On August 20 we described the hierarchy of top-grade labels and said the label matters less the scarcer the card. Last week produced the cleanest test of that claim the hobby has ever run, and the claim did not survive it.
The test
On Thursday, September 18, Heritage sold a 1998 Pikachu Illustrator in PSA 9 for $5,000,000. On Friday, September 19, Goldin sold a Pikachu Illustrator in CGC 9 for $2,806,271. The two most important auction houses in the category, one day apart, the same card, the same numerical grade, and every serious buyer aware of both sales. The PSA copy made 78 percent more than the CGC copy.
Why the gap is so large
Three reasons, in order of size. First, the buyer pool. At seven figures there are perhaps a dozen bidders in the world, and they price off PSA's population report: fifteen 9s, one 10. A card on another label is not in that census, and to this buyer pool it is a different object with a less certain place in the hierarchy. Second, perceived standard. The market broadly assumes a CGC 9 would cross to PSA as a 9 or an 8.5, and it prices the card at the lower outcome, because the buyer bears the risk of the crossover. Third, sequence. The PSA copy sold first and set the reference; the CGC copy sold the next day to whoever had not won on Thursday, with one fewer motivated bidder in the room.
What we got wrong on August 20
We wrote that on a card with a tiny population "buyers are bidding for the object, not the slab," so the label discount collapses. That was true of the $1.3 million CGC 10 Incorrect Illustrator in August, where no PSA comparison existed. It is not true when PSA and CGC copies of the same card sell in the same week: then the label is priced, and at the top of the hobby it is priced at most of a grade point. The honest restatement is: the label discount collapses when there is no PSA copy to compare against, and widens when there is.
Lower down the market
On a $500 modern card the PSA-over-CGC premium at the same grade is typically 10 to 30 percent, and on Japanese cards it is often negligible because PSA so dominates Japanese grading that there is barely a CGC lane to compare. This issue's quiz card, a 2007 Japanese movie promo Lugia in PSA 9, is an example: the only question is the number. The rule that comes out of all of this is that the label premium grows with the price, because the fewer the bidders, the more each one's preferred census matters.
Sources: SI Collectibles, September 21, 2026.
Grade Expectations ran in The Pack Report, September 21, 2026: An $11 Million Week: Two Illustrators, $7.8 Million. Published by Rip Station.