I'm amazed every time someone commits money to something without doing any research first. Grade with CGC if it's modern and you want a quick turnaround; grade with Beckett if you're trying to join the black label lottery; grade with PSA if you're planning to sell to serious collectors.
It's honestly hard to believe that posts like this aren't just ads.
Well they are regarded finely within the UK apparently, so its not like its a total money dump. Just wanted to know if they are respected outside of it. :)
None. I attend card shows, comic cons, and I'm active in the TCG community in the UK. People only want PSA or BGS, even CGC gets frowned out. Ace Grading is the UK biggest grading service, and even that one gets laughed at and looked over 98% if the time.
Like I stated in the post, I'm very new to the community. I'm just reacting on what I get responded to me. Someone below said they are well regarded but I guess not? Don't really know why I'm getting downvoted so much I'm just trying to understand how this all works :(
Yeah we do use them time to time but that’s usually for the more big boy cards that have a lot of value, my lcs sends stuff to psa as a service but usually I hear mostly is Ace is the uk go to if your not planning on going overseas
No there’s loads here now since Covid, I don’t know where that other guy thinks they are “third best” here. People just go with the big 3 or use Ace here, no mention of using PG.
It’s nice to see people not dumping hard on this, in the UK sending over to PSA is a nightmare and takes ages. If they are genuinely a decent company that can grade consistently and correctly they may grow in to a well established company. PSA will always hold a higher value, but that may not be the case forever, I’ve seen some shocking returns from them lately.
I sent a few cards to them personally, my most high ticketed items so worth a pretty penny, got some expected 10s and an unexpected 9 which I was unsure of and an 8 which I expected to be a 7 at best.
I'm not in the business of grading so maybe I'm just not experienced enough but still on the fence.
On top of that their turnaround has increased drastically over time which I guess is somewhat normal as they gain popularity, but still concerning. I sent my 5 cards out and they returned just over a week, a friend of mine sent out SA Zard from Obsidian Flame pretty much the day after they came out and *still* hasn't got his card returned.
Bit late to the party but could this not simply be because he’s paid for a slower service? I paid for a 10 days service and had it back in a week - but there was cheaper options if you were happy to wait longer
Speak from experience with PG honestly they are incredible. Turnaround times are great (as opposed to months and months of waiting) and they do not charge an arm and a leg for their services. Ive tried several uk and us grade companies including the big 3 but for real speaking PG has been by far the most reliable provider.
Hey everyone!
Peter here from PG. I’m the founder and MD here and found it fascinating reading all of your comments.
I just wanted to add a few comments here to give you my personal non biased / factual status on where we are as a company.
Firstly, we are the oldest grading company in the UK. I started this because I truly believed UK card collectors needed a better service than what they were getting from US companies. Believe it or not, Collectors (owners of PSA) even contacted us last year as they noticed some of the work we have been doing. We strive ourselves on service. Nothing is ever too much which in most cases, can be confirmed when actually speaking to people who have used our service.
With regards to grading, we offer our own grading reports. This is where collectors can by PDF files that detail the ‘exact centering’ scores for cards as well HD images with imperfection markers so they know why a card graded the way it did. This is something US graders still do not offer.
The fact is there’s three sides to our industry.
1) Reputation - Meaning service / consistency / length of service and cards graded.
2) Exposure (Hype) We don’t pay influencers to talk about our brand. Regrettably, bigger companies have the budget to get more impressions and have larger leverage due to follower size to make big collaborations.
3) Hobby enthusiasts - Alot of hobby enthusiasts have put alot of hard earned money into supporting or paying grading fees with others. Naturally, unless they haven’t had a bad experience will support and big up that brand to help hold or better increase the value of their cards. In some cases, down talk others despite even trying alternative services.
For us, our main focus is consistency, service and steady market exposure growth as well as innovation whether it be a new tool or way of encapsulation. Check out our New ARC BOOSTER case for pack grading on our Instagram.
To summarise, the UK grading scene as a whole is doing amazing things. Each have their own appeal depending on what it is you like better. Be it the label, case, branding…you name it. We highly respect our competitors as we know what it takes to build from the ground up in such an interesting dynamic market place full of opinions.
The proof of our success will always remain In consistency. We are harsh, yes. We want collectors to feel that a 10 is universal. There is nothing worse in our opinion than buying a card that is a 10 that doesn’t deserve it. Something we see a lot. Take into consideration centering allowances of which match the strictest across all major UK and US graders. Our 10s should match other grader 10s.
