CSG 9.5 GemMint = 10 GemMint?
In our latest article we discussed the changes that CSG has made to its grading. It was pretty wild. Out of left field CSG changed, labels, services and grading tiers. It was quite unexpected I think for a lot of people, well 2 of the 3 things were. From the announcement they made they also let it drop that for a fee you could send in your Gem Mint 9.5 and get it re-labeled and placed in the new grading tier, a Gem Mint 10. As hobbyists even though our brain see's that CSG is extremely strict graders, so the grades have loaded merit, our heart wants that 10, even if a 9.5 was now a 10. 10s sell! We decided to test this out and send some PC cards, some long holds for us. We have many more 9.5's to send but with a show coming up and the timeline unknown we couldn't risk having the inventory away for too long. Below is our results. Our original submission of GOATS, 17 9.5's varying sub grades from GemMint - to True Gem plus.
Our cards were checked in and received April 5th 2022, they had them in the "grading process" by April 8th 2022, shipped by April 9th. They are due back by Fed-Ex April 11th (probably 12th though). Turn around was phenomenal. I wish I had sent my other 9.5s but now they will wait until the show is over.
The new slab does look really nice from the photos. I am very excited to see them in hand. I imagine similarly to the green labels and slabs when we saw them in photos it was iffy but in hand amazing. The change from 9.5 to 10 could have a number of impacts. CSG grading hard of course makes the desirability of a 10 that much higher, however now being able to switch all the 9.5s to 10s is possibly going to flood the market with 10s all at once. The move opens up lots of long term questions for me as well. Is a 9.5 with good subs better than a 10 with no subs? Do lack of subs hinder the value all together? PSA does fine without them but what would it look like if PSA did have them. I imagine PSA would spike dramatically. All these things I am eager to test and find out.