you forgot to mention the part where they had to pay out a $10 million lawsuit settlement and also the part that like they laid off a bunch of staff in October and November, which is subsequently also increasing their turnaround times
Raising prices coud also be a sign that volume is trending down and the need to re-coupe revenue by raising prices. This is also validated by the reported layoffs and increased turnaround times possibly due to said layoffs. The data point we need is the number of graded books processed by CGC per year, I assume that would show a significant drop off from the comic boom.
I don’t know if it’s a turning point. It feels more like a smart business model for them where they can control order flow and make some more money. Then if they are low on subs they can just run another Bulk special that gets stuff in the door if needed. Just like how they brought back the 10% discount for premium memberships to lower then price back down. They may as well charge a high amount and have sales or discounts whenever needed.
Yeah idk about all that. Sounds like they’re trying to squeeze everything they can out of the company and use price hikes during slow time to create fomo volume. Where people will hurry to get stuff graded before the price increases
Shouldn't justify raising prices for increased due diligence when they should've been doing that the entire time. It's kind of like them saying," we were trying a little, but we're raising prices so we can try a little harder". They branded themselves on the fact that they were a reliable source of grading/certification. Don't raise your prices until you can prove it's a worthwhile added cost for the consumer....if I do a lousy job at work, I don't then turn around and ask for a raise...
just remember to ask your dad to tell the PSA Design team to make the grade number big and legible enougg to read from 5 feet away. waiting for psa to disrupt the game with better service and times
They screwed up their service with banana gate and told people to pound sand. They kind of fixed their own created issue but not completely. And now to say sorry they raised their price. All they are good for is verifying signatures as a higher level coa. Cbcs is sounding better and better.
I normally agree with you on most things David but with respect I think you’re off the mark on this situation. CGC ( which I call BlackStone Grading ) is raising prices for a number of reasons. First it’s probably a cost of living increase to compensate for inflation which was caused by our government. Second BlackStone wants to milk as much as they can before they dump CGC which I’m predicting will happen later this year. PSA see the mistakes that CGC is making and is taking this time to enter the market to pick on thoroughly pissed off customers who can’t wait to dump CGC. PSA is a big company, a smart company and they will dominate the slab market within 2 years.
Hey, you forgot to mention that CGC is also raising the prices of their membership levels. I'm a Premier member (normally $149/year), but with Auto Renew, I'm supposed to save $20 ($129/year). My renewal was due around 1/20-ish, but the e-mail I got from CGC in late December said that my auto renewal was going to be $159. I called to ask why, and they confirmed the price increase. They also pointed out that if I manually renewed at the time (last week, which I did), I would still be able to renew at the $129 price.
Acetategate, swapping lower graded books on reholders, bananagate, etc. Then there is a dealer who gets 9.9 GSX 1 while I have 2000 plus submissions and never better than a 9.8. Roughly an 80% increase in price in a decade. This is hilarious. Usually agree with you but we’re way apart in this one. I quit grading and buying graded last May. People are still trying to figure out why graded book values are dropping ? The perfect storm of low quality at CGC and the Big 2 catering to people who don’t pay for their books and forgetting the rest of us. It’s truly amazing that they can’t see it. My bro went from over 1000 plus books added to his collection per year to seeking his collection and buying zero in 2024. I hope I’m wrong for your sake. Maybe it was just a rough decade but it sure smells like they’re losing customers to me.
I am meh about most of the changes aside from the increase in the High Value tier. Having to ship from Canada, I am already paying for a hefty loss for a much worse exchange rate than we have seen in years, a ridiculous FedEx cost (times two directions) that has also just gone up, and now a pretty sizeable bump up in grading fees. To top it off, the orders never make it to 25 books so while shipping is a bit lower it is divided up less ways, and shipping cost per book ends up higher. I used to charge people $125 CAD for pressing and submission to this tier, but now I cant even break even at 150 so I am considering $175. That is a pretty big chunk of cash for books around the $1k USD mark.
I staill have an issue with the "Fair Market % Value" for unlimited. How can the graders be impartial if they recieve so much on high value books. Doesen't CGC own GPA?
They had a $30 vintage bulk sale in July then the 10/10 October modern book sale. That’s the only reason they are backlogged. Also, they pink slipped some folks. The lawsuit that cost them money is now on their customers to offset mate. It’s not a “good” indicator of a better market. It’s a reason more and more collectors are keeping raw.
