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Grading Volume Drops at PSA, SGC, BGS, and CGC: What Caused the Dip?

John Dudley|
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow shrugged.
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow shrugged. | Cara Owsley/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

Grading volume dropped at the big four graders (PSA, SGC, BGS, and CGC) in September with all four companies seeing double-digit percentage decreases from the previous month according to Gem Rate. Overall, grading volume is down 16% from last month.

Before collectors panic, in terms of where the market was last year, grading volume has only dipped 1%. SGC is actually up 28% over where they were last year. Still, the drop is jarring after months of record grading volume so it is worth asking what is causing it.

Some of the drop is likely due to a decrease in premiums for modern-graded gem mint cards causing a drop in demand for grading. Everyone knows about the dip in the premiums for graded 9s, but gems have also seen premiums decline. The drop in premiums happened a while back though and hasn’t seemed to affect collector behavior until now though so it is likely that other factors are contributing to the dip.

One factor is a lack of decent sales in September. All four companies have been running promos or specials in the last few months, but their recent offerings haven’t been as enticing. CGC recently dropped their bulk pricing back to $10 and it will be interesting to see if that price change can lure back some of that sports card volume as CGC graded less than 12,000 sports cards last month compared to over 75,000 when they had an $8-a-card bulk rate.

The lack of a major release with a large print run recently likely has the numbers dropping. Topps Chrome has been reasonably popular, but won’t show up in PSA’s figures for a couple of months yet. The market is in between large releases that are ripe for grading. Bowman heals all wounds in the grading industry and Bowman Draft will undoubtedly send the numbers upwards again.

The drop in grading volume could also simply be a response to overall economic conditions. The fact that Card Ladder’s overall baseball, football, and basketball indices all went up during the same time period casts strong doubt on overall economic conditions hurting grading volume.

Increased supply causing demand to drop, lack of promos, a slow release calendar, bad economic conditions, or maybe everyone being too busy getting ready for The National are all reasonable explanations for the dip in grading volume. It likely will take a few more months’ worth of figures to decide what factors are actually driving the drop.

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John Dudley
JOHN DUDLEY

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