Sealed Grading Standards

[ConsoleCollector88 | 8]

I have collected several of my favorite PS2 and PS3 games and I have started picking up PS4 games as I know they will become as hard to find at some point as the PS2-PS3 etc. Anyways, I want to send some in for grading. I have been searching on eBay and have found several VGA/WATA games. Do pretty much all completely sealed games get at least an 80 if the box is also in good shape? I also don't completely understand how a sealed game can have a score of an 80 from VGA? It seems WATA is a bit more accurate with A++ seals correlating to game condition - let me say that I am completely new to submitting sealed games though. I just like that WATA grades the seal AND the game. The other thing I am questioning is the 'Deep "badge" seal' from WATA. It seems cool yes, but does anyone here or collector wise even care? I mean you know inside that a 9.0 would achieve this so even those without it technically still have the "invisible Deep badge" seal, so what's the point - other than money?

[avoin | 24]

So - first off imo VGA arguably grades seals harsher because they view the game box and seal as one. Deep spiritual stuff.

 

I would say a wata A++ seal is probably comparable to a pristine condition seal in VGA's eyes but because they include it in the total grade i'd make the assumption they grade it a tad more harshly. Completely unknown just my guess.

 

That being said, a well sealed game can still be garbage to a higher end collectors eyes because things like smashing with cardboard boxed games, weight laying on a game over time leaving indents on hard cases etc. You can easily have a good seal with no holes and a non pristine game within it that grades a 60 VGA/6.5 wata etc.

 

If you have a hard cased sealed game with light scuffs, no indents, no holes, no rough spots from rubbing etc you probably have an 80-90 VGA game obviously heavily varying case by case. But in my humble opinion unless you're doing it for you or you're confident a hard cased game will score high and is actually worth getting graded because the title is sought after i'd pass on it. Newer + hard cases = more likely/necessary to be high grade.