Everything increases in price. A gallon of milk, your rent, your salary, etc. CGC slabs are no exception. I’m sure CGC is being charged more for materials and HOPEFULLY increasing hourly pay/salaries for their employees. I’ll be okay with the price hike as long as we move away from the quality control issues and get back to the shorter wait times.
When is PSA going to start grading comic books? Like you, I have been waiting for book returns and with the price increase, I think it will be refreshing to try PSA. Because of the past year or two, CBCS slabs have been moving closer and closer to the CGC slab prices. At least the CBCS sellers are demanding the same prices on Ebay, so I think in the near future, any graded book will be roughly a general price no matter the grading company.
Sorry Dave have to disagree higher prices aren't good. poor customer and poor quality should constitute higher prices. Also you forgot to mention higher shipping rates. They will probably tell you that tariffs are the problem and that they are going to have to pay more for those cheap cases all bulshit. I stop sending books there waiting for PSA I repeat they are the worst company I've ever dealt with.
I don't think you go from all the CGC screw ups of 2024 to anything resembling "normalcy". Would love to be proven wrong but yea not betting the farm on that proposition.
Modern was worth it for $15 a long time ago but not many books are worth the $27 fee plus the pressing fee plus the transportation both ways. Just not worth it for most copper.
I love you, Dave, but CGC raising its prices is NOT a good thing. These price hikes don't seem to come with no added value. Do you genuinely think they will improve their service or product because of this increase? Honestly, that seems unlikely. I believe their backlog is more about staffing shortages than anything else-same volume of books but fewer employees. The market is shifting, and unfortunately, not in a positive direction. With the economy and inflation continuing to rise, I think it will have a negative impact on the comic market.
I did say it’s bad in terms the price is going up. But I continue to say that maybe it’s a good thing as this is a data point showing comics are rebounding. Spending an extra $2 is nothing compared to if your comic is going up in value more then the $2
I think you are dreaming if you believe cgc is ramping up quality control on the reholders. They probably increased the price to discourage reholdering.
They probably have a backlog due to all the legal, quality control and firing issues they have had in 2024. With a new competitor, doesn't seem smart to raise prices now. Have they even fixed the book bending issue?
To be fair, people have said this since CGC started. Ultimately, it’s all a matter of what people what people put their money (and to a lesser degree, faith) into.
here's the thing, you are hypothezing quite a bit with your reasons on why they raised their prices. The thing is this, they've had a lot of scandals over the last few years, have a few lawsuits in the works or needing to be settled. You're assuming they developed new processes and things of that nature to prevent many of these things from happening down the road, but shouldn't you actually be demonstrating that you actually accomplished these things before raising prices. What have they shown to display they have taken care of many of these issues. I think the reason they raised their prices is along the same lines why they lowered the prices. Optics. They took some bad PR hits, felt other companies were making up ground on them so they felt the need to lower prices. Now, those companies haven't made any in-roads anywhere near what they need to do in order to actually compete with CGC (yet), and those issues they had were a year or so ago, which is a lifetime in some people's minds, so everything is okay again. Yeah, I think the demand may have gone back up a little bit, but I think it's other factors at work currently. Time will tell. I know after they messed up with me on my high-end book (it was just a label, but still) and blamed me for it, then wanted to charge me a lot to fix their mistake, I was done with getting my books slabbed. I'll buy one slabbed, but I don't need to have them slabbed.
Disagree with you Dave. Don't know how CGC can justify a price increase given all their recent issues. Im about done with them last few subs i haven't been happy with, at all. We'll see what PSA comes out with price wise.
you are cute bro.... the price change is totally to pay the lawsuit they had against them and bigger bonuses to the bosses there. $8 for custom label is FKING WILD !!!
I don’t at all see how any of this is good Why do they deserve more money for all of their mess ups they take no accountability for Also I watched a previous video they’ve had 4 price increases between 2020 and now and the way it was charting your 10% membership discount doesn’t mean anything anymore This might be good for you and your $100,000 unboxing videos ..no offense I like your videos but a large percentage aren’t going to ever afford that 4% FMV grading tier if we bought the book raw and higher prices won’t help anyone But this means CGC facilitators like Captured Collectables is going to need to charge more money and that will hurt them and what they’re doing They charge 4% of FMV who determines the FMV well CGC does once they put that little sticker on the slab So if you thought you had a $2,000 book they’ll pull money from you if they feel you have a $6,000 book And since grading is subjective and not a guarantee if you need to send that book in for reholder and it drops to a $2,000 book and it was never the $6,000 book they determined You’re getting screwed over I’m definitely done grading unless I’m slabbing Art with CBCS I’ll never send another book
I think it’s a good thing too now everyone will think harder before sending just anything in. I’m sorry best cgc sucks ass they literally bring no extra value anymore anyway. It’s taken me a year to sell off all my slabs I’m down to just 3 outta over a thousand. I’m honestly hoping it’s their downfall we no longer even buy slab collections. Selling them shipping them just almost no profit in them period and to many returns over cracks & scratches.
