{
  "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/the-challenger-stamps",
  "slug": "the-challenger-stamps",
  "title": "TAG Now Out-Trades Beckett, Its 10 Prices at PSA Parity, and a BGS 10 Beats Both",
  "summary": "PSA still writes 79.88% of the graded tape. But on the same card, a TAG 10 trades at 0.99x a PSA 10, a CGC 10 at 0.49x, and a BGS 10 at 1.48x. Across 183,466 verified comps, TAG has quietly passed Beckett on volume.",
  "section": "Grading economics",
  "published": "2026-09-04",
  "readMinutes": 8,
  "publisher": "moonstone",
  "findings": [],
  "tables": [
    {
      "title": "Who actually writes the graded tape (every company above 400 verified comps)",
      "columns": [
        "Company",
        "Verified comps",
        "Share",
        "Cards"
      ],
      "rows": [
        {
          "Company": "PSA",
          "Verified comps": "146,552",
          "Share": "79.88%",
          "Cards": "1,277"
        },
        {
          "Company": "CGC",
          "Verified comps": "21,677",
          "Share": "11.82%",
          "Cards": "1,130"
        },
        {
          "Company": "TAG",
          "Verified comps": "5,650",
          "Share": "3.08%",
          "Cards": "607"
        },
        {
          "Company": "BGS",
          "Verified comps": "4,561",
          "Share": "2.49%",
          "Cards": "520"
        },
        {
          "Company": "ACE",
          "Verified comps": "3,904",
          "Share": "2.13%",
          "Cards": "570"
        },
        {
          "Company": "SGC",
          "Verified comps": "530",
          "Share": "0.29%",
          "Cards": "256"
        },
        {
          "Company": "AGS",
          "Verified comps": "425",
          "Share": "0.23%",
          "Cards": "274"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "charts": [],
  "sections": [
    "What each stamp is worth on the same card",
    "Where the challengers win and lose"
  ],
  "method": [
    "Population: 13,000 grade rows across 1,344 distinct graded keys and 183,466 verified sold comps, from our stored graded payloads as of September 4, 2026. Every cross company figure is the median of same card ratios, never a comparison of company wide averages, and the PSA leg is required to carry at least five verified comps unless a looser threshold is stated inline with its own n. The three way panel restricts to the 46 cards where PSA, TAG and CGC each carry at least five comps. Era composition of each grader's universe is reported because it is the main confound: TAG's universe is entirely modern. The volume table lists every company carrying at least 400 verified comps; the seven rows shown hold 183,299 of the 183,466 comps and 99.92% of the share column, and the remaining 167 comps, 0.09%, sit with a tail of graders too small to print a row for. SGC's same-card ratio against PSA rests on four cards and is too thin to quote as a statistic, which is why no SGC ratio appears above even though its volume row does. No regression is run; numerator and denominator of every ratio are different companies' independent comp sets."
  ],
  "terms": "Figures are moonstone's own recorded measurements, dated as published. Quote them with the population stated beside them. The article at `url` is the human form of this file."
}