SGH sealed game grading

Pascal wrote:Even a grade with 20 % or less is a good investment ! Why? - a simple answer: our grading system have high standards so every point you get is a point that increase the value of your game! so do not worry about the points your game will get !
Just focus on the grading level that you think is perfect for you ...
When you have low standards that doesn´t mean that everyone have those low standards and we want to serve every sealed collector with our rating system... So like I said just find the right rating level for you ..

@Dark: don't be ironic! I want a serious discussion and things that you believe can be improved...

hey Pascal i'm not ironic at all.
Well i'll try to summarize my thoughts.
First - "too many aspects" like ... emm.. "only UV light-visible fingerprints" and microscopic level holes are just ridiculous IMHO. Such in-depth details will be very unclear for everyone and will result in strange and random grading percentage fluctuations. You will get numerous emails for sure with questions like "Why my game achieved only 60%?? It's perfect mint!!" or "62%" or 65%? and so on. You MUST have a clear system so that everyone can understand it. You should really turn your "IMHO grading system" to a proffessional and clear-for-everyone system. Right now it looks to me like "Well... this definitely looks better then this one... and this one...I'll give it 92.87% cause it looks so shiny and better then the others!" And i'm not speaking about definite stuff like holes and rips. I'm speaking about very minor blesmishes.

I think it must be more simple.

I think what you mean is a general grading problem to be scared that your games are not graded like you want it ...

But like I said we have a very very good standard scale system that includes all important facts!
I think our grading system is very simple. Create your own grading order and you will see that it is a very very simple system!
And of course every graded game will get a detailed page with all explanations about the final grade.

Questions.

What sort of room for movement do the games have within the graded cases? How do the games sit within the cases, what do they rest on? Is it a uniform sit along the whole base of the game?

I'm hoping you'll say there's no room for movement whatsoever, and that the whole of the bottom edge of the game sits 100% perfectly along a smooth edge. Otherwise there's definite concern for marking the seal in these things! In fact just sending the graded version back could lower the grade due to movement. And with such high standards any mark whatsoever would invalidate the grade. But how would you know without opening it? So are the cases a tight, movement free fit, with a smooth bottom for the whole sealed bottom edge of the game to rest on?

Which actually brings me onto another point...is it actually worth it to send certain items to you in the first place, due to the risk of damage in the post? For example, pce games. It doesn't matter how well you wrap them or whichever way you orientate them in the box, the manuals can move about. Any serious pce collector knows to look out for rucks on the edge (by the side you'd open it where the little plastic fold tabs keep the manual in place). People already run the risk of damage/manual rucks when getting these sealed games sent to them in the first place (often after waiting an age for a perfect copy). Are they then going to send it off for two more trips? What about games where the cds came come out? I send you a sealed discs in place PDS and risk getting back a PDS with loose discs?

Just curious, looking forward to your answers.

wheelaa wrote:
So are the cases a tight, movement free fit, with a smooth bottom for the whole sealed bottom edge of the game to rest on?

thats 100% correct!

wheelaa wrote:
Which actually brings me onto another point...is it actually worth it to send certain items to you in the first place, due to the risk of damage in the post? For example, pce games. It doesn't matter how well you wrap them or whichever way you orientate them in the box, the manuals can move about. Any serious pce collector knows to look out for rucks on the edge (by the side you'd open it where the little plastic fold tabs keep the manual in place). People already run the risk of damage/manual rucks when getting these sealed games sent to them in the first place (often after waiting an age for a perfect copy). Are they then going to send it off for two more trips? What about games where the cds came come out? I send you a sealed discs in place PDS and risk getting back a PDS with loose discs?
Just curious, looking forward to your answers.

Well if you are an experienced sealed collector you know how to pack your games well so the risk of any damage is set to a minimum.
Of course you can not have a risk of 0% in any shipping but if you know what you are doing you can avoid any damage. The manual thing for pce games is a difficult thing thats right!
But its nearly impossible if you pack your games well that you get a sealed game with a loose disc ... bubble wrap, foam, paper and other things are good weapons against loose discs ...

Question #1: What is to stop you from keeping a very expensive game and never sending it back?

For example, someone sends you sealed mint chrono trigger NTSC.

It would be well worth it to shut down the entire site and keep it forever.

for the price (~770 EUR) that you get, you would need to do about 56 appraisals to make that much money!!!

Of course, I am not suggesting that you guys are criminals, but I want to ask, would YOU send your most precious game away to be graded and not have any way of getting it back IF someone decide to keep it?