Shipping from Canada must be absurdly expensive
you forgot to mention the part where they had to pay out a $10 million lawsuit settlement and also the part that like they laid off a bunch of staff in October and November, which is subsequently also increasing their turnaround times
Terrible take Dave. This is just private equity trying to squeeze every last ounce of profit before they dump it.
They're trying to compensate for the $129 loss of me not renewing my membership... sorry everyone!! 😅
And as of today, January 7, it's $159 for the membership renewal with NO MORE $20 discount on auto-renewal.
The writing was on the wall when Blackstone bought their company.
Just like the price of eggs going up because they think the dollar is stronger...Right?😂
It’s to pay for that 10million lawsuit.
Raising prices coud also be a sign that volume is trending down and the need to re-coupe revenue by raising prices. This is also validated by the reported layoffs and increased turnaround times possibly due to said layoffs. The data point we need is the number of graded books processed by CGC per year, I assume that would show a significant drop off from the comic boom.
Lol these people are ridiculous! They've had my books for almost 3 months and they are raising their prices? No thank you
I don’t know if it’s a turning point. It feels more like a smart business model for them where they can control order flow and make some more money. Then if they are low on subs they can just run another Bulk special that gets stuff in the door if needed. Just like how they brought back the 10% discount for premium memberships to lower then price back down. They may as well charge a high amount and have sales or discounts whenever needed.
has anyone seen a company self-harm as bad as CGC does it? I just don't believe it lol PSA is going to crush them.
Agreed. CGC has not treated me well as a customer so I don't use them anymore.
A possible reason for Part of the backlog was the discount they offered first on vintage over the summer, then modern.
Yeah idk about all that. Sounds like they’re trying to squeeze everything they can out of the company and use price hikes during slow time to create fomo volume. Where people will hurry to get stuff graded before the price increases
Shouldn't justify raising prices for increased due diligence when they should've been doing that the entire time. It's kind of like them saying," we were trying a little, but we're raising prices so we can try a little harder". They branded themselves on the fact that they were a reliable source of grading/certification. Don't raise your prices until you can prove it's a worthwhile added cost for the consumer....if I do a lousy job at work, I don't then turn around and ask for a raise...
I think there was a CGC special in Oct that slowed things down right? I am seeing higher prices across the board on all auctions.
Surprised no one is screaming it’s Bidens fault 😆
just remember to ask your dad to tell the PSA Design team to make the grade number big and legible enougg to read from 5 feet away. waiting for psa to disrupt the game with better service and times
If it's as bad as their card service,these days you'll be waiting a,long time.
They screwed up their service with banana gate and told people to pound sand. They kind of fixed their own created issue but not completely. And now to say sorry they raised their price. All they are good for is verifying signatures as a higher level coa. Cbcs is sounding better and better.
CGC is terrible and I will never use their services again. They do not respect their customers.. I like PGX, PSA, and CBCS alot more now
I normally agree with you on most things David but with respect I think you’re off the mark on this situation. CGC ( which I call BlackStone Grading ) is raising prices for a number of reasons. First it’s probably a cost of living increase to compensate for inflation which was caused by our government. Second BlackStone wants to milk as much as they can before they dump CGC which I’m predicting will happen later this year. PSA see the mistakes that CGC is making and is taking this time to enter the market to pick on thoroughly pissed off customers who can’t wait to dump CGC. PSA is a big company, a smart company and they will dominate the slab market within 2 years.
Another greedy company that is on the decline. Their volume is down and they lost a lawsuit. That’s a shame.
Hey, you forgot to mention that CGC is also raising the prices of their membership levels. I'm a Premier member (normally $149/year), but with Auto Renew, I'm supposed to save $20 ($129/year). My renewal was due around 1/20-ish, but the e-mail I got from CGC in late December said that my auto renewal was going to be $159. I called to ask why, and they confirmed the price increase. They also pointed out that if I manually renewed at the time (last week, which I did), I would still be able to renew at the $129 price.
