Cardboard Journal's Take
CSG (Certified Sports Guaranty)
CSG no longer grades. The slabs are still real and CGC still stands behind them.
What Sets Them Apart
CSG was CCG's sports-card arm, launched in 2020 to sit alongside CGC's TCG grading. In June 2023 the two were merged into a single CGC Cards brand, which made CGC the second-largest grader in the hobby overnight.
Tier
Not yet rated
Turnaround
Not accepting submissions
Folded into CGC Cards in June 2023. Submissions that would once have gone to CSG go to CGC.
Backlog
No backlog figure published.
What They Grade
- Sports Cards
- Autographs
Marketplace Acceptance
Certificate lookup:Verify a cert →
CSG slabs remain covered by CGC Cards' guarantee of authenticity and grade, and remain searchable and saleable. Treat a CSG holder as a CGC holder for recognition purposes.
Pricing
No longer sold. Submissions go to CGC Cards.
Prices change often, so we link to each grader's own list rather than copying figures that go stale.
The Slab
The Certified Collectibles Group holder — the same case body CGC and NGC use, which is why the transition to CGC Cards was visually seamless.
Example slab shown for reference — not a card I personally own.
The Label
SubgradesNone
A blue CSG flip. Cert numbers still resolve through CGC's lookup, so verification did not break when the brand did.
Grader Use Cases
- Protection & Preservation
- Authentication
A holding label rather than a submitting one. CSG slabs stay eligible under eBay's Authenticity Guarantee, so there is no urgency to crack and resubmit.
Known Concerns
Nothing outstanding against the grading itself. The live issue is purely one of identification: millions of CSG slabs remain in circulation and a buyer encountering one today may assume the company vanished. It did not — it became CGC.
On The Wire
What the hobby is saying about CSG (Certified Sports Guaranty), with our read on what it changes for you.
Nothing on the wire about CSG (Certified Sports Guaranty) yet — this fills in as it's collected.
History
Certified Sports Guaranty launched in 2020 as the Certified Collectibles Group's sports-card arm, sitting alongside CGC's TCG grading under the same parent. In June 2023 the two were merged into a single CGC Cards brand, which made CGC the second-largest grader in the hobby overnight. CSG slabs were not recalled and were never orphaned — the parent company still stands behind them.