[shivelycore]

I know the quality of their grading has been discussed but how well are they at card authentication? Especially for cards from the 30s?

[hempick]

From what I understand, they specialize in vintage cards, so I would assume that they are very good at it.

Partially off topic, but they are the most strict graders that I've encountered. Things that would easily be PSA10/BGS9.5 for me ended up being 8.5s or 9s from them.

[shivelycore]

Good to know, I'm kinda thinking of buying something graded by them but breaking it out and having PSA grade it just because I personally like them better for vintage. Scared of breaking it out and it being fake is all heh

[hempick]

I've busted a bunch of SGC cases and can honestly say that between PSA, SGC, and BGS cases, they are the easiest to open.

I actually did two videos about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvLI1MuOhz0 <--I was doing it this way for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kkib1MCpUc <--Then I realized that this

I wouldn't worry about them grading fakes, but then again you never know. I've heard of PSA grading some fakes by accident, so it could happen. Can't say I've ever heard of BGS grading a fake card, but I suppose anything is possible. People make mistakes.

As a side note, I would never go from SGC to PSA. That seems like a downgrade to me. Going from SGC to BGS I could understand, but I still probably wouldn't do it (although BGS cases are vastly superior to both PSA and SGC cases). I avoid buying PSA graded cards when I can, but I have at times because for extremely rare stuff, sometimes you just have no other choice. You gotta go with what you prefer, though.

The only reason I ended up breaking a lot of my SGC graded cards out of their cases is because it wasn't worth keeping the 8 and 8.5s in their cases to me since they demand extra storage space and the card values weren't high. I kept most (all?) of the 9s and 9.5s in their SGC cases, though.

That said out of nearly 100 cards that I had graded by SGC, only TWO came back as 98s (9.5s).

I had about 40 or so graded by BGS and nearly half came back as 9.5s.

I've never had anything graded by PSA, but just based on pictures they seem to be less stringent with their grading than either SGC or BGS.

Imo:
SGC - strictest grading; worst cases
BGS - medium grading, but the sub grades are really nice; strongest cases
PSA - first mover advantage; easiest/weakest grading; better case than SGC, but worse than BGS

[shivelycore]

I've busted a bunch of SGC cases and can honestly say that between PSA, SGC, and BGS cases, they are the easiest to open.

I actually did two videos about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvLI1MuOhz0 <--I was doing it this way for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kkib1MCpUc <--Then I realized that this

I wouldn't worry about them grading fakes, but then again you never know. I've heard of PSA grading some fakes by accident, so it could happen. Can't say I've ever heard of BGS grading a fake card, but I suppose anything is possible. People make mistakes.

As a side note, I would never go from SGC to PSA. That seems like a downgrade to me. Going from SGC to BGS I could understand, but I still probably wouldn't do it (although BGS cases are vastly superior to both PSA and SGC cases). I avoid buying PSA graded cards when I can, but I have at times because for extremely rare stuff, sometimes you just have no other choice. You gotta go with what you prefer, though.

The only reason I ended up breaking a lot of my SGC graded cards out of their cases is because it wasn't worth keeping the 8 and 8.5s in their cases to me since they demand extra storage space and the card values weren't high. I kept most (all?) of the 9s and 9.5s in their SGC cases, though.

That said out of nearly 100 cards that I had graded by SGC, only TWO came back as 98s (9.5s).

I had about 40 or so graded by BGS and nearly half came back as 9.5s.

I've never had anything graded by PSA, but just based on pictures they seem to be less stringent with their grading than either SGC or BGS.

Imo:
SGC - strictest grading; worst cases
BGS - medium grading, but the sub grades are really nice; strongest cases
PSA - first mover advantage; easiest/weakest grading; better case than SGC, but worse than BGS

We are talking about a card in this case that grades at 1.5 or 2 at best haha. With vintage i more want the security that it's authentic. Yeah fakes still get through but 99.9% or people will accept a card as authentic if it made it through the big grading companies.

[hempick]

Well, SGC is considered one of the big three, so you should be fine.

[shivelycore]

Thank you.