SGC Grades More Vintage Than PSA in June

If you collect graded cards, the Gemrate blog is a must-follow. Gemrate tracks daily grading activity from all of the major graders, and slices and dices it every which way for a monthly report.

I like to get into the weeds and analyze vintage grading trends at least quarterly, so let’s dive in. The big takeaway this month is that SGC graded more vintage cards than PSA for the first time in memory. Is this a significant development?

In short, PSA grades about 10x the number of cards than SGC in total. In that context, SGC is barely a speck on the radar.

But when we narrow down to sports cards only, that market share shrinks to less than 4x. Given the history of the hobby it is reasonable to assume that TCG fads might come and go, but sports will always be important to grading.

When we zoom in even closer for a look at vintage, it’s a different story. Let’s focus on the 1950’s and earlier count for June 2025:

• 1950’s and earlier represents 2.6% of PSA’s sports volume = 13,650 cards graded
• 1950’s and earlier represents 12.2% of SGC’s sports volume = 17,880 cards graded

SGC also graded more sports cards from the 1960’s than PSA last month. So in short, SGC is currently a 50 / 50 competitor for vintage sports, and that’s not insignificant.

We will watch these trends for July and report back in August.

June Grading Summary

Here’s the overall summary from Gemrate for June 2025:

(all image credits: Gemrate.com)

As usual, year over year is up, but month over month is mixed. We will watch this trend next month to see if the graded card boom is finally hitting a plateau. It can’t just grow forever.

I wanted to be sure to post an article this month to compare to next month. If you follow our blog maybe you saw the recent news that effective this month, SGC is discontinuing its bulk submitter rate program. Interestingly, PSA is not altering its program. It is unclear whether this decision was SGC’s alone or a mandate from parent company Collectors in an effort to drive more business to PSA. Further, PSA now rents office space in the same building that houses SGC HQ. This can be read as a sign of streamlining and efficiency, or maybe something else.

Vintage Grading Breakdown

Okay, but if you’re reading this blog you’re probably mostly interested in vintage. So let’s take a look at June numbers and see what vintage grading trends emerge.

This graphic from the Gemrate blog is the one that explains most clearly why Collectors purchased SGC. It also explains why, in my opinion, they are more likely to keep SGC as an independent brand rather than to fold them into PSA.

In order to fully analyze these percentages we need to understand the total grading volume and what percentage is represented by sports versus TCG. It still amazes me that we are in a market where more non-sports cards are being graded than sports, but maybe I’m just old!

Why did SGC Eliminate its Bulk Submitter Discounts?

While the numbers suggest SGC gaining market share in vintage, the effects of eliminating the bulk submitter program remain to be seen. This could just be a pure business decision by SGC. They have struggled to meet demand in recent months and their turn time is still much longer than advertised. Nixing the discount improves profit per card and may help SGC get back to its advertised 15-20 day turnaround time. This is already longer than previous advertised times and is currently billed as a temporary measure. And let’s face it–the turn time is a big calling card for SGC. Slower service wipes out one of their big competitive advantages.

The loss of bulk rates is a disappointment to many vintage collectors who rely on services like Boca Card Subs for a small discount and expedited service. Fortunately for Boca, they quickly struck a group sub deal with PSA. Boca still advertises both SGC and PSA submissions but presumably the vast majority of their business will transition to PSA. There’s just no cost incentive for submitting SGC via a third party. That said, I will continue to use Boca for SGC for several reasons. Return shipping is a much better deal, and I find that processing on both ends of grading is expedited through Boca as opposed to direct through SGC.

The telltale sign of the effect of SGC shutting down the bulk submitter program won’t be seen until next month. I’m not sure what percentage of their volume typically comes in via groups, but it seems likely that their total volume will be down June to July. We will report back at that time.