Just over a year after launching its sports card grading service, Certified Sports Guaranty (CSG) is rolling out a new look label.
The company says it is doing away with the original green and white label after hearing from customers who preferred a different look. The company says it spent months on research and development and market studies. The new label combines black, silver and gold.
CSG is also updating its grading scale to “more closely align with the sports card collecting market,” according to a news release. The CSG Pristine 10 grade will be replaced by CSG Gem Mint 10, which corresponds to the nomenclature used by other leading sports card grading services. The next-highest grade will be CSG Mint+ 9.5.
CSG says it will continue to assign the CSG Perfect 10 grade to the “best of the best, which will have flawless centering, corners, edges and surface.” However, now all cards that merit a CSG Perfect 10 will receive sub-grades by default for free, with no special request required. Sub-grades will be discontinued for other grades.
“These updates reflect CSG’s commitment to provide the best possible services to the sports card collecting community,” says Andy Broome, CSG Senior Grading Finalizer. “We listened to collector and dealer feedback and are thrilled with the results of these changes.
“Fewer than 20% of submitters were requesting sub-grades, so the demand simply was not there. In addition, eliminating sub-grades will allow us to further improve our turnaround times, which are already among the fastest in the industry.”
CSG experienced an extraordinary surge in submissions soon after it launched in February 2021, resulting in a formidable backlog, which has now been eliminated. So far, CSG has graded more than 750,000 cards. Turnaround times are currently no more than 45 business days—less for expedited service levels.
CSG will immediately begin encapsulating submitted cards with the new CSG label. Any submissions that are at CSG’s facility will be encapsulated with the new label with no sub-grades (unless the card earns a CSG Perfect 10 grade). The sub-grade fee will be refunded for any submissions that requested but do not receive sub-grades.
Additionally, cards already encapsulated with the original green label can be resubmitted for the new CSG label for a reduced fee of $5 per card until June 30, 2022. If the original green label had sub-grades, they will be removed when the card is reholdered to the new CSG label (unless the card is a Perfect 10).
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