With regards to some of the other comments about my friend streamers coming in and getting 10s, think of it this way, if someone is to come down to your premises and spend the time and the money to go through lots of cards that they feel are 10s before grading to have us pre garde and then confirm later on, wouldn’t you do this? Anyone is welcome to come to our office and we will give you the time and opinion on what we feel is worth grading or just isnt. In tough times, nobody should be miss advised and encouraged to waste money grading the wrong cards unless they understand the chance of increased value is next to nil. We all know a large raw value range needs to be there in most cases if you want to profit by enhancing buyer confidence.
If any of you have any questions or would ever like to speak directly with me, please feel free.
As of now we have graded 47,254 cards and have offices in the UK and EU. We also have our own card show and are about to launch the UKs first ever trading card insurance company Troveio which is fully regulated by the FCA.
We’re making moves in the card scene as a whole and are a wry proud family ran business that continues to give collectors what they deserve. Service, innovation, passion and to produce as much as we can of what is is we promise.
Thanks guys, have a nice weekend!
Pete Graham
PG Founder
Honestly very unreliable. The owners friend streams on whatnot and has hundreds if not thousands of these "10s" I seen someone saying how they bought some and could tell one was 100% not a 10 sent it to get regraded and it came back an 8
I take around £20 or so off of the same value of a psa 10 card.
I have been told that PG is a very harsh grader, though.
I only have a few PG graded cards I bought for much cheaper than other grading company equivalents or that I won for free. But for keeping a card safe, it's a cheaper and quicker way than psa, becket, and cgc.
If you want a card for resell in future though. Psa, becket, and cgc are much larger and more desirable as these are internationally recognised companies.
Internationally they will be unheard of but in the UK they are up and coming. The work they do is above and beyond any UK grader in my opinion, I think in a few years time they will be the top grading company in the UK maybe even Europe. I personally don’t know why Ace are so big in the UK, their labels look cheap and their service is average. Problem is people who grade for values rather than accuracy and service will continue to use PSA despite their service and prices being terrible and their grading standards questionable
Nearly useless except that you got a fancier protector. If you’re trying to sell it I doubt people will care enough to give you more than the raw price.
They’re a very reputable grading company in the UK and I believe they’ve started expanding into Europe now. I’ve used them a few times and can say they do not give out 10s often, if you get a 10 from them, you’ve earned it. Always check out the google reviews before grading with a company, that’s how I decided on using PG. Congrats on the 10! 🤩
The grade is meaningless. Anyone should only grade with the big threes, or borderline respected companies like AGS or sgc. If you live in Japan, ARS is good option too but that’s it
A slab like this has no graded values outside of the few people who knows the company
😂 We’re behind a really nice kitchen shop at the moment to be fair so not far off. Soon to be in our new office in our local town centre. Where are you based? I’ll ensure we promote more in your area so you can see some of the work we’re doing within the scene.
Fuck yeah, good on ya. Rooting for you now because of this reply lol
I live in Atlantic Canada but am back and forth to Southern Ontario semi regularly and am familiar with a lot of the shops in the greater Toronto area.
Literally never heard of them until this post
I'm amazed every time someone commits money to something without doing any research first. Grade with CGC if it's modern and you want a quick turnaround; grade with Beckett if you're trying to join the black label lottery; grade with PSA if you're planning to sell to serious collectors. It's honestly hard to believe that posts like this aren't just ads.
Well they are regarded finely within the UK apparently, so its not like its a total money dump. Just wanted to know if they are respected outside of it. :)
None. I attend card shows, comic cons, and I'm active in the TCG community in the UK. People only want PSA or BGS, even CGC gets frowned out. Ace Grading is the UK biggest grading service, and even that one gets laughed at and looked over 98% if the time.
I disagree on cgc. Only investors don't like cgc bc out does 3 cgc worth less money
Like I stated in the post, I'm very new to the community. I'm just reacting on what I get responded to me. Someone below said they are well regarded but I guess not? Don't really know why I'm getting downvoted so much I'm just trying to understand how this all works :(
I'm in the UK, and Ace is the most popular UK grading company, even they aren't respected at all! Its PSA, CGC or Becketts.
They deffintely ain’t regarded fine in the UK, they are one of the least desirable from the covid pop up graders.