Thanks for that info
Hey man, I heard PSA will open up shop in Toronto. Do you know if this will be exclusively cards, or comics as well?
Not sure, but they have the infrastructure to do so, if they end up doing it
I stopped sending books in because I got tired of my books looking horrible with their scuffed up inner wells
Acetategate, swapping lower graded books on reholders, bananagate, etc.
Then there is a dealer who gets 9.9 GSX 1 while I have 2000 plus submissions and never better than a 9.8.
Roughly an 80% increase in price in a decade. This is hilarious. Usually agree with you but we’re way apart in this one. I quit grading and buying graded last May. People are still trying to figure out why graded book values are dropping ? The perfect storm of low quality at CGC and the Big 2 catering to people who don’t pay for their books and forgetting the rest of us.
It’s truly amazing that they can’t see it. My bro went from over 1000 plus books added to his collection per year to seeking his collection and buying zero in 2024.
I hope I’m wrong for your sake. Maybe it was just a rough decade but it sure smells like they’re losing customers to me.
Well time to change to PSA.. or CBCS. Then you forgot to mention all the fees ebay asks for and other places that sell comics.
I am meh about most of the changes aside from the increase in the High Value tier. Having to ship from Canada, I am already paying for a hefty loss for a much worse exchange rate than we have seen in years, a ridiculous FedEx cost (times two directions) that has also just gone up, and now a pretty sizeable bump up in grading fees. To top it off, the orders never make it to 25 books so while shipping is a bit lower it is divided up less ways, and shipping cost per book ends up higher. I used to charge people $125 CAD for pressing and submission to this tier, but now I cant even break even at 150 so I am considering $175. That is a pretty big chunk of cash for books around the $1k USD mark.
I staill have an issue with the "Fair Market % Value" for unlimited. How can the graders be impartial if they recieve so much on high value books. Doesen't CGC own GPA?
They had a $30 vintage bulk sale in July then the 10/10 October modern book sale.
That’s the only reason they are backlogged.
Also, they pink slipped some folks.
The lawsuit that cost them money is now on their customers to offset mate.
It’s not a “good” indicator of a better market.
It’s a reason more and more collectors are keeping raw.
Everything increases in price. A gallon of milk, your rent, your salary, etc. CGC slabs are no exception. I’m sure CGC is being charged more for materials and HOPEFULLY increasing hourly pay/salaries for their employees. I’ll be okay with the price hike as long as we move away from the quality control issues and get back to the shorter wait times.
You're joking if you think they pay their people a living wage.
When is PSA going to start grading comic books? Like you, I have been waiting for book returns and with the price increase, I think it will be refreshing to try PSA. Because of the past year or two, CBCS slabs have been moving closer and closer to the CGC slab prices. At least the CBCS sellers are demanding the same prices on Ebay, so I think in the near future, any graded book will be roughly a general price no matter the grading company.
From what I’ve been told. Which might be old info. But I think around April-May is when PSA will start. But that stuff is always changing.
Sorry Dave have to disagree higher prices aren't good. poor customer and poor quality should constitute higher prices. Also you forgot to mention higher shipping rates. They will probably tell you that tariffs are the problem and that they are going to have to pay more for those cheap cases all bulshit. I stop sending books there waiting for PSA I repeat they are the worst company I've ever dealt with.
With the window cracked, holler back, money ain't a thang. -Jay-Z
I don't think you go from all the CGC screw ups of 2024 to anything resembling "normalcy". Would love to be proven wrong but yea not betting the farm on that proposition.
Is there the possibility that this company will go under and cgc graded comics will become huge collectors items because there is no more cgc?
Modern was worth it for $15 a long time ago but not many books are worth the $27 fee plus the pressing fee plus the transportation both ways. Just not worth it for most copper.
Ya they need to do something about modern to make it worth it
PSA IS LOOKING AT THE DOWNFALL AND SMILING 😁
Should raise even more so that dumb filler books don't get slabbed
I love you, Dave, but CGC raising its prices is NOT a good thing. These price hikes don't seem to come with no added value. Do you genuinely think they will improve their service or product because of this increase? Honestly, that seems unlikely. I believe their backlog is more about staffing shortages than anything else-same volume of books but fewer employees. The market is shifting, and unfortunately, not in a positive direction. With the economy and inflation continuing to rise, I think it will have a negative impact on the comic market.
I did say it’s bad in terms the price is going up. But I continue to say that maybe it’s a good thing as this is a data point showing comics are rebounding. Spending an extra $2 is nothing compared to if your comic is going up in value more then the $2
I think you are dreaming if you believe cgc is ramping up quality control on the reholders. They probably increased the price to discourage reholdering.
weird they would raise prices when PSA is starting to grade now
True. Maybe they will lower them again. Or maybe PSA is higher
It is a good thing, because it means less people will use them. They are an awful company.
Maybe they have some unexpected legal costs
No, a recession is starting and CGC will lower prices again in 6-9 months. Poor timing to raise prices.
They probably have a backlog due to all the legal, quality control and firing issues they have had in 2024. With a new competitor, doesn't seem smart to raise prices now. Have they even fixed the book bending issue?
I want to see PSA knock CGC down to CBCS size.
A book is a book, CGC dictating how much a book is worth is BS, this bubble will burst soon!.
To be fair, people have said this since CGC started.
Ultimately, it’s all a matter of what people what people put their money (and to a lesser degree, faith) into.
For you maybe not because you got money, but for the rest of us, it's a terrible thing. Time to look at other grading g companies
Are you in the line of real fire? I hope you and your fellow Californions are safe Dave.
I am findjng out about the fires in California.
They need to pay for the past legal fees
Reholder is about the same price of grading wtf
I know. Crazy
here's the thing, you are hypothezing quite a bit with your reasons on why they raised their prices. The thing is this, they've had a lot of scandals over the last few years, have a few lawsuits in the works or needing to be settled. You're assuming they developed new processes and things of that nature to prevent many of these things from happening down the road, but shouldn't you actually be demonstrating that you actually accomplished these things before raising prices. What have they shown to display they have taken care of many of these issues. I think the reason they raised their prices is along the same lines why they lowered the prices. Optics. They took some bad PR hits, felt other companies were making up ground on them so they felt the need to lower prices. Now, those companies haven't made any in-roads anywhere near what they need to do in order to actually compete with CGC (yet), and those issues they had were a year or so ago, which is a lifetime in some people's minds, so everything is okay again. Yeah, I think the demand may have gone back up a little bit, but I think it's other factors at work currently. Time will tell. I know after they messed up with me on my high-end book (it was just a label, but still) and blamed me for it, then wanted to charge me a lot to fix their mistake, I was done with getting my books slabbed. I'll buy one slabbed, but I don't need to have them slabbed.
Disagree with you Dave. Don't know how CGC can justify a price increase given all their recent issues. Im about done with them last few subs i haven't been happy with, at all. We'll see what PSA comes out with price wise.
you are cute bro.... the price change is totally to pay the lawsuit they had against them and bigger bonuses to the bosses there. $8 for custom label is FKING WILD !!!
Sounds like you are on CGC’s payroll. 3rd increase in two years in the wake of scandal? Really?
Private equity is the scum of the earth
Is he shilling the CGC?
This company feeds off of grading books that shouldn’t get graded. To each his own I guess.
It’s PSA for me Dave!
I don’t at all see how any of this is good
Why do they deserve more money for all of their mess ups they take no accountability for
Also I watched a previous video they’ve had 4 price increases between 2020 and now and the way it was charting your 10% membership discount doesn’t mean anything anymore
This might be good for you and your $100,000 unboxing videos ..no offense I like your videos but a large percentage aren’t going to ever afford that 4% FMV grading tier if we bought the book raw and higher prices won’t help anyone
But this means CGC facilitators like Captured Collectables is going to need to charge more money and that will hurt them and what they’re doing
They charge 4% of FMV who determines the FMV well CGC does once they put that little sticker on the slab
So if you thought you had a $2,000 book they’ll pull money from you if they feel you have a $6,000 book
And since grading is subjective and not a guarantee if you need to send that book in for reholder and it drops to a $2,000 book and it was never the $6,000 book they determined
You’re getting screwed over I’m definitely done grading unless I’m slabbing Art with CBCS I’ll never send another book
Are you single? I’m not asking for a friend. Lol :)
It's the start of Donald Trumps Golden Age. The economy is about to boom!
I think it’s a good thing too now everyone will think harder before sending just anything in. I’m sorry best cgc sucks ass they literally bring no extra value anymore anyway. It’s taken me a year to sell off all my slabs I’m down to just 3 outta over a thousand. I’m honestly hoping it’s their downfall we no longer even buy slab collections. Selling them shipping them just almost no profit in them period and to many returns over cracks & scratches.