Dear partners, dear friends, dear customers and collectors,
Thank you for your continued trust in our service!
Unfortunately, due to constantly rising costs, we are now forced to adjust the prices for our service. For a long time, we tried to keep the costs for grading constant.
The Corona period, the energy crisis, the war and much more have ultimately led to raw material and energy prices as well as other costs skyrocketing.
Since the founding of GSG®, we have always tried to cover all costs in order to keep costs low for YOU, our loyal customers and partners. For a long time we had hoped that the market would regulate itself and costs would fall again. Instead, they continued to rise. Unfortunately, the first price adjustment since the company GSG® was founded is currently unavoidable. Nevertheless, we have tried to keep the changes as minimal as possible.
PRICES: Grading without subgrades: OLD 20,00€ - NEW 20, 99€ Grading incl. subgrades: OLD 23,00€ - NEW 23,99€
Thank you for your understanding,
Your TEAM GSG®
Annual report from GSG® Founder & Owner André
13 July 2022
I would like to start by referring to a quote from my statement last year, where I quoted PSA President Joe Orlando: "The reality is that we received more cards in three days than we have in the last three months."
This was the reason for the sudden and abrupt increase in processing times at both PSA and GSG at the beginning of 2021.
Now, in 2022, I could make the same statement regarding quantities again. But with one crucial difference:
Despite the continued extremely large number of submissions, we were able to
MINIMIZE PROCESSING TIMES TO UNDER 8 WEEKS SINCE THE BEGINNING OF 2022 .
In some cases, our customers received their items back just AFTER 4 WEEKS .
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all collectors and loyal customers. It is remarkable that you have remained loyal to us after the unexpectedly long wait in 2021 and have even recommended us to so many people. I would also like to thank the many new customers from various countries.
Thank you all for becoming part of the GSG family
GSG® is growing
Looking back, it's nice to see how strong we were as a grading company last year and yet we were able to improve so enormously.
In addition to the countless submissions from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, more and more cards from various other European countries have been submitted over the course of the last year. What pleases me personally and probably all collectors is the fact that we have seen a steadily increasing number of cards submitted from the United States. Many Americans now also rely on us, as GSG stands out from other, even American, companies with its very good quality in all areas and its high grading standards.
I would like to use this opportunity to give you a little insight into how we managed to drastically reduce processing times while simultaneously optimizing quality through innovations:
While we have steadily grown as a team over the course of 2021, a proprietary IT system was developed in the background specifically for our purposes, which we were able to put into operation at the beginning of 2022 after a long development and testing phase.
Some processes were also reviewed and revised. For example, more effective and higher-quality machines were purchased for the production of our labels. Various adjustments were also made in the areas of acceptance and shipping, so that a huge optimization of all related processes could be achieved here too.
Both the major and minor changes have taken their total to mean that I can now proudly announce that I have reduced processing times to a minimum, despite the continuing increase in the number of submissions.
I am also very impressed by the development of the GSG® brand on the European and global markets. We were and are aware that our grading enjoys the greatest recognition in Europe. The fact that we have now also achieved such recognition overseas, more specifically in the USA, shows that precise and accurate work is also valued there. Our cases, the gold lasered labels, but above all our strong and precise grading are highly valued. We have been told several times that Pokemon cards and sports cards were sold at similar prices to cards graded by Beckett and PSA.
New Services Over the past year, we have been able to offer you the Exchange, Renew, Custom and Authentic services in addition to the actual grading service. We have now expanded this to include our landscape card service. For landscape cards, you have the option of selecting a portrait label instead of the standard label. This is very popular with collectors who want to display their cards at home for viewing.
The Authentication service has also been added to our program. We confirm the authenticity of various items and autographs, such as original shoes worn by a professional athlete, a signed picture by an artist, a signed book by an author and much more.
Cardvention One - A complete success for EVERYONE On May 28th of this year, Cardvention One took place in the Bundesliga stadium of 1.FC Kaiserslautern. The aim was to create a place where collectors and dealers from all areas could be present. We also wanted to unite the communities.
We managed to do this impressively. The event was completely sold out weeks in advance.
On the day of the event, it was great for us to see how GSG was able to bring together and unite the many collectors from different areas. The happy faces of the visitors were the best response we could have wished for.
The event already has cult status among many well-known collectors. I can also tell you here that Cardvention Two will also take place in June 2023. The upcoming show will be a lot bigger and offer even more space for collectors, visitors and companies.
The future We will continue to give everything for you and offer you the service you are used to from us. GSG also follows the motto "Standing still is going backwards". Therefore, more exciting projects, giveaways and a very special release await you. We will also be present at some events and offer you our service and - as usual - be the contact person for any questions.
Become a part of the GSG family and follow us on Instagram @goldstandardgrading
Thank you very much and have fun collecting.
André N.
Founder & Owner GSG®
Processing time
The currently forecast maximum processing time is approximately 6 weeks.
Since January 2022, the average actual processing time is only 5 weeks!
Chronicle from 2021
Extension of the voucher offer for the month of May 2021
August 2021
All customers whose collectibles arrived with us in May 2021 will also receive the vouchers for free gradings. These will be sent by email in the next few weeks so that the vouchers can be redeemed after the upcoming reopening.
In June 2021, we had already set the limit and specified processing times as at least 20 weeks.