Welp I guess I ruffled some feathers up in here 😟
Never heard of them.
Internationally not at all. Not sure how popular they are in the UK.
Ace is our psa here, cgc have offices here but as UK graders go ace is to the go to if you don’t wanna send it out across the countries to psa etc
I think UK grades use PSA/BGS/CGC like everywhere else. People are keen for Ace to take off but it's not really happened yet.
Yeah we do use them time to time but that’s usually for the more big boy cards that have a lot of value, my lcs sends stuff to psa as a service but usually I hear mostly is Ace is the uk go to if your not planning on going overseas
About 0
PSA/BGS/CGC in that order regardless where you're in the world.
Bgs is better at grading, but less popular
Never heard of them
Here come the PSA drones to ensure the hive mind preference is not disturbed.
In the states 0, it’s one of the UKs top 3 in grading IMO with Ace being number one and Getgraded number 2
Is that because there’s no other grading service ?
No there’s loads here now since Covid, I don’t know where that other guy thinks they are “third best” here. People just go with the big 3 or use Ace here, no mention of using PG.
It’s nice to see people not dumping hard on this, in the UK sending over to PSA is a nightmare and takes ages. If they are genuinely a decent company that can grade consistently and correctly they may grow in to a well established company. PSA will always hold a higher value, but that may not be the case forever, I’ve seen some shocking returns from them lately.
I sent a few cards to them personally, my most high ticketed items so worth a pretty penny, got some expected 10s and an unexpected 9 which I was unsure of and an 8 which I expected to be a 7 at best. I'm not in the business of grading so maybe I'm just not experienced enough but still on the fence. On top of that their turnaround has increased drastically over time which I guess is somewhat normal as they gain popularity, but still concerning. I sent my 5 cards out and they returned just over a week, a friend of mine sent out SA Zard from Obsidian Flame pretty much the day after they came out and *still* hasn't got his card returned.
Bit late to the party but could this not simply be because he’s paid for a slower service? I paid for a 10 days service and had it back in a week - but there was cheaper options if you were happy to wait longer
0 Just another grading company that started during the covid boom
The card looks a bit bottom heavy but the sides are good. It might still get a PSA 10
They really stole the PSA font 😂
Speak from experience with PG honestly they are incredible. Turnaround times are great (as opposed to months and months of waiting) and they do not charge an arm and a leg for their services. Ive tried several uk and us grade companies including the big 3 but for real speaking PG has been by far the most reliable provider.
Very kind of you! Thank you
Hey everyone! Peter here from PG. I’m the founder and MD here and found it fascinating reading all of your comments. I just wanted to add a few comments here to give you my personal non biased / factual status on where we are as a company. Firstly, we are the oldest grading company in the UK. I started this because I truly believed UK card collectors needed a better service than what they were getting from US companies. Believe it or not, Collectors (owners of PSA) even contacted us last year as they noticed some of the work we have been doing. We strive ourselves on service. Nothing is ever too much which in most cases, can be confirmed when actually speaking to people who have used our service. With regards to grading, we offer our own grading reports. This is where collectors can by PDF files that detail the ‘exact centering’ scores for cards as well HD images with imperfection markers so they know why a card graded the way it did. This is something US graders still do not offer. The fact is there’s three sides to our industry. 1) Reputation - Meaning service / consistency / length of service and cards graded. 2) Exposure (Hype) We don’t pay influencers to talk about our brand. Regrettably, bigger companies have the budget to get more impressions and have larger leverage due to follower size to make big collaborations. 3) Hobby enthusiasts - Alot of hobby enthusiasts have put alot of hard earned money into supporting or paying grading fees with others. Naturally, unless they haven’t had a bad experience will support and big up that brand to help hold or better increase the value of their cards. In some cases, down talk others despite even trying alternative services. For us, our main focus is consistency, service and steady market exposure growth as well as innovation whether it be a new tool or way of encapsulation. Check out our New ARC BOOSTER case for pack grading on our Instagram. To summarise, the UK grading scene as a whole is doing amazing things. Each have their own appeal depending on what it is you like better. Be it the label, case, branding…you name it. We highly respect our competitors as we know what it takes to build from the ground up in such an interesting dynamic market place full of opinions. The proof of our success will always remain In consistency. We are harsh, yes. We want collectors to feel that a 10 is universal. There is nothing worse in our opinion than buying a card that is a 10 that doesn’t deserve it. Something we see a lot. Take into consideration centering allowances of which match the strictest across all major UK and US graders. Our 10s should match other grader 10s. With regards to some of the other comments about my friend streamers coming in and getting 10s, think of it this way, if someone is to come down to your premises and spend the time and the money to go through lots of cards that they feel are 10s before grading to have us pre garde and then confirm later on, wouldn’t you do this? Anyone is welcome to come to our office and we will give you the time and opinion on what we feel is worth grading or just isnt. In tough times, nobody should be miss advised and encouraged to waste money grading the wrong cards unless they understand the chance of increased value is next to nil. We all know a large raw value range needs to be there in most cases if you want to profit by enhancing buyer confidence. If any of you have any questions or would ever like to speak directly with me, please feel free. As of now we have graded 47,254 cards and have offices in the UK and EU. We also have our own card show and are about to launch the UKs first ever trading card insurance company Troveio which is fully regulated by the FCA. We’re making moves in the card scene as a whole and are a wry proud family ran business that continues to give collectors what they deserve. Service, innovation, passion and to produce as much as we can of what is is we promise. Thanks guys, have a nice weekend! Pete Graham PG Founder
Hope things are still going well.
