If you follow this blog, you know I love my Gemrate grading data! Even if you don’t grade much, it gives good insight into the health of the hobby and various sectors. Recently, I have been tracking PSA vs. SGC for early vintage. Read on for a full vintage grading recap, but the trend of SGC competing hard in 1950’s and earlier continues in July.

PSA Market Domination

Yes, we all know that PSA dominates the grading market: 1.27m items graded in July, compared to 194,000 for SGC and 190k for CGC. All 3 are “up” significantly month-over-month and year-over-year, which bodes well for the market overall.

But What About Vintage?

If you stop there, it looks like the same old story: it’s PSA, and everyone else. And these days, “everyone else” is just SGC and CGC. Further, a surface glance shows SGC and CGC on very even ground for sports.

But as a vintage-only collector, I like to drill down one more “layer” and look at “early vintage” marketshare (1950’s and earlier). And like last month, this data tells a very different story:

If we look at the total number of sports items graded, and the percentage of items graded by era, both provided by Gemrate, we can then calculate exactly how many items from each era were graded by each company. And this is where it gets really interesting:

Total Items Graded in July, Sports, 1950’s and Earlier:

PSA: 15,400

SGC: 13,650

CGC: 805

Beckett: 234

Final Vintage-Only Analysis:

• For early vintage, SGC is on very even footing with PSA. This appears to be more than a “trend” and is becoming the norm.
• CGC is grading tons of TCG, and some modern . . . but is not in the conversation for vintage. At all.
• Beckett seems to be in the midst of either a last gasp or a transition into comics and other sectors.