While CGC Cards recognizes that Sub-Grades have a loyal following among a small group of collectors, CGC Cards believes eliminating Sub-Grades is the right move for the hobby for a couple of key reasons:
The hobby needs one industry-standard grading scale. It does not make sense that a Gem Mint 9.5 at one grading service equates to a Gem Mint 10 at another grading service. This creates confusion and makes it more difficult for new collectors to enter the market. It has become clear that the hobby has moved towards a Gem Mint 10 grading scale and away from Sub-Grades. Three of the four major grading services now use very similar grading scales. Of course, there is still an opportunity for some nuance, but having dramatic differences in the grading scales used by different grading services is bad for the hobby.
By June 2023, fewer than 5% of CGC Trading Cards submissions included a request for Sub-Grades. Some Sub-Grades fans have asked whether that reduced interest in Sub-Grades was really the result of the price point ($15), so here is some more information. CGC Trading Cards raised its Sub-Grades fee to $15 in July 2022 to help cover rising costs in general and the additional time required to individually designate four additional grades. In the two months prior to this announcement, approximately 15.8% of new submissions included a request for Sub-Grades. In the two months after this announcement, approximately 11.7% of new submissions included a request for Sub-Grades. While it is not surprising that there would be a drop in demand with a price increase, even before the price increase, demand for Sub-Grades was relatively low (at 15.8% of total), and even after the price increase, demand for Sub-Grades did not decrease by a meaningful amount (4.1% of total).
Of course, if Sub-Grades were free, there would probably have been more demand, but that’s not practical given the additional time (and therefore cost) involved.
The reality is that demand for Sub-Grades had decreased nearly every month in a row — with or without a price increase — for the last 18 months. Perhaps many collectors and dealers found it difficult to reconcile so many possible combinations of the overall grade and Sub-Grades. It is difficult for people to value and collect/inventory so many different permutations of grades. Additionally, the market was clearly moving towards a simpler grading scale centered around a Gem Mint 10.
CGC Cards believes that education and transparency are vitally important, but Sub-Grades are only one way to provide collectors and dealers with more information about why their card received the grade that it did. CGC Cards is committed to providing the hobby with the highest levels of accuracy, consistency, transparency and education, and looks forward to providing more innovative ways for collectors to learn about card grading.
Please note that cards with Sub-Grades will not have Sub-Grades if they are reholdered. CGC Cards encourages submitters to consider carefully whether it makes sense to reholder cards that previously received Sub-Grades.
