SGC vs PSA Part 1: Ultramodern Baseball

One of the most common topics/questions on the show and Facebook group is which card company to use.  A lot of solid arguments have been made in favor of the various companies, but there is an overwhelming sentiment that PSA is worth the most.  Many collectors see this and automatically pony up for expensive, and more soul-suckingly time-consuming (currently), PSA service.  Savvy collectors though, include things such as grading costs and time when choosing a company to submit their precious cardboard gold too.  This point is a frequent one made on the show and deserves repeating as well as some scrutiny.  There are many times where it makes sense to pay the higher fees ($150.00 and up) at PSA due to their massive price increase along with the shutdown of their lower cost service levels.  There are other times where SGC or BGS are clear winners once grading cost is calculated into the mix.    

It is hard to figure out when to choose one over the other though.  Mike Gio has advocated using PSA for cards worth over $750.00 raw or so, or $800.00, or $1000.00.  $750.00-$1000.00 seems a reasonably fair range, if a bit broad.  There is also a sense that SGC is narrowing the gap and that BGS is falling behind a bit.  The purpose of this article is to put some of this conventional wisdom to the test with real sales data.   

It is easy, and tempting, to cherry pick cards that support one’s choice for grading companies.  One way to avoid this is to create an index of cards for which we have sales data.  Ideally, this will eventually include more sports, timeframes, and grading companies, but this first article, in honor of the baseball playoffs, highlights Ultra-Modern baseball cards with adequate sales data available.  Using Cardladder.com data, this results in a surprisingly small list of only 6 cards with data for SGC 10 and PSA 10 formats.  Hopefully, BGS 9.5 data will trickle in soon as well as some lower grades.  For this article, the cards included in the indices are:  2018 Ronald Acuna Topps Update 250, 2018 Juan Soto Topps Chrome Update 300, 2019 Vladimir Guerrero Topps Chrome 201, 2019 Fernando Tatis Topps Chrome 203, Fernando Tatis Topps Heritage, and 2020 Luis Robert Topps 392.  Sales data was taken from 12/1/2020 and then subsequently in two-month intervals.  Data was taken from the sale closest to the first of each month with only a couple of either extremely high or low sales taken omitted in favor of a more typical value for that time period.  These choices almost always favored PSA and the results are skewed in their favor slightly, if anything. 

The results are evident in Figure 1.  As expected, the PSA values are higher across the board.  It is clear that SGC prices have started to narrow the gap in pricing.  Interestingly, over the last couple of months, the PSA index has dropped slightly while the SGC index has seen modest gains. 

It is tempting to look at the graph and claim that PSA saw massive gains which widened the gap and that the recent trend is just market correction.  The data does not support this.  In the first 5 time periods examined the SGC index fluctuates between 63-67% of the value of the PSA index.  The most recent time period sees the SGC index jump to 79% of the value of the PSA index.  It is possible that this is a correction to conditions at an even earlier time, but the data here cannot address that yet.  It seems doubtful though based on anecdotal evidence and collector sentiment.  The time period that includes the jump is post-PSA shutdown and price hike.  It is logical that collectors had to turn elsewhere and SGC benefited.  The time of the increase also saw SGC start to advertise heavily which likely helped.  Will the gap narrow or revert to the more common 65% number?  Hopefully, future updates and follow-ups to this article will be able to chart future changes and delve into older data to explore trends more thoroughly. 

The results here, if the trend continues, should change the mental calculus collectors perform when choosing whether to submit to PSA or SGC.  At roughly 80% of the value of PSA, collectors break even or make more on cards with expected added graded value of approximately $750.00 or less when sending to PSA given grading costs.  This compares to a break even or profit point closer to $450.00 or less with the more familiar 65% figure.  If a PSA 10 grade doubles the value of a card, then the figure of sending in raw cards worth 750.00 and up makes sense.  If you think this trend will continue, it makes sense to continue to revise these figures upwards and to start sending some higher value stuff to SGC.  On the other hand, if one is not convinced by this trend, then the lower figure of $450.00 is more attractive.  These figures obviously move a bit based on what the value a grade does for a given card, but they serve as a good illustration and a decent rule of thumb. 

One big caveat is that the PSA sales volume absolutely crushes that of the other companies.  By a lot.  The lack of data for many cards and other company is a testament to PSA’s stranglehold on collectors’ imaginations.  A big question is if this is simply a function of population (more cards = more sales) or evidence of consumer preference (people seek out PSA first).  Regardless, the recent strength of SGC makes it a strong choice for grading and a more cost-effective one for many based on card values. 

Another big question is if this trend holds throughout the baseball market or is just true for these 6 cards.  To address this, Ebay sales data was examined for a few other cards where sales were available for the same days as those used in the indices.  This again made clear that there are substantially fewer SGC sales as several cards examined lacked sales data to make comparisons.  The trend is evident when examining Bo Bichette’s 2020 Topps Chrome 150 and Wander Franco’s 2019 Bowman Chrome 100.  The Franco SGC 10 actually sold at the same level as the PSA 10 in October.  It is easy to find examples of SGC cards selling for similar, or even higher, than PSA cards just as it is easy to find examples of SGC cards selling for way less than their PSA counterparts.   The use of an index with set check-in times hopefully aids in accounting for some of the volatility and in avoiding cherry-picking.

There is one MAJOR outlier to discuss.  Just as he does in real life, Shohei Ohtani’s cards don’t play by anybody’s rules.  Examining his 2018 Topps Chrome 150 and his 2018 Bowman Chrome 1 reveals a clear win for PSA.  Ohtani’s cards in PSA form sell for twice those of his SGC versions.  Sometimes this gap even widens.  There are a couple of reasons why this might be happening.  First, Ohtani, more than any baseball player, is likely to attract international buyers.  It could well be that PSA is king overseas.  This is worth watching when this project expands to other sports.  It could also be that Ohtani is the main baseball player attracting collectors from other sports markets.  It seems reasonable that a basketball collector is far more likely to buy a Ohtani card than an Acuna.  To see if the Ohtani is following a similar trend to basketball, the next article in this series will delve into Ultra-Modern Basketball which should has much more data and should be the toughest test for SGC.