The vouchers are staggered as follows:
1 to 19 submitted cards – voucher for a free grading
20 to 49 submitted cards – voucher for two free gradings
50 to 89 submitted cards – voucher for three free gradings
from 90 submitted cards – voucher for four free gradings
Further limitation
September 2021
As a Gold Standard Grading Team, we have made the decision to further reduce the card submission spot from 1000 cards to 300 cards (maximum 10 cards per person) starting September 2021. This is in response to the wishes of many customers who still want to submit cards despite the currently uncertain processing time, as well as those who have been waiting a very long time for their submissions. We would like to focus on all cards that have been with us for a long time and once again combine all our forces when it comes to processing them. We are also very confident that we will be able to offer you shorter processing times again in the near future. We thank you for your patience and ask for your understanding for what we believe to be the right decision.
Your GS Grading Team
The current statement from our CEO on Youtube post from September 2021 )
Our CEO André comments on the current situation. He addresses the following topics: Process, processing time, delay, prioritization and much more. As of 03.09.2021
Vouchers for extended processing times ( article from May 2021 )
Recently, there have been increasing requests for updates and the status of the cards.
We always try to inform our customers through our channels and ensure transparency.
Unfortunately, we are unable to offer daily updates via email as this is not possible due to system constraints.
For cards that we currently have, the customer receives the following information as standard.
1. Confirmation of the order
2. Arrival of cards/start of collection
3. Completion of the overall grading process
4. Sending the invoice (for all orders until February 25, 2021, after that new system with advance payment)
5. Transmission of the shipment number
The decisive factor for the start of processing is not the order date but the actual receipt of the package in our company.
We would also like to inform you that the serial numbers we assign are assigned system-wide and do not provide any information about the order in which the cards are graded.
The extremely large quantities in February 2021 and part of March 2021 have led to a backlog of orders. These quantities need to be processed. We have been working very hard for weeks to achieve this. We send out several hundred packages every day. As soon as these quantities have been processed, we can adjust the processing times downwards again.
However, as things stand today, it will still be several weeks before “normality” returns.
To compensate for the longer waiting time, we have so far given all customers a higher discount and automatically deducted this from the invoice. This applies to all orders completed up to and including Sunday.
As of Monday (June 28, 2021) we have provided the following for our customers:
We are particularly pleased that we can offer all customers who submitted cards to us in February 2021, March 2021 and April 2021 that have not yet been completed a voucher for free grading with us when they return their graded cards.
We have staggered these vouchers as follows:
1 to 19 submitted cards – voucher for a free grading
20 to 49 submitted cards – voucher for two free gradings
50 to 89 submitted cards – voucher for three free gradings
from 90 submitted cards – voucher for four free gradings
Please bear in mind that we want to devote all our efforts to processing the orders and are unable to provide any information on the current processing status in response to individual inquiries.
For all other inquiries, our customer service is available 24/7 as usual.
For all customers who do not wish to use our voucher offer, we continue to offer an extended right of withdrawal. This can be exercised free of charge until the entire grading process has actually been completed.
We thank you for your patience and the trust you place in us every day.
Announcement of the CEO from 20.05.2021
We would like to start by referring to the words of PSA President Joe Orlando, who said weeks ago: "The reality is that we have received more cards in three days than we have in the last three months. Even after the increase, submissions will continue at levels never seen before."
Of course, the volume of cards submitted at our company is not on the same scale as at PSA, but the increase in submissions per month has increased from 3,000 cards (December '20) to more than 20,000 cards (February '21). There was no decline in submissions in the following months either. Given our current backlog, it would be disingenuous for us to continue to accept full-scale submissions that we cannot process in the near future.
Despite the enormous demand and the significant growth of our company, we have therefore decided to limit the number of orders per month. We are making this decision solely out of consideration for our existing customers who are still waiting for their cards. This means that limited numbers of cards can continue to be submitted, to the benefit of all collectors, but the current backlog can also be gradually worked through.
We are therefore limiting the number of cards that can be submitted to 1,000 cards per month with immediate effect. In order to ensure fairness for all customers, the number of cards that can be submitted is limited to 10 per customer per month.
This limitation is initially valid until August 31, 2021, but can be extended further if necessary.
Customers who have concluded long-term contracts with us are already included in the calculation and can continue to make their monthly submissions.
As a grading company that is now recognized worldwide, we see it as our obligation to continue to offer our top service with shortened processing times.
We have been laying the groundwork for this for weeks. In addition to other infrastructural changes, we have already strengthened our human resources department several times. Additional graders are currently undergoing internal training and will be ready to carry out grading processes independently at the highest level in a few weeks. Further personnel changes have already been initiated.
This change will help us to pool our resources and focus on the submissions we have received so far. With this decision, we want to show you how important your satisfaction is to us.
Due to the order situation described several times, our team would be particularly keen to avoid individual status enquiries wherever possible.
In general, we can report that we are continuing to work at full speed and with the highest quality on all submissions from February '21 and March '21.
We cannot give an explicit date for the return. However, we can guarantee that we return a considerable number of cards every day and hope that we can compensate for the backlog as quickly as possible.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers for their patience so far. We are trying to process all cards quickly and at the same time ask for your continued patience and understanding. Your collector's items are in the best hands with us and are all stored with the utmost care, protected from air, dust and moisture and distributed across several lockers for security reasons.
Thank you very much and have fun collecting.
André N.
CEO
Gold standard grading service
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