Grading Volume Records for PSA and CGC
Well, another month down, another record month for grading volume. April 2026 outpaced March 2026 for a continued record streak for card grading. Keep in mind though, sports fans: most of those volume is TCG (Pokemon and the like).
Key takeaways from the Gemrate blog:
- PSA and CGC both set volume records for any month.
- CGC is up 102% year over year.
- SGC is up vs. March but down 70% year over year.
The “SGC is on life support” narrative will keep circulating, especially in light of the fact that Beckett is up 70% year over year. SGC’s life vest is vintage sports, which accounts for 20% of its sports total. Compare to just 1.8% for PSA. The problem this creates for SGC is that they’re not printing any more vintage.
Class Action?
Now that the Collectors’ monopoly story has evolved from a general call for inquiry to proposed class action, it will be interesting to see how SGC and Beckett are positioned within the Collectors’ portfolio.
Word for word from the initial complaint:
Prior to the Acquisitions, there were four major independent card grading companies:
- (i) Defendant PSA, which has been owned and operated by Defendant Collectors since 2021 and controlled roughly 72% of the Relevant Market;
- (ii) Defendant SGC, which controlled roughly 5% of the Relevant Market;
- (iii) Defendant BGS, which controlled roughly 3% of the Relevant Market; and
- (iv) non-party Certified Guaranty Company (“CGC”), which controlled roughly 18% of the Relevant Market.
Although PSA was the dominant player in the market, Defendants SGC and BGS served important roles as growing competitors that offered lower prices and higher quality services (usually through faster turnaround times for card grading) than PSA.
While all main points in the complaint seem “correct,” it is still tough to envision forced divestment of companies that accounted for 8% of the market at the time of acquisition.
Baseball Down / Pokemon Up
Of note for baseball card collectors, baseball was actually down during this record month for PSA and CGC–both of whom are majority Pokemon graders at this point. In fact, PSA grades about twice as many TCG cards now than every other category combined!
Not surprisingly, that rise mimics PSA’s total volume increase over the same span.
The Future of Grading?
AI has infiltrated every other aspect of life–so why not grading? Will we see a day where cards are graded nearly instantly with AI? Probably. Is that day coming soon? Probably not. For more on why, see the Cardhound article devoted to AI grading. On a related note, Cardhound has been various app-based AI grading tools lately, and all, so far, are complete garbage. But the limitations of app-based grading (namely, image type and quality) are irrelevant to high-tech professional grading environments. When the market demands AI grading, it will happen.