Question #2: Why would a grading from you specifically mean anything? Do you guys have some kind of official tiitle or education? What is to stop everyone from buying there own plastic cases, ordering their own holographic stickers, starting their own website and giving themself a grading of 100% for every game they have? Do you have any more credentials than they do? Are you guys any more of an "official game grader" than everyone else?

Again, I'm not saying this to you guys as an insult or to try and make business bad, I am just asking questions to you that ANY serious potential customer would ask themselves before they send their precious items to you for grading.

I think it would do you a world of GOOD if you posted such questions on your FAQ too, along with maybe some kind of proof that this is 100% legit (like a testimonial from a happy customer, or post average prices of games WITH a high grading from you vs. those without).

I wish you the best of luck on your business!

hi buddy!

First of all: very good questions! I think i would ask the same questions too!

answer #1:
Well, we all are sealed collectors for at least 3 years and I wouldn't work over 300 hours on our page if I wouldn't love this hobby.
The primary meaning of our page is to support this hobby and to eliminate problems caused by a wrong condition description.
If I want money I work for some maths projects for at least 25 Euro per hour (I am a maths student) or I start to program some webpages for at least 35 Euro per hour.
Even if I would have a criminal potential, a hourly rate of 770/300 Euro (which is around 2,57 Euro per hour) doesn't seem very well paid ...

answer #2:
The first thing I can say is: We have a lot of experience! Thousands of hours have gone into browsing the web for more informations about the different seal styles, more informations about good protections and so on... . So we all put our knowledge together and built a experienced team.
Of course we do not have any education! We start the whole grading system this year and we were the first one (yes we started our grading system before VGA started their grading). So their is noone out there who have ever done this before with video games.
But you can say we all created our own education over the last years. But its a good idea. Maybe we should offer a SGH education to pass on our big information pool .
Furthermore sealed game informations are more complex than often thought. And you do not only have to collect all informations you must create a network of other sealed collectors. And I think we have the biggest sealed collector community. I think i do not have to mention that this fact is very important for every project. Furthermore you get new daily informations. It is important that we share informations with each other and make sure that we all have a maximum of informations.

Havent every videogame magazine changed 100% to 10/10, just saying that many belive 10/10 scale to be better than 100%


But good initative, i think this whole site is fantastic.

Are your stickers on the inside or the outside of the cases? I can't tell from the pics.

the stickers are on the inside of the box.

Small info to everyone:
A big update is comming soon (in the next few weeks) to the whole SGH grading system! So stay tuned!

Hey i have one thought. Have anyone tried selling SGH graded stuff on ebay??!?
I guess this will attract best audience!!!

Do you have any population report for current SGH graded games? Would like to know how many games are out there and what kind of grades they are recieving.

The problem is the market has already showed it will not pay extra for graded games. Doesn't matter if it's VGA or SGH - the demand for graded games isn't that great. That said, I love my graded games and would love to see more selling.

I have a graded game as well. I highly recommend it, whether it be SGH or VGA.

For me I love my graded games. Eventually all of my personal collection will be sent in to get graded.t.

Most of the quality and good games are doing very well. Several have sold for record prices and demand is high.

Whats struggling is the crap that nobody wants in the first place, graded or not graded. And lets not forget that the poor economy has a big influence on every market, even ours. It would be nice to see grading take off and maybe we will see this happen next year.

rarebucky wrote:The problem is the market has already showed it will not pay extra for graded games. Doesn't matter if it's VGA or SGH - the demand for graded games isn't that great. That said, I love my graded games and would love to see more selling.

I totally agree ... the demand for graded games isn't that great. We have a couple of SGH graded games but I think the majority of sealed collectors is not interested in any grading process ... the reasons? we asked a lot of sealed collectors during the last months of their opinions ...
The #1 reason was that most people think that they can describe the condition with many pictures (different angles) in a better way than any grading would do ... And I think they are right. You don't have many problems when you try to describe the sealed condition well. Of course not everyone have the knowledge to do it well but I think someone who don't really have the knowledge about sealed games do not really think about any grading ....

I don't care about grading at all. You're overpaying for nothing.

the only thing that puts me off is sending away a very rare item in the post and risking it getting lost or damaged .
i will try sgh grading soon , if pascal ever gets his new cases

they are coming soon (btw.: I think the German post service gets the World's Worst Service Award for being ultra slow )
stay tuned

LOL... this way i think VGA should start thinking about some titanium, carbon and bullet-proof cases. For insane people like you all dudes.
What do you do with your sealed games? You throw them to a wall or you have claws instead of hands maybe, people?

has the grading website been stopped ?? the grading link now takes me to the marketplace and not the grading site ??? pascal ??