more than the others for their service. There is a difference, however, between costs in and value out. If SGC raised their grading prices tomorrow, it wouldn’t suddenly make all SGC slabs increase in value overnight. Also, joining the PSA collector’s club and paying the extra fee isn’t mandatory. I am not and have never been a PSA collector’s club member. I don’t personally send in enough cards to grade with them every year to make it worthwhile. Even without joining up themselves, people could choose to use a bulk submitter to get very close to the member submission price.
You are correct about turnaround times! SGC beats the pants off of PSA here! If your goal is to be first to market, SGC is probably the way to go, unless you want to pay a LOT for the speedier service levels at PSA.
Thanks for watching and commenting, James!
Interesting
I’m sure there are other reasons for this phenomenon too. For the record, to this day, I still think the concept of “gem mint” is kinda silly. 😂
Thanks for watching, John!
Yea. I’m like whatever.
As long as $50 cards sell for $40,000 in a PSA 10, they will be king and own our hobby.
@@MrJmangini Yeah, I don’t get it. I just sold a $2 Greg Maddux insert from ‘97 Topps on eBay this morning for $95 because I sent it in and got a PSA 10 on it. So now I have a little more cash for the National! 😂🤷♂️
@@MrJmangini “Own” the hobby is pretty strong language to use here, but they are certainly a primary player in the space. I think of PSA as the 500 lb. Gorilla in the room that nobody can afford to ignore even if they want to. PSA injected themselves into the hobby and made themselves relevant even to collectors who wouldn’t have otherwise cared about them. When registry guys are paying crazy sums for common cards in a 10, I see an opportunity where my goals of potentially increasing my own hobby funds align with PSAs goals, so I go ahead and pull the handle of the PSA slot machine. I can’t control the market or people’s spending habits, but I can certainly take advantage of them when PSA helps provide me an opportunity to do so.
Now, Zion MagPros! THATs how collectors can reclaim ownership of the hobby!!
It's a complete joke! It's just a way for a seller / dealer to try and gouge a buyer, period! What's the point of grading if one 9 is more expensive than another 9? Sellers always say: "looks nicer", "Under graded". You NEVER see a card advertised as OVER GRADED, LOOKS WORSE.
Haha, well, you won’t ever hear “Overgraded” from a dealer! That’s just bad salesmanship! But when ignoring the plastic prison and inspecting the actual card itself, I have come across a number of cards through the years that have 100% been overgraded. As far as “gouging”… I don’t know, man. I would be VERY curious to ask the guy who buys a PSA 9 SP Jeter RC for $4600 why he didn’t just buy the BGS 9 for $600. If he’s WILLING to voluntarily pay that, is it gouging? The dude is gouging himself! Particularly with plenty of other options available. In the case of that specific card, I think it’s more likely a set registry addict.
Thanks for the watch and the comment!
@@HighPopProfessor I should have clarified better. Two cards, same grade, same company. Seller THINKS it has "eye appeal" due to centering so wants a huge premium. I've seen where sellers think a card is centered and it's 70/30 at best.
@@rockcundiff1761 Ah! Well, the next level of THAT phenomenon is the PSA 9 card I bought as an upgrade to my PSA 8 that I already had, only to get the (older slab) PSA 9 in hand and find that it had worse centering and edges than the (newer slab) PSA 8 that I already had. The 8 was a legit nicer card than the 9. Same EXACT card, both PSA. I resold that 9 so fast it would make your head spin faster than Linda Blair in the Exorcist! 😂
Interesting thoughts, honestly I buy whatever I like and don't worry too much about the holder.
But clearly, the correct answer is the illuminati...or the patriarchy, it's always the patriarchy 😂
DING DING DING! We have a winner!! WOOO! 🥳 😂
As a collector, that’s part of why I love buying BGS cards for better value and then selling PSA cards, also for better value. It’s a shame that I can’t find many of the specific cards I’m searching for in slabs other than PSA… Ah well!
a bgs 9 is a psa 8... a bgs 9.5 is a psa 10... a bgs 10 is a fraudulent money grab by inside traders that work with the grading company. that's why there's a premium
I would argue that ALL 10s are “fraudulent money grabs”! 😂😂😂
Don’t forget the bulk submitters! They get the “good” grades too! 🤪
i admit 9s look like 10s sometimes and maybe they are but get a 9 to control the population but at least i can count on getting a psa 10 out of every 2 or 3 submissions. a bgs 10 however is probably only realistic if i know a guy thay works for beckett. its titally unrealistic and has ruined their reputation. sgc passed them because they have common sense. beckett is finished @HighPopProfessor