Regular readers know I love me some Gemrate grading data. In particular, I have been following SGC’s headway into vintage (1950’s and earlier) market share. Last month, I reported on a near dead heat between PSA and SGC in this segment. This is a significant development given PSA’s complete market share domination otherwise.
Let’s take a look at the big picture, and then zoom in for a closer look and PSA vs. SGC vintage sports card market share data. August was a record month for card grading overall, so there’s a lot to get into.
A Record Month for Graded Cards
First things first, it was a great month for grading companies in general:
- Grading activity was up 17% year over year
- 1.8m cards were graded in August–an all-time record month for card grading
To understand how incredible this is, let’s put that record into context. In August, PSA graded 1.39 million cards. That’s as many cards as they graded from 1991-1998, combined! No one could have imagined this present situation 20 years ago.
PSA vs. SGC for Vintage
In August, PSA reestablished a more traditional market share gap over SGC in the “sports / 1950’s and earlier” category. 1950’s and earlier represented just 1.9% of PSA’s sports grading activity in July, and that increased to 4.6% in August. Contrast this to 7.5% (July) and 10.9% (August) for SGC. But the resulting numbers favor PSA:
- PSA graded 37,000 sports cards 1950’s and earlier in August
- SGC graded 17,000 sports cards 1950’s and earlier in August
So PSA graded roughly 2x as many cards in this segment as SGC. But when you consider that PSA grades closer to 10x as many cards as SGC in general, 2x is a relatively small gap. Cardhound will keep monthly tabs on this point of interest for vintage collectors.
What’s Next for SGC?
It’s also worth asking: can SGC continue to thrive if they fail to make more headway into TCG and modern? In other words, as vintage collectors we might be tempted to ignore the modern graded card market. But vintage SGC loyalists might need to root for SGC’s attempts to enter these segments. After all, there are way more modern cards than vintage cards. And the modern market increases by the day and year forever, of course, as new products are released.
PSA graded an astounding 518k TCG in August. That’s a whole lot of Pokemon! Even Beckett graded 4x as many TCG as SGC. And CGC is quietly assuming the #2 spot in terms of total market share, despite being an afterthought in vintage. Even if your only interest in this topic is vintage sports card market share, the modern market does impact vintage in many ways. Things to consider!