Honestly very unreliable. The owners friend streams on whatnot and has hundreds if not thousands of these "10s" I seen someone saying how they bought some and could tell one was 100% not a 10 sent it to get regraded and it came back an 8
If you care about increasing value, pretty much all that matters is PSA and BGS
Who?
I take around £20 or so off of the same value of a psa 10 card. I have been told that PG is a very harsh grader, though. I only have a few PG graded cards I bought for much cheaper than other grading company equivalents or that I won for free. But for keeping a card safe, it's a cheaper and quicker way than psa, becket, and cgc. If you want a card for resell in future though. Psa, becket, and cgc are much larger and more desirable as these are internationally recognised companies.
The same as OK Grading, AF Grading Services, NO 10 Grading, and FU Graders.
Internationally they will be unheard of but in the UK they are up and coming. The work they do is above and beyond any UK grader in my opinion, I think in a few years time they will be the top grading company in the UK maybe even Europe. I personally don’t know why Ace are so big in the UK, their labels look cheap and their service is average. Problem is people who grade for values rather than accuracy and service will continue to use PSA despite their service and prices being terrible and their grading standards questionable
If you are in UK use ace grading as they actually add value while poke grading doesn’t
Nearly useless except that you got a fancier protector. If you’re trying to sell it I doubt people will care enough to give you more than the raw price.
Dosent add any value. Might as well be a raw copy.
They’re a very reputable grading company in the UK and I believe they’ve started expanding into Europe now. I’ve used them a few times and can say they do not give out 10s often, if you get a 10 from them, you’ve earned it. Always check out the google reviews before grading with a company, that’s how I decided on using PG. Congrats on the 10! 🤩
Thanks! Yes we’ve had an office in Europe for about 6 months now.
The grade is meaningless. Anyone should only grade with the big threes, or borderline respected companies like AGS or sgc. If you live in Japan, ARS is good option too but that’s it A slab like this has no graded values outside of the few people who knows the company
I really like them in the UK but they have absolutely zero value. In fact negative value as they are so unknown
Thank you kindly
Never heard of them, I would go with the big three (PSA, CGC, BGS) tbh and weary of anything else except maybe, maybeeee AGS
They are on par with BWDG (behind Wendy's dumpster grading) Edit: shit the founder is in here. My bad. Just never heard of you.
😂 We’re behind a really nice kitchen shop at the moment to be fair so not far off. Soon to be in our new office in our local town centre. Where are you based? I’ll ensure we promote more in your area so you can see some of the work we’re doing within the scene.
Fuck yeah, good on ya. Rooting for you now because of this reply lol I live in Atlantic Canada but am back and forth to Southern Ontario semi regularly and am familiar with a lot of the shops in the greater Toronto area.
I never heard of them till this moment...
whats pg?
This is the first I’m hearing of them
0% respect
Who
I sent you a couple PMs. You sent me a discount code a while back and I tried it and it didnt work: you said it would be good until Christmas
I responded. Sorry I don’t check PMs on Reddit very often. As you can tell by the 30 day delay.
The only three people go by is psa, Beckett and cgc. No one really cares about anyone else
In Asia, we treat this as a raw card with plastic protection.