Making the grade: PSA vs. CGC

PSA entered the comic/magazine grading market as not just any newcomer. On the contrary, with its dominant share of the card-grading market and well-oiled grading machinery in full swing, the anticipation that PSA would provide a much-needed boost to the graded-magazine hobby was palpable. This was like Coca-Cola entering the bottled-water market or Honda making snow blowers more than Donruss challenging Topps in the baseball card market.

So for graded magazine collectors, giving PSA a shot was a no- brainer. It remains to be seen how PSA stacks up against CGC. The hope is that they will become equal competitors, as we've already seen that PSA's card-grading dominance has been bad for that part of the collectibles hobby.

Just for fun, I not only sent a 10-book submission to PSA, but also sent the same 10-book submission to CGC. That's not a scientific comparison — two issues of the same magazine can have varying conditions. But my inventory is pretty consistent — generally not more than one grade-level difference for multiple copies of the same issue from CGC. So it's not an invalid comparison.

Thanks to Jim Kehoe for pressing all these issues. Here's a look at how the orders compared:

And here's how they turned out:

Yikes! The first one out of the box was a dud. My Kobe/Magic covers have graded 9.8/9/8/9.6 from CGC, so this seemed to confirm that PSA's grading would be more strict than CGC.

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As it turned out, this would be the only one of the 10 that received the same grade from CGC and PSA.

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Never going to turn down an upgrade to a 9.8. The question is: Will PSA 9.8s be valued the same as CGC 9.8s? And will PSA grades in general be as legit as CGC grades? The market ultimately will answer that question, but it will take awhile.

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The biggest discrepancies between CGC and PSA at least were to my benefit. This 1989 Jordan cover is tough — previous copies have graded 8.5/8.5 and 9.2 from CGC before this 9.6 from PSA. I'll take it.

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All in all, factoring in the minor differences in the condition of these magazines, the grading between CGC and PSA seems pretty comparable.

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So far, I think PSA entering the graded-magazine market has been as good as expected. The slabs are solid, though as everyone knows by now, the CGC label is superior. It's worth noting that my PSA order incurred no upcharges — though I did not have anything really close to warranting one.

While the dust is still settling on the CGC/PSA competition, I'll send more magazines to PSA for grading. That's the benefit of PSA — they're likely here to stay, so there's less risk with PSA than a fledgling newcomer that might be extinct in a year or two. It still remains to be seen if PSA will give the hobby the boost everyone is looking for. But so far, it has not disappointed — pending the upcharge issue, at least. As long as the label is the biggest issue with PSA, it's all good.

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