The Current State of Card Grading.
An analysis of October card grading industry data reveals significant shifts: PSA shows strong growth with nearly 2.5 million cards graded, CGC's sports card segment dropped 23% despite inflated overall numbers through authenticated non-graded cards, and Beckett remains offline with unknown operational status. The speaker suggests CGC may be artificially inflating metrics ahead of a potential sale.
Summary
The video analyzes the latest gem rate data from major card grading companies as of early October. TAG announced a return with cleared processing queues and new $40 pricing, maintaining around 50,000 monthly cards—a stable but modest output. AGS rated 63,000 cards with slight growth, while PCG grew to 34,000 cards, up 13%. Beckett's website has been down for approximately 3 weeks with no explanation, causing speculation about whether it's a cybersecurity breach or technical failure.
CGC processed 962,000 total cards (up 3% month-over-month, 90% year-over-year), but the speaker identifies a concerning practice: 60,000 of these are semi-rigid holder authentications that were not actually graded, with the majority being sports cards from Fanatics. After subtracting these non-graded cards, CGC's actual sports card grading dropped significantly to approximately 110,000 (a 23% decline). The speaker hypothesizes that CGC is inflating numbers to appear attractive to potential buyers, citing rumors of an impending sale and suggesting their business model prioritizes repackaged volume over genuine consumer demand.
PSA showed strong performance with 2.47 million cards graded, representing significant growth compared to last year. Their sports card segment surged 24% to 665,000 cards, though the speaker notes this may reflect backlog processing rather than new demand. PSA's queue tracker showed nearly 900,000 cards processed every 2 weeks, and overtime work has intensified since mid-September. The speaker predicts a potential record month for PSA in October.
TCG category data showed 1.8 million total cards (up 8%), with CGC handling almost 800,000. SGC experienced a 24% year-over-year decline and remains effectively suspended due to prohibitively high pricing, though they claim to be expanding their evaluation team. The speaker's primary concern is the noticeable sports card decline across the industry and whether this represents a trend or temporary fluctuation.
Key Insights
- CGC's reported 962,000 cards includes 60,000 semi-rigid holder authentications that were not actually graded, meaning their true sports card output was only 110,000 (a 23% decline), not the headline numbers suggest
- The speaker believes CGC may be artificially inflating volume metrics to appear attractive to potential buyers ahead of a rumored sale, using repackaged junk volume rather than genuine consumer cards
- PSA is processing almost 900,000 cards every 2 weeks and has been working overtime since mid-month, with metrics showing potential for a record month in October
- Beckett's website has been down for approximately 3 weeks with no explanation, with the speaker speculating it could indicate something 'seriously broken' rather than a simple cyberattack
- TAG maintains a stable 50,000 monthly cards despite clearing their processing queue and raising prices to $40, making future volume trends an important indicator of actual demand versus backlog fulfillment
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] Hello, people of YouTube. A fresh batch of data on the quality level of cards (gem rate) appeared in early October, towards the end of the month. And that means we can take a look behind the scenes and see what different card grading companies are doing. And we have another interesting month. There are some slightly unexpected things happening in the world of grading . Some interesting numbers from CGC. Uh, PSA is showing significant growth. Beckett has apparently disappeared because their website is down. You can't get a [0:30] circulation report to see what the data looks like. But let 's start with this. Since we're talking about grading, let's start at the top. TAG, surprisingly, announced